Social workers’ risk assessment in child protection: the problem of disagreement and a lack of a precise language about risk

ABSTRACT

Social workers make risk assessments in accordance with their obligation to safeguard and protect children against neglect and abuse. To prevent serious problems, it is necessary to make assessments about the likelihood that social problems emerge in the first place. We investigated 57 Danish social workers’ risk assessments. We used the vignette methodology, setting up a fictitious case and asking respondents to assess two children’s risk of suffering problems in connection with the suicide of their father. We focused on the respondents’ assessments of the magnitude of risk and on how they referred, in their own words, to the protective and risk factors they particularly noticed. There were three results of note. (1) The social workers’ assessments of risk were very divergent. This was the case whether they expressed the magnitude of risk in words or as a percentage. (2) There was no close correspondence between risk assessments expressed in words and as a percentage. Social workers lacked words to communicate the magnitude of risk adequately. (3) There were no significant differences in approach to the assessment of children’s risk between social workers who rated the risk as high, medium or low. All were attentive to both protective and risk factors.

ABSTRAKT

Socialrådgivere foretager risikovurderinger som en følge af deres forpligtelse til at beskytte og sikre børn mod omsorgssvigt og andre former for overgreb. For at forhindre alvorlige problemer er det nødvendigt at foretage vurderinger af risikoen (sandsynligheden) for, at sociale problemer opstår. Vi har undersøgt 57 danske socialrådgiveres risikovurderinger. Vi har anvendt vignetmetoden, vi konstruerede en fiktiv sag og bad respondenterne svare på spørgsmål om to børns risiko for at få alvorlige problemer efter deres fars selvmord. Vores undersøgelse fokuserede på respondenternes vurderinger af risikoens størrelse og på, hvordan de med deres egne ord beskrev henholdsvis de beskyttelses- og risikofaktorer, som de især lagde vægt på i vurderingen af risikoens størrelse. Tre væsentlige resultater kan fremdrages: (1) Socialrådgivernes vurdering af risikoen var meget forskellige. Dette var tilfældet, uanset om de udtrykte risikoen i ord eller i procent. (2) Der var ingen tæt sammenhæng mellem risikovurderinger udtrykt i ord og i procent. Socialrådgiverne manglede et præcist sprog for at kunne udtrykke risikoens størrelse. (3) Der var ingen signifikant forskel mellem socialrådgivere, der havde vurderet risikoen som henholdsvis høj, middel eller lav. Alle var opmærksomme på både beskyttelses– og risikofaktorer.

KEYWORDS:

• Risk assessment
• vulnerable children
• social work
• child protection
• vignette method

NØGLEORD:

• Risikovurdering
• børn i udsatte positioner
• socialt arbejde
• socialrådgiverpraksis på børneområdet
• vignetmetode

Acknowledgements

We wish to sincerely thank all the social workers who participated in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See the case and the questions in supplementary material A.

2 L = low-risk assessor; M = medium-risk assessor; H = high-risk assessor; T = total. In the paper, we do not mention four subcodes since they include less than 10 respondents

Additional information

Funding

We also wish to thank the National Board of Health and Welfare for the grant.

Notes on contributors

Morten Ejrnæs

Morten Ejrnæs is an associate professor emeritus at Department of Sociology and Social Work at Aalborg University. He was educated as a sociologist (MSS) at the University of Copenhagen in 1974, and he has worked as a social worker as both a volunteer and an employee in a Settlement. He has been employed at university colleges where he has taught sociology to social work and educational students. 998–2018 he has been an associate professor at Aalborg University. He has participated in research projects concerning social problems, ethnic minorities, poverty, interprofessional collaboration, professionals’ risk assessments, and values and attitudes in social work.

Cecilie K. Moesby-Jensen

Cecilie K. Moesby-Jensen, PhD, sociologist, is a senior consultant at The Danish Evaluation Institute and an external lecturer at Department of Sociology and Social Work at Aalborg University. For the last 10 years, she has been doing research within social work with a special interest in vulnerable children and youths, disability, autism, casework practice, risk assessment and interprofessional collaboration. She is currently involved in a research study on young people’s participation in special needs education. For seven years, she taught social work at a university college and she has done volunteer social work with various marginalised groups.