Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Whither practice-near research in the modernization programme? policy blunders in children's services.
AU - White, Sue
AU - Broadhurst, Karen
AU - Wastell, David
AU - Peckover, Sue
AU - Hall, Chris
AU - Pithouse, Andy
PY - 2009/12
Y1 - 2009/12
N2 - In this article, we lament the effects of practice-distant research and associated policy initiatives on contemporary children's services in England. In the last decade, as a result of high profile inquiries into non-accidental child deaths, statutory children's social care services in the UK have been subject to a wide-reaching 'modernization' programme. We studied decision-making in the high blame environment of local authority children's services. Our research sought to examine the relationship between performance management and the impact of anticipated blame within the decision-making practices of those providing, supervising and managing these services. We show that systems and technologies can be developed which both assist the users in their daily work and achieve desired organizational goals, but without an ethnographically informed, practice-near approach, unsafe work regimes and practices can ensue.
AB - In this article, we lament the effects of practice-distant research and associated policy initiatives on contemporary children's services in England. In the last decade, as a result of high profile inquiries into non-accidental child deaths, statutory children's social care services in the UK have been subject to a wide-reaching 'modernization' programme. We studied decision-making in the high blame environment of local authority children's services. Our research sought to examine the relationship between performance management and the impact of anticipated blame within the decision-making practices of those providing, supervising and managing these services. We show that systems and technologies can be developed which both assist the users in their daily work and achieve desired organizational goals, but without an ethnographically informed, practice-near approach, unsafe work regimes and practices can ensue.
KW - ethnography
KW - technologies
KW - performance management
KW - blame environment
KW - Integrated Children's System (ICS)
KW - statutory children's social care services
U2 - 10.1080/02650530903374945
DO - 10.1080/02650530903374945
M3 - Journal article
VL - 23
SP - 401
EP - 411
JO - Journal of Social Work Practice
JF - Journal of Social Work Practice
SN - 0265-0533
IS - 4
ER -