Child-inclusive Practice Research Articles

Can a Paradigm Shift from Risk Management to Critical Reflection Improve Child-Inclusive Practice?

Child protection systems within Anglophone countries have been increasingly dominated by neoliberal managerial, risk-dominant paradigms over the past three decades. Assumed to deliver a cost-effective strategy to increase the safety of children, there are many ways this paradigmatic combination systematically undermines child welfare, participation, and well-being. This paper specifically focuses on the ways that risk assessment, neoliberal, and managerial discourses have infiltrated practice and operate to silence and exclude children’s voices. It draws on two case studies to showcase key findings of a comprehensive, state-wide research project called Empowering Children’s Voices, which was initiated by UnitingCare, a non-government organisation within Queensland, Australia, and conducted in partnership with researchers from Queensland University of Technology. It will be argued that a paradigm shift towards a critically reflective reinterpretation of risk can be far more effective at promoting child-inclusive practice and establishing children’s empowered voices as a protective factor against harm.

Towards child-inclusive practices in child protection in Ghana: Perspectives from parents

Abstract Although case meetings on reported child maltreatment in Ghana often include children, parents and social workers, in most cases the views of children are not included in the decision making process. This is largely as a result of traditional cultural expectations where the child is an obedient recipient of adult decisions. Considering that cases reported are premised within the family, the study investigated parents’ views on how children’s opinions could be included in child protection decisions in Ghana. A phenomenological approach was adopted using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis method to examine the views of 21 parents in contact with the Department of Social Welfare. The findings suggest that children’s fear of being labelled as behaving culturally inappropriate and its reprisals were the main hurdles to child-inclusive practice. Also, good interviewing skills, out of office engagement, humour and one-on-one engagement emerged as strategies recommended by parents to promote child-inclusive practices. The study highlights the need for social workers to develop child-friendly communication strategies to promote children’s participation in the child protection process. In addition, an inclusion of cultural practices in the curriculum of social work education and training at all levels is recommended.

Centralising Children's Needs in Dispute Resolution in Family Violence Cases

Family separation is a unique and dynamic process for each family. Family violence is a serious problem affecting societies across the world. It is a common driver for family dissolution. Children exposed to family violence face a distinctive predicament in their own adjustment, recovery and future relationships with their parents. Family dispute resolution is an increasing early intervention approach for separated families in conflict over parenting. Family dispute resolution practitioners are the gatekeepers for facilitating or preventing exploration of information about the complex relational dynamics, including risk and protective factors in each individual case. To avoid gambling with the child's future, it is crucial to centralise the needs of each individual child. An intervention approach to potentially enhance outcomes for the child, and therefore longer term outcomes for community and society, is child inclusive practice. However, this is not without complexity and challenges in cases of family violence.

Child Protection in Family Relationship Centres: Innovations in Western Australia

Family Relationship Centres (FRCs) established in Australia in 2006 are seeing parents from increasingly complex backgrounds including families where child protection matters may be of serious concern. These matters have required practitioners to shift their thinking about what responsibility they have for hearing the voices of children and their role in child protection. Many of the safety issues that present at FRC's fall below the statutory threshold for child protection intervention and this paper argues that FRC's are well placed to act as a referral and assessment point for families who might not otherwise be assessed or referred to services. This paper outlines a model of child inclusive practice (CIP) used in Anglicare WA's FRC's which is child inclusive but does not proceed to family dispute resolution. Where a risk factor such as family violence, mental health issues, or drug and alcohol issues is identified on intake with parents, children are routinely seen for an interview in order to obtain information about their needs and wellbeing. Literature indicates that many victims minimise violence and the risks associated with it; many parents maintain child contact with perpetrators for fear of retaliation; and many children protect their parents by not disclosing violence or other issues, because they do not want to “add fuel to the fire” or “be disloyal” to a parent. Case studies are provided to underline the importance of safety assessment. Keypoints for the Family Court Community High numbers of complex child protection matters that present at Family Law services Importance of undertaking a safety assessment with children as well as parents where indicated Importance of referral to support services even if cases do not reach child protection threshold

Accessing the parental mind through the heart: A case study in child-inclusive mediation

Children in all families rely on sensitive parental attention and care for the growth of their wellbeing and sense of self-worth. This attention often diminishes when a parent is preoccupied with the consequences of a relationship break-up and is engaged in conflict with the other parent. Mediation inevitably struggles with enabling motivation in feuding parents to better manage hostilities towards each other, and finding a mutual desire for an end to conflict often proves elusive. Yet research continues to show that reducing acrimony between parents is one of the most powerful ways to improve the lives of their children (McIntosh Wells & Long 2007). Consistent with this, practitioners in the field have found that child-inclusive practice (CIP) can, within a mediation context, provide parents with a sustained motivation for positive change by bringing to the fore the emotional and developmental toll of their conflict on their children. Child-inclusive practice enables parents to gain an insight into the impact of their conflict on their child’s happiness and wellbeing, and aims to facilitate a parental alliance between former partners or spouses which, in turn, enables the child to reengage with normal developmental processes. This article describes and comments upon a recent case involving the author as a child consultant within a mediation process. It outlines the step-by-step approach employed to reduce acrimony between the parents and to refocus their attention on their children. It illustrates how the intrinsic concern that parents have for their children can be harnessed to bring about a shared desire for improvement in their children’s lives, motivating them to forego their own perceived needs for ‘justice’ or retribution with respect to each other, in the service of a deeper understanding of the negative consequences of their conflict on their children.

Children’s Voices: Reflections on the Telling and the Listening

This article considers two transcripts, illustrating that children are often wiser than we imagine. The transcripts also reveal that tapping into this wisdom involves considerable openness and skill on the part of the adult listener and brings with it a considerable degree of adult responsibility. This, in turn, has implications for child-inclusive practice in postseparation mediation.

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The effects of the separation of parents on children are explained. The influence of family laws on the child is also discussed. Family law is at a very important stage. It is under development for a new world of child-focused and child-inclusive practice.

Child-Focused and Child-Inclusive Mediation: A Comparative Study of Outcomes

Children have largely been absent from or on the periphery of mediation processes in postseparation parenting disputes. An accompanying paper (Moloney & McIntosh, 2004) canvasses a number of reasons why this may be the case. Moloney and McIntosh draw a distinction between child-focused and child-inclusive practice, provide a definition of both, and argue that the time is now right for child-focused mediation to become the minimum yardstick by which practice is measured. Child-inclusive practice, on the other hand, more formally fulfils the aspirations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (and statements from similar bodies) that children should be consulted when decisions about their welfare are being made. Further, child-inclusive practice (as defined in Moloney & McIntosh) allows for consultation without placing the burden of decision making on the child. The present paper describes a current prospective study of outcomes for families utilising these two different forms of mediation: child focused and child inclusive. Over 12 months, the study follows the pathways of individual adjustment and parental alliance for families across the two forms of intervention, addressing whether and in what cases a childinclusive mediation process enhances postseparation family outcomes.

Child-Responsive Practices in Australian Family Law: Past Problems and Future Directions⋆

This paper considers key systemic issues that have to date constrained the hearing of children’s voices in both litigation and mediation processes in Australian family law. It is proposed that the time is now right for child-focused and child-inclusive approaches, described in this and previous publications, to become the default position in mediated disputes over children following separation. The application of child-inclusive practice to non-adversarial forms of litigation is also considered.

Child‐inclusive divorce mediation: Report on a qualitative research study

AbstractResearch into the unique needs and interests of children in the light of parental separation has provided the impetus for many family law mediation practices to include children's voices in divorce mediation. This chapter describes a model of child‐inclusive practice in family law mediation (McIntosh, 1998) and its pilot implementation in two diverse Australian contexts. Encouraging findings from the first group of families to work through the model are presented, indicating both anticipated and unanticipated gains for both children and parents.