Do more severe incidents lead to more drastic decisions? A study of professional child protection decision making in Spain

Abstract

In the field of child protection, decision-making is a very complex task involving professionals with distinct qualifications, working in diverse sectors of the system (from social services to the courts) and incidents that vary in the type and seriousness of suspected maltreatment. Decisions made at the various levels of the child protection system encounter frequent disagreements. In an attempt to better understand differences in the assessment of suspected child maltreatment and the protection measure taken, and using vignettes involving neglect, physical and sexual abuse, four professional sectors that are typically involved in child protection cases in Spain were analyzed: local social services, emergency residential units, specialized child protection professionals and judges. The sample was comprised of 84 professionals. The results showed that the correlation between the severity of the assessment and the intensity of the action taken was significant, but only moderate. The reason may lay in the differences between the various professional sectors (more than in the professionals’ qualifications) and in the scant use, in the decision making process, of the available professional tools, such as checklists of indicators and professional protocols.