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Moving Toward a Forward Looking Accountability in Child Welfare

Hengelbrok, Noel LU (2015) FLMU06 20142
Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
Abstract
The field of child welfare could be considered one of the most complex social systems to work within. Whether punishing for errors or satisficing calls for accountability with firing employees and pointing to individuals as the root causes of bad outcomes, the current practice in child welfare is to utilize backward looking accountability. It is argued here that child welfare agencies would benefit from a Forward Looking Accountability in order to promote system resilience. This prospective approach forces an organisation to accept its complexity and orient itself towards safety improvement. Furthermore, this paper will provide evidence of barriers that U.S. Child Welfare agencies may face while pursuing a Forward Looking Accountability.... (More)
The field of child welfare could be considered one of the most complex social systems to work within. Whether punishing for errors or satisficing calls for accountability with firing employees and pointing to individuals as the root causes of bad outcomes, the current practice in child welfare is to utilize backward looking accountability. It is argued here that child welfare agencies would benefit from a Forward Looking Accountability in order to promote system resilience. This prospective approach forces an organisation to accept its complexity and orient itself towards safety improvement. Furthermore, this paper will provide evidence of barriers that U.S. Child Welfare agencies may face while pursuing a Forward Looking Accountability. To achieve this, focus groups were conducted at four different hierarchal levels within the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. The results of focus groups conducted in this paper were indicative of three predominant barriers that agencies will likely face: pervasive backward looking approaches, bureaucratic demands, and inconsistency within organisational structures. While there are difficulties to overcome the aforementioned barriers, child welfare agencies may benefit from engaging discussion at the top of the organisation while including elected officials and media organisations. (Less)
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author
Hengelbrok, Noel LU
supervisor
organization
course
FLMU06 20142
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
just culture, resilience engineering, system safety, human factors, social services, child welfare, Accountability, forward looking accountability, second story, second victim, FLMU06
language
English
id
5148070
date added to LUP
2015-03-05 15:55:29
date last changed
2016-12-12 13:48:31
@misc{5148070,
  abstract     = {{The field of child welfare could be considered one of the most complex social systems to work within. Whether punishing for errors or satisficing calls for accountability with firing employees and pointing to individuals as the root causes of bad outcomes, the current practice in child welfare is to utilize backward looking accountability. It is argued here that child welfare agencies would benefit from a Forward Looking Accountability in order to promote system resilience. This prospective approach forces an organisation to accept its complexity and orient itself towards safety improvement. Furthermore, this paper will provide evidence of barriers that U.S. Child Welfare agencies may face while pursuing a Forward Looking Accountability. To achieve this, focus groups were conducted at four different hierarchal levels within the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. The results of focus groups conducted in this paper were indicative of three predominant barriers that agencies will likely face: pervasive backward looking approaches, bureaucratic demands, and inconsistency within organisational structures. While there are difficulties to overcome the aforementioned barriers, child welfare agencies may benefit from engaging discussion at the top of the organisation while including elected officials and media organisations.}},
  author       = {{Hengelbrok, Noel}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Moving Toward a Forward Looking Accountability in Child Welfare}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}