Improving the Care Order Decision-Making Processes: Viewpoints of Child Welfare Workers in Four Countries

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on what factors 634 child welfare workers from England, Finland, Norway, and the United States deem necessary to improve decision-making in care order proceedings. The clear picture drawn from our findings, based on data from all four countries, is that child welfare workers, to a large extent, see possibilities for improving decision-making by changing internal organizational factors and by boosting agencies’ human and financial resources. More frequent and better in-home services and collaboration with external professionals are perceived to be much less crucial in improving decisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Care order cases
• child welfare
• decision-making
• human and financial resources
• internal organization factors

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the child welfare workers in the four countries who took the time to share their perceptions on decision-making processes at their workplace. We are grateful for constructive and important comments from anonymous reviewers.

Notes

¹ Seventeen from Norway, five from England, 17 from Finland, and one from the United States.