Decision making via an ethical and reflective practice with children and families

Decision making via an ethical and reflective practice with children and families

As a child safety officer; I believe child protection work is extremely precise and demanding. Owing to historical trauma, Indigenous families do not desire government departments and people from other backgrounds to work for them as they have lost reliance in the system. I personally feel this is the major hurdle while working with them in my role. I want to reveal that the lack of accurate knowledge about Indigenous culture and family structure serves as additional obstacle for child protection workers. Further, I am required to conquer the language hurdle also as in my job; I use to work closely with cultural practice advisor(s) who help me during my visits to Indigenous families because the advisor(s) have same cultural background of Indigenous communities.

As a professional, the child safety workers must make assessment about risk, harm and safety of children. A proper assessment affords a strong base for good case plan and ongoing intervention that lead to reunification of children with family and children’s protection. Tillbury et al. (2007) specifies that a good relationship with family is crucial so that both parties work jointly. Social workers must encourage family members in decision making and aim to recognize the view regarding their condition in problem resolution. Most importantly, the social workers should always hear the voice of kids and encourage them to participate in this process as sometimes, the exact issue cannot be mentioned by parents, Fernandez (2014) emphasizes. As a preference to ease the load of child protection systems, there has been observed an increase in the recognition of ‘public health model’ that is serving to bring positive effect on children and families. In this approach, the main focus is on prevention of neglect and abuse rather than focussing on how to care for children following the occurrence of abuse or neglect (Goldsworthy, 2015).

Conclusion

There has been a huge change in the strategies concerning child protection services from older to latest times. On the whole, no simple answers are on hand to sort out child protection matters. While policy makers have made lots of efforts in favour of ‘best interest of children’, we have to discover more from past to attain positive effect on Indigenous families (Long & Sephton, 2011). As we can observe from scenario of Lincoln and his family, all the factors influencing child abuse and neglect are associated with each other. For instance, one of the Lincoln’s parents is Aboriginal. The unemployment leading to domestic violence added to the picture.

Foremost aim of child protection system is to provide a safe and secure future to children of every community and background as they are the main stakeholder. Pressure of other factors like social media, academics and community campaigners cannot be ignored both in negative and positive way. A trustworthy rapport with family members is must which comes from the reflective practice. Hence, a culturally competent practice together with public health model may be able to engage families with service providers in an affirmative way.