Background: Child protection systems (CPS) in the Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States have historically differed in structure and function. From the early 1970’s, the CPS in Belgium and the Netherlands have been... [ view full abstract ]
Background:
Child protection systems (CPS) in the Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States have historically differed in structure and function. From the early 1970’s, the CPS in Belgium and the Netherlands have been situated within the healthcare system. In contrast, the CPS within the United States has been situated within the criminal justice and human services departments, although there has been some variation in approach across states and counties. It has been anecdotally reported that these systems underwent significant changes over the past 25 years. To our knowledge, there has been no systematic comparison of the CPSs, nor have the trajectories of their evolution been studied. To address these limitations in the literature, we are conducting a qualitative study with administrators and front-line workers in the three countries, using Colorado as the representative state within the U.S. An in-depth understanding of the differences in systems and their evolution may provide an opportunity to learn from the strengths and weakness of each system.
Hypothesis:
In the absence of data on the short and long-term outcomes of each CPS, we hypothesize that changes in CPS policies and practices are driven by political responses to media and popular opinion, as well as by cultural norms and structural constraints.
Methods:
We conducted 73 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with national, state, and level administrators and CPS workers in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Colorado. We intentionally sampled administrators and workers from across geographical locations, including urban and rural regions in each location. Interviews were designed to examine administrators’ and workers’ perceptions of the structure and function of their CPS system; their perspectives on how and why the structure and function of their system has evolved; perceived strengths and weakness of the processes and outcomes of their systems; and the evaluation of short- and long-term outcomes within their systems. Interviews were conducted in either English or Dutch by members of the research team trained in qualitative data collection, digitally recorded, and transcribed verbatim. Each interview lasted approximately 60-75 minutes.
Transcription and, where applicable, translation of audio recordings of each interview is ongoing and expected to be fully complete by mid-June. Consistent with established qualitative content analysis methodology, we used an iterative process for the analysis that began with initial data collection and has continued through the coding process. To begin, we read transcripts multiple times in order to achieve immersion, then engaged in reflexive team analysis using an emergent rather than a priori approach. This emergent approach emphasizes respondent perspectives and de-emphasizes team speculations. Through this process, initial codes were established and applied to the transcripts. Throughout the coding process, we met regularly to discuss emergent codes, themes, and patterns, to confirm inter-coder reliability, and to triangulate data. We expect to complete the coding by the end of June and have preliminary analysis available to present in September.
