Categories
Uncategorized

Why the PRM will not work

This guest blog is by Philip Gillingham. Dr. Gillingham is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. He is a qualified social worker who has spent 27 years working in and conducting research about child protection services. Recent publications can be viewed at http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/2576.

Serious ethical concerns have been raised about the development of the Predictive Risk Model (PRM) to identify children at the highest risk of maltreatment as they enter the public welfare benefit system. However, there are also serious practical problems with how it was developed which mean that it is seriously flawed. What follows is a brief and jargon-free explainer as to why it will not work, based on an analysis of the documents released about its development.

Continue reading “Why the PRM will not work”
Categories
Uncategorized

Back to the future: The Victorian imagination of the Productivity Commission

The measured business model language of the recently released Productivity Commission Report on “More Effective Social Services” conceals a deeply disturbing set of ideological blinkers. The underlying dogma is that marketization will produce better public services. The narrow lens of supply and demand produces a predictable focus: greater consumer choice, better products, efficiency incentives and measures. However there is also a more deeply disguised, insidious and sinister narrative bias – particularly in relation to the development of social services.

Continue reading “Back to the future: The Victorian imagination of the Productivity Commission”
Categories
Uncategorized

Social work and child protection: whose job is it anyway?

This guest blog is by Dr Philip Gillingham. Philip’s blog post is particularly pertinent for us here in Aotearoa New Zealand, where the legitimacy of Social Work as the primary profession delivering child protection services is increasingly questioned. Philip draws links between poorly qualified workers, technical approaches to risk management, and a ‘child rescue’ mentality that can undermine quality practice. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, and a qualified social worker with 27 years experience working in, and conducting research about, child protection services. Recent publications can be viewed at http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/2576

Continue reading “Social work and child protection: whose job is it anyway?”
Categories
Uncategorized

The State of Care report: A narrative resource?

Official reports, like other documents, have effects: they have agency, they enter the world and are used by a range of actors to achieve their goals and projects. Prior argues (2003) that documents can only be understood in terms of the ‘networks of action’ (p.2) within which they are situated and mobilised. They are entities ‘that influence and structure human agents’ (Prior, 2003, p.3). Harnessed for particular ends, official reports can be enlisted, manipulated or suppressed. This perspective draws our attention to the fact that official reports are not just repositories of content, but active agents that have effects on the world (Prior, 2008). Put simply, documents do not just contain things (statements, points of view, recommendations), they do things. Or rather, they can be enlisted by other actors to do things, sometimes in ways unintended by their authors.

Continue reading “The State of Care report: A narrative resource?”
Categories
Uncategorized

The State of Care report

This guest blog post is by Dr Russell Wills, Children’s Commissioner. Dr Wills introduces his newly published report the ‘State of Care’ and invites readers of the RSW blog to review the report, and to comment.

This week, I released my office’s first public report about Child, Youth and Family. The State of Care report summarises what we learnt from monitoring Child, Youth and Family and engaging directly with children in care between January 2014 and June 2015. I’m proud of the report, and pleased to be able to share it with the public.

Continue reading “The State of Care report”