As workers in the system ’subcontracted’ to provide service to Children who have been removed from their families of origin due to Child Abuse and/or Neglect. At the best of times, this is a very complicated, challenging and thankless task. Infact the task meets the fundamental requirement of a ‘wicked problem’, as a wicked problem has no readily identifyable resolution. For example, in assessing the risk level of a child as being too great for her to remain in her Mother’s care and having a Court determine that she live in substitute care for the next two years would be viewed by independent advocates as a correct course of action. For the subject, a six year old girl, it is not as she doesnt understand why she cant live with her Mother. She thinks her foster family is nice and prays her Mother would stop taking drugs. She crys herself to sleep because she misses her Mother. How does this wicked problem get ‘fixed’? It is enough to fill many people with condemnation and too walk away, a well worn path that adds a further layer of complexity as Children and Families have a constant change in workers.
The system is an easy target for those wishing for simplistic solutions to complicated problems. However, even when the service delivery is optimal the outcomes for some parties are often pain laden and unpalletable. The Statutory Child Protection system is necessarily underpinned by a number of in/formal checks and balances. However, when these findings are available to audiences, who are not often intimately involved in the business of looking after abused and/or Neglected Children, it can easily look like the whole system is failing.
A current example of a poor outcome for a young person in State goverment care;
http://www.theage.com.au/national/why-did-sharkia-die-in-state-care-20091120-iqyj.html
