Bridging the gap – the role of leadership in professional judgement in child protection services

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article addresses how child protection leaders work with their staff to improve professional judgement in their services. We focus on the role of leadership in supporting staff members to develop best practices for making good quality assessments and decisions. We will argue that the role of leadership in judgement and decision-making is to create a bridge between two types of thinking, reasoning and decision-making the intuitive way, which involves a high degree of professional discretion, and the analytic way, which involves the use of assessment tools. Our data indicate that the work of child protection service leaders is very demanding in terms of using professional judgement in complex and unclear decision-making processes. To improve the quality of professional judgement in their work with staff, child protection service leaders use various types of leadership strategies – both structural strategies, such as standards and measurements, and epistemic strategies, such as skills development, motivation and counselling. A significant finding is that leaders’ work with professional judgement must be viewed according to the context, which sometimes limits and sometimes expands the use of professional judgement. An important part of leadership is including the staff in discussion and reflection. This represents balancing or making a bridge between the intuitive and analytic types of thinking, reasoning and decision-making.