Workshop: Decision-making in child protection and foster care

This workshop is initiated by University of Bristol doctoral researcher Florie Schmits as part of her research visit to the Netherlands. The workshop brings together child welfare experts from universities and research centres around the Netherlands to discuss barriers and facilitators of social work decision-making in child protection and foster care settings. The workshop is aimed at providing inspiration and making connections between researchers in the field.

As a framework for this workshop, we will use The Decision-Making Ecology (Bauman et al., 2011). This model suggests that decisions in child welfare need to be understood within their context, and a range of factors (case factors, organizational factors, external factors and decision-maker factors) can influence decision-making and outcomes.

We hope some of you will be interested in giving a short presentation (anywhere between 5 or 15 minutes) about the work/research you are conducting in the context of child welfare decision-making. For example, Florie will present preliminary findings from an ongoing study on decision-making around sibling placement in care. It will reflect on the different factors that could impact the decision to place siblings together or apart, such as the role of foster carers, structural and procedural issues within the system and the cooperation between involved parties.

Loraine will focus on the numerous decision-making moments within intensive family interventions. These interventions should always be personalised, since each family has a unique combination of strengths and problems. This means that professionals constantly need to choose which elements they do or do not provide, influenced by all kinds of factors (e.g. the family, professional, organization).

We hope to announce other speakers soon and anticipate having several presentations and plenty of discussion around:

• current decision-making issues in child protection and foster care
• the barriers that social workers experience in making decisions
• what factors influence the decision-making most prominently

During breaks, participants will have the opportunity to network with each other (other experts in the field). 

We hope you will consider joining the workshop. Please respond to florie.schmits bristol.ac.uk  to express your interest in participating in this workshop or ask any questions you might have.

The workshop is organised by Mrs Florie Schmits (University of Bristol) and Dr Loraine Visscher (University of Groningen). 

The workshop will take place at the University of Groningen’s University Ambulatory (room 68).