Advancing the field of decision making and judgement in child welfare and protection: A look back and forward

Our knowledge of decision making in child welfare has evolved concurrent with the recognition that there is variability in the rates at which children and families experience no involvement to deeper involvement in the system from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and person to person. In this synthesis of concepts and studies we recap the reasons it is important and challenging to identify systematic causes for variability in decisions and what can be learned about them. Child protection systems have a history of relying on both formal and informal assessments of children and families. While research indicates that emphasis on assessment is warranted, errors and mistakes can happen in all the stages of the assessment and decision processes due to a range of system and human factors. We present some examples here.