Working for Children on the Child Protection Register by Martin C. Calder Jan Horwath

Author:Martin C. Calder, Jan Horwath [Martin C. Calder, Jan Horwath]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9780429766138
Google: Qnp_DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-11-08T04:08:25+00:00

Three models of partnership

Parents’/carers’ participation in decision making

The models discussed under this heading emphasise decision making as a central locus of ‘participation’. Early examples of this model of partnership can be found in research on parents’ involvement in their children’s education and in the educational system. These early models tended to focus on the degree to which parents/carers could participate in decision making within the school. For example, Burman et al. (1983) developed a model based on a survey of parental participation in special education. The authors describe a continuum of involvement in decision making in the educational system. At one end of the continuum, parents and teachers share basic information about the child’s educational progress. At the other end of the continuum, parents are involved in joint service planning, selection of staff, lobbying for resources and representation on various professional and local government bodies. Pugh (1981) suggests that partnerships between parents/carers and practitioners in pre-school education can be characterised in four steps, the fourth of which results in full participation: non-participation, support, participation and partnership/control. Partnership, then, is represented by Pugh as a high level of involvement and potentially incorporating control of decision-making outcomes.

Thobum et al. (1995) has developed the concept of a continuum of participation in decision making in child protection work by drawing on the community development work of Amstein (1969). Their model is represented in Table 6.1. This ‘Ladder of Participation in Child Protection’ suggests that non-participatory approaches can be manipulative and placatory. They identify three ways that parents/carers can be involved in decision making which Thobum regards as tokenistic and Calder (1995) as paternalistic. Thobum et al. argue that involvement, consultation and participation can each be tokenistic. Partnership is only achieved when parents/carers are involved in designing the child protection services and have some delegated power to influence service provision. Thobum et al. set high standards by which partnerships between parents/carers and workers are judged. On these criteria, not all workers will be able to be full partners. This model supports the Family Rights Group (1991) definition of partnership as:

marked by respect for one another, rights to information, accountability, competence and value accorded to the individual input. In short, each partner is seen as having something to contribute, power is shared, decisions made jointly, roles are not only respected but also backed by a set of legal and moral rights. (Family Rights Group, 1991:1)

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