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'Risk' has become a central concept for social work practice in countries with more developed social welfare systems. As argued by Hazel Kemshall and colleagues, 'risk' has often replaced 'need' as the main driver for social work interventions as societies seek to avoid harm to citizens. This shift of focus raises a tension between care (support for the individual or family in their own right) and control (seeking to prevent harm to themselves, each other or other citizens). This article considers some of the key developments in the 25 years since the above article, including the development of risk communication; the growing familiarity with both likelihood and severity concepts of risk; the assessment of risk as part of organisational arrangements to manage risk; and theoretical developments linking social work assessment, 'working with risk' and decision-making. In the first part of the article, we explore the care versus control boundary through focussing, in turn, on child and family social work, adult care services, mental health social work and criminal justice social work, and their respective developments. We then further extend two key foci regarding assessment and care planning as well as the use of professional knowledge at the care and control boundary. Our analysis of these developments points towards more nuanced approaches to managing risk and making decisions at these sometimes contentious boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this systematic narrative literature review is to explore empirical evidence as to how a multiprofessional approach to child protection decision making is implemented in hospitals settings. Child protection cases where there is a suspicious serious injury suspected sexual abuse or serious neglect are often investigated in hospital, involving a number of relevant professions. Five electronic bibliographic databases were used for the search. To be included in the review studies had to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, report on empirical research, be available full text in English, and have used an identifiable research design. The search was restricted to 10 years, from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2019, and retrieved 6,934 studies. The review includes 26 studies undertaken in 10 countries. In all the hospital-based settings studied, child protection decision-making tasks were assigned to a designated multiprofessional team. However, there was remarkable diversity in models of team structure, regulation of workflow, structured procedures, and standardized tools through which practice was carried out. Research focused on evaluating the teams' effectiveness in fulfilling their duties which were, first and foremost, the identification of possible child maltreatment. The analysis identifies various systemic approaches and quality improvement methods to promote effective team-based decision-making processes in hospitals. The interactional aspect of collaborative team-based practice was generally missing from the published research. This article discusses next steps for the development of practice, policy, and research to enhance useful multiprofessional child protection team working in hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skills of the 'information age' need to be applied to social work. Conceptual and practical aspects of using online bibliographic databases to identify research were explored using multi-professional decision-making in child protection as a case study. Five databases (Social Science Citation Index, Scopus, Medline, Social Work Abstracts and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials) were searched for relevant studies, retrieving 6,934 records of which fifty-eight studies were identified as relevant. The usefulness of specific search terms and the process of learning from the terminology of previous searches are illustrated, as well as the value of software to manage retrieved studies. Scopus had the highest sensitivity (retrieving the highest number of relevant articles) and retrieved the most articles not retrieved by any other database (exclusiveness). All databases had low precision on this topic, despite extensive efforts in selecting search terms. Cumulative knowledge about search strategies and empirical comparison of database utility helps to increase the efficiency of systematic literature searching. Such endeavours encourage and support professionals to use the best available evidence to inform practice and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated child protection decision-making practices of healthcare-professionals in community-health-services. We examined the effect of heuristics in professional judgments regarding suspected maltreatment, as affected by the child's ethnicity, gender, and family socioeconomic-status, as well as the healthcare-worker's workload-stress, and personal and professional background. Furthermore, we examined how these variables influence judgments regarding suspected maltreatment and intentions to consult and report child-maltreatment. We used an experimental survey design including vignettes manipulating the child's characteristics. Data was collected from 412 professionals employed at various community-health-service-clinics of the largest health-management organization in northern Israel. Findings show that all subjective factors have a significant effect on suspected child-maltreatment assessment, which appears as a significant predictor of later decisions regarding consultation and reporting. This study lends support to prior research indicating that healthcare-professionals' decisions may incorporate biases, and suggests how the effects of these biases' are mediated through a sequence of decisions. Recommendations focus on providing regular consultation opportunities for practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]