Karen Broadhurst

When policy o'erleaps itself: The 'tragic tale' of the integrated children's system

Information technology plays a pivotal role in New Labour’s modernization programme. Here we report findings from a 2 year ethnographic study of the impact and origin of one such system, the Integrated Children’s System, which has been deployed in statutory children’s social care. We show how the ICS, by attempting to micro-manage work through a rigid performance management regime, and a centrally prescribed practice model, has disrupted the professional task, engendering a range of unsafe practices and provoking a gathering storm of user resistance. We attribute these paradoxical outcomes to inherent flaws in the design of ICS, which derive from the history of its development and its embodiment of an audit-driven, inspectorial ideology. We conclude with some suggestions for user-centred design and policymaking, which have relevance not only for children’s social care but for the public services in general.

Whither practice-near research in the modernization programme? Policy blunders in children's services

In this article, we lament the effects of practice-distant research and associated policy initiatives on contemporary childrens services in England. In the last decade, as a result of high profile inquiries into non-accidental child deaths, statutory childrens social care services in the UK have been subject to a wide-reaching ‘modernization’ programme. We studied decision-making in the high blame environment of local authority childrens services. Our research sought to examine the relationship between performance management and the impact of anticipated blame within the decision-making practices of those providing, supervising and managing these services. We show that systems and technologies can be developed which both assist the users in their daily work and achieve desired organizational goals, but without an ethnographically informed, practice-near approach, unsafe work regimes and practices can ensue.

Trust, risk and the (mis)management of contingency and discretion through new information technologies in children’s services

• Summary: While UK social work’s core purpose in children’s services continues to invoke the ready virtues of universal care, protection from significant harm and a child rights led approach as foundational to effective intervention, there is a ‘real-world’ context of organizational practices that inevitably mediate who gets what services and why. This was ever thus. What has changed however is not so much the claims by social work to a virtuous purpose (the ethic of care offers a durable discourse from which to cast service users as worthy and our efforts as honourable) but that new risk-reduction technologies are exposing a worrying gap between the rhetoric of a humane-oriented project of care and the actionable decision-making of professionals drawing upon administrative targeting systems that seek to reduce organizational exposure to error, blame, reputational damage and unwanted external scrutiny. • Findings: The article exposes a gap between core values and risk management by examining the erosion of trust in professional social work and consequent shift towards new information technologies which intend to generate system confidence, such as the Integrated Children’s System (ICS) which seeks to provide a more accountable management of contingency. Drawing on data from our recent multi-method research of frontline practice funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, we challenge the view that the uncertainty and ambiguity of risk-immersed social work can be more safely moderated by computer-based technologies for reporting and decision-making. • Applications: The findings of this study suggest the need for significant reform of the ICS system. Our explorations in front line decision-making suggests that the IT workflow systems that channel and shape the way need is responded to in order to make actions and their often distributed ownership transparent and justifiable, have the unintended potential to obscure risk. We outline ways in which risk in its institutional and personal contexts in children’s services may become less evident and tractable to moderation by the ICS systems that seek this very purpose. In doing so we consider the balance between professional trust and system confidence and consider whether the time has come to shift the balance back to the former if we are to re-engage more fully with the occupation’s humane mission.

Maternal outcasts: raising the profile of women who are vulnerable to successive, compulsory removals of their children – a plea for preventative action

This paper concerns policy and practice responses to birth mothers who experience successive, permanent removal of their children to state care and/or adoption. The central argument of this paper is that, to date, the rehabilitative needs of this population of birth mothers have fallen outside the remit of statutory agencies. Moreover, the extant literature offers little by way of definitive findings in respect of the size of this population or rehabilitative options. Indeed, a marked absence of discussion within mainstream policy circles renders this population hidden, only hinted at in profiling studies that note the sequential removal of siblings through public law care proceedings. Conceptualising this population of women as ‘maternal outcasts’ who bear the stigma of spoiled motherhood, we consider a range of factors that impact on this populations continued exclusion. Falling so far outside normative expectations of motherhood and presenting with multiple problems of daily living, there is no doubt that this population raises particular practical, ethical and legal challenges. However, these challenges should not stand in the way of a concerted prevention agenda.

Accomplishing parental engagement in child protection practice? A qualitative analysis of parent-professional interaction in pre-proceedings work under the Public Law Outline

The topic of parental engagement in the context of child protection is of significant international interest, given much documented problems of achieving effective ‘partnerships’ where professional agencies raise serious concerns about children. This article reports the findings of a qualitative study of interaction between professionals and parents in the quasi-judicial setting of pre-proceedings meetings in England. Recent legislative changes in England and Wales have aimed to improve the prospects for effective partnership work with parents through a revised pre-proceedings process. Through detailed examination of parent-professional interaction using methods of applied discourse studies, the study highlights the constraints that institutional requirements create in terms of the differential rights and obligations of parents and professionals. Inevitably, that talk is asymmetrically organized in favour of the local authority, leads to resistance on the part of parents. The study highlights problems of engaging parents who display both active and passive forms of resistance, as they seek to challenge or reject organizational goals. The study concludes with broader observations about the likely limits of legislative efforts that seek to ‘re-order’ the complex relationships between parents and professionals in child protection work.

Vulnerable birth mothers and repeat losses of infants to public care: Is targeted reproductive health care ethically defensible?

This article aims to advance debate about the ethics of targeted reproductive health care for birth mothers who have experienced recurrent care proceedings. Making reference to new research evidence that reports the scale of the problem of repeat care proceedings in England, the article considers the role that enhanced reproductive health care might play in helping mothers exit a cycle of care proceedings. Emerging practice initiatives are introduced which are all stretching the boundaries of statutory intervention, by working intensively with mothers following removal of children to public care. The central argument of this paper is that a positive interpretation of rights provides a warrant for providing enhanced access to contraception, but this must be part and parcel of a holistic, recovery focused approach to intervention. Caution is also raised in respect of the reasons that may lie behind a pattern of rapid repeat pregnancy for this particular group of women. Issues of loss and grief are clear complicating factors in reproductive decision-making where an infant or child has been removed to public care, the magnitude of which must be firmly acknowledged. Charting novel theoretical ground, the discussion draws on a conceptual vocabulary from the literature on other forms of perinatal loss, suggesting that the notion of ‘replacement baby’ may help to explain why some mothers are caught in this negative cycle. Although this article is prompted by escalating concerns about the human and economic costs of repeat care proceedings in England, the discussion will be relevant to a number of international jurisdictions such as the USA, Canada and Australia where cognate systems of child protection give rise to similar patterns.

Parental Help-Seeking and the Moral Order. Notes for Policy-Makers and Parenting Practitioners on 'the First Port of Call' and 'No One to Turn To'

The topic ‘help-seeking’ is of international interest. However, there is only a very limited literature concerning help-seeking in child welfare and a distinct dearth of studies that have examined the social organisation of parents’ decisions to seek help. Recent developments in child welfare services in England and Wales have seen the introduction of a raft of initiatives that aim to deliver parenting support to a broader range of parents; however, these initiatives are not well grounded in an evidence base concerning parental help-seeking. Focusing on the organisation of talk-in-interaction in interviews and focus groups, this study examined parents’ normative and inter-subjective understandings about help-seeking. The study found that when considering the welfare problems of parenting (variously described as ‘domestic’, ‘normal’ or ‘on the home front’), participants routinely made relevant the binary ‘inside/outside’ the family, indicating the central (normative) relevance of the category ‘family’ for this kind of support. Outside (professional) help was very much a residual option, only to be considered on the basis of ‘no-one to turn to’. The findings are discussed in relation to national strategies that seek to normalise support for parenting and issues of international relevance to do with professional identification and diagnosis of need.

THE CHIASMUS OF DESIGN: PARADOXICAL OUTCOMES IN THE E-GOVERNMENT REFORM OF UK CHILDREN’S SERVICES

This paper describes a detailed ethnographic study of the design problems of a major national IT system in the UK- The Integrated Children’s System (ICS). The implementation of the ICS has disrupted social work practice and engendered growing professional resistance, prompting a fundamental review of its design. Marshall McLuhan’s concept of chiasmus is a central feature of our analysis of the vicissitudes of ICS. Chiasmus refers to the tendency of any system, when pushed too far, to produce unintended contradictory effects, and is an intrinsic feature of the behaviour of complex, socio-technical systems. The dysfunctions of the ICS provide a pertinent, large-scale example. The ICS constitutes an attempt, via technological means, to re-organize child welfare services in the UK. Whilst aimed at improving child safety, the ICS has had the opposite effect of increasing the potential for error. This chiasmus has been exposed through the multi-site ethnography reported here, which shows how rigidly designed processes, enforced by IT systems, force social work professionals into unsafe investigative and recording practices which increase the risk of errors. The paper ends by proposing an alternative approach to design, based on socio-technical precepts, emphasizing the principles of minimum critical specification, user-centeredness and local autonomy.

Qualitative interview as special conversation (after removal)

when I was going to the court, I was thinking, you know, there will be someone there outside of social services and they are going to say, ‘‘no you can’t do this’’ [take the baby]. But when I got there, my solicitor is saying ‘‘no we are not talking’’. I said ‘‘I need to say something, they have to let me say something’’, I will get up and they will see my heart is breaking and the judge will know that I love my baby and he won’t agree with social services. But I couldn’t believe it, I was like ‘‘are you lot human?’’ I had never experienced the like from these strangers, . . . it broke me, I couldn’t wake up in the morning I was so full of drink and drugs after they took him

Innovation in social work research

Greetings to readers as we start a new year for Qualitative Social Work. Last year saw an increase in papers to the Journal and as our readership continues to grow, the value of qualitative research for social work is confirmed. However, there is no room for complacency and if we are to ensure that the Journal continues to thrive, it is important to remain abreast of changes in the world of qualitative research and social research more generally. So, this brings me to consider the issue of innovation in this new year editorial. For readers familiar with writing or reviewing grant applications, claims by academics that their work is novel or innovative are all very familiar. As Taylor and Coffey described in 2009, pressures stemming from funding councils and publishers encourage academics to state and indeed over-state the cutting edge nature of their work. Writing in 2015, it seems that claims to innovation are now endemic and if we examine the mission of the UK’s major social science research funding council – the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) – the word innovation is never far from the Council’s funding calls, strategy statements or impact case studies. In the Council’s research funding guide, applicants must pay attention to impact, innovation and interdisciplinarity. The Council’s conceptualisation of innovation is broad, to include: ‘innovative or even untested methods’, through to research which challenges ‘existing paradigms in respect of research ethics’ (ESRC, 2015). So what exactly is meant by innovation and to what extent is new invention better than old? In response to the latter question, critics differ in their opinion. For example, there are those who consider that innovative methods simply represent the latest fads, leaving unresolved the long-standing challenges in qualitative research (Travers, 2009). The problem of fad is that where we fetishise the novel we may inadvertently recast tried and tested methodologies as dated, or at worse obsolete. Traditional ethnography and conventional methods of qualitative interviewing have been so vital to our understanding of the social world, we must resist casting such methods as old hat (Wiles et al., 2011). Critics have also argued that claims to innovation are frequently overstated and can amount to little more than Qualitative Social Work 2016, Vol. 15(1) 3–10 ! The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1473325015619822 qsw.sagepub.com