Reducing Child Protection Error in Social Work: Towards an Holistic-Rational Perspective


Autoria(s): Houston, Stan
Data(s)

2015

Resumo

Social work in the United Kingdom remains embroiled in concerns about child protection error. The serious injury or death of vulnerable children continues to evince much consternation in the public and private spheres. Governmental responses to these concerns invariably draw on technocratic solutions involving more procedures, case management systems, information technology and bureaucratic regulation. Such solutions flow from an implicit use of instrumental rationality based on a ‘means-end’ logic. While bringing an important perspective to the problem of child protection error, instrumental rationality has been overused limiting discretion and other modes of rational inquiry. This paper argues that the social work profession should apply an enlarged form of rationality comprising not only the instrumental-rational mode but also the critical-rational, affective-rational and communicative-rational forms. It is suggested that this combined, conceptual arsenal of rational inquiry leads to a gestalt which has been termed the holistic-rational perspective. It is also argued that embracing a more rounded perspective such as this might offer greater opportunities for reducing child protection error.

Formato

application/pdf

Identificador

http://pure.qub.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/reducing-child-protection-error-in-social-work-towards-an-holisticrational-perspective(1d4e14da-8327-4a4d-a646-a4cceb709c27).html

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02650533.2015.1013526

http://pure.qub.ac.uk/ws/files/13968639/Reducing_Child_Protection_Error_in_Social_Work.pdf

Idioma(s)

eng

Direitos

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Fonte

Houston , S 2015 , ' Reducing Child Protection Error in Social Work: Towards an Holistic-Rational Perspective ' Journal of Social Work Practice , vol 29 , no. 4 , pp. 379-393 . DOI: 10.1080/02650533.2015.1013526

Tipo

article