Leading Practice Improvement in Front Line Child Protection

Abstract

Front line child protection managers are a vital conduit for effective outcomes for children, young people and their families. However, little is known about the change processes that they need to implement to effectively intervene in such a complex context to support improved practice. This article describes how organizational action research and Organizational Linkage Theory were used to establish an in-depth understanding of the inhibitors and facilitators of the implementation of an outcome-focused management model in three child protection offices. This analysis identified that five interrelated compensatory processes acted to offset the impact of the implementation inhibitors. This, in turn, enabled direct service staff to experience an increased capacity to undertake effective service activities. This article explores each of these compensatory processes and makes a number of suggestions for how child protection managers and their organizations might seek to embed them.