Child Welfare Decision Making in Context Part 2 -The structure of child welfare organizations: Do service integration and role specialization influence the placement decision?
Carrie Smith
King's University College, Western University
Dr. Carrie Smith is an Assistant Professor at King’s University College at Western University, Canada. Dr. Smith worked in child welfare for ten years, as a child protection worker and a supervisor of research and evaluation. Her research and evaluation interests include the structure of child welfare organizations, decision making, evaluations of child welfare programs, evidence informed practice and the ethical collection of data. She has published in the areas of child maltreatment, including supporting new workers, duty to report, evidence-informed practice and ethical considerations for collecting data from vulnerable children.
Abstract
The objective of this study was to contribute to the understanding of the child welfare organization by testing the hypothesis that the characteristics of organizations influence decisions made by child protection staff for... [ view full abstract ]
The objective of this study was to contribute to the understanding of the child welfare organization by testing the hypothesis that the characteristics of organizations influence decisions made by child protection staff for vulnerable children. The influence of two aspects of organizational structure on the decision to place a child in out-of-home care were examined: service integration and worker specialization. A theoretical framework that integrated the Decision-Making Ecology Framework (Baumann, Dalgleish, Fluke & Kern, 2011) and Yoo, Brooks, and Patti’s (2007) conceptual framework of organizational constructs as predictors of service effectiveness was tested. Secondary data analysis of the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect – 2013 (OIS-2013) was conducted. The OIS-2013 is the fifth provincial study to collect information regarding child maltreatment investigations. A subsample of 4,949 investigations from 16 agencies was included in this study. Given the nested structure of the data, multi-level modelling was used to test the relative contribution of case and organizational factors to the decision to place. Despite the reported differences among child welfare organizations and research that has demonstrated variance in the placement decision as a result of organizational factors, the structure of the organization (i.e., service integration and worker specialization) showed no predictive power in the final models. The lack of variance may be explained by the relatively low frequency of placements during the investigation phase of service, the hierarchical impact of the factors of the Decision Making Ecology and the limited information available regarding the structure of child welfare organizations in Ontario. Suggestions for future research are provided.
Authors
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Carrie Smith
(King's University College, Western University)
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John Fluke
(Kempe Center, University of Colorado School of Medicine)
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Barbara Fallon
(University of Toronto)
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Faye Mishna
(University of Toronto)
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Barbara Decker Pierce
(King's University College, Western University)
Topic Area
Child Protection Systems and Strategies at local, national and international levels
Session
Symposia19 » Session 3-Child Protection Systems (16:15 - Tuesday, 3rd October, Europe 2 Room)
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