Humans are very poor judges
‘The most fundamental problem with child protection in Australia is a philosophical one… the source of the problem is the erroneous assumption that because the protagonists in child abuse are people…the solution lies with other more socially competent people who are employed to make judicious decisions about risk and provide wise advice on parenting.’
This paragraph is from the article by James Barber published in the SMH.
If we had to summarise the article in one word (and we are not known for our brevity), we’d say it was on specialisation. It’s about making use of more specialised skills and methods in judging families and children at risk. Just as medicine has moved to make use of science over ‘practice wisdom’, Barber suggests that children’s services must follow suit.
The issue is whether humans can really detach themselves from their own prejudices and experiences to make objective decisions about other humans?
We’d all like to think we can. But whether we can or not, the other way of looking at the issue is to ask ‘are there now better ways to review information and make decisions about children and families at risk?’
It would be a brave person who said no.
Barber advocates for Evidence Based Practice, which suspends the human judgment in judging humans, and ‘which is about the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the best available evidence in making decisions about the care of individual clients’.
He mentions recent research in North America. It has proven that mathematicians and actuaries, making use of bucket loads of data in a way that one person simply cannot, are actually able to make better decisions about families at risk than social workers.
Considering that the way most people manage the daily onslaught of work and life challenges is to find the ‘norm’ or pull everything towards the average, it seems entirely reasonable to us that more technology, science and skill is required to handle some of the critical calls in children’s services.
And if the out of home care system is only going to be more distributed to the private agencies, as per the Wood Royal Commission recommendations, more rigour, science and common standards are essential.
It sounds funny to consider that certain parts of the children’s services model need to lose the human element, but after mulling over this for a week we think it does.
This paragraph is from the article by James Barber published in the SMH.
If we had to summarise the article in one word (and we are not known for our brevity), we’d say it was on specialisation. It’s about making use of more specialised skills and methods in judging families and children at risk. Just as medicine has moved to make use of science over ‘practice wisdom’, Barber suggests that children’s services must follow suit.
The issue is whether humans can really detach themselves from their own prejudices and experiences to make objective decisions about other humans?
We’d all like to think we can. But whether we can or not, the other way of looking at the issue is to ask ‘are there now better ways to review information and make decisions about children and families at risk?’
It would be a brave person who said no.
Barber advocates for Evidence Based Practice, which suspends the human judgment in judging humans, and ‘which is about the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the best available evidence in making decisions about the care of individual clients’.
He mentions recent research in North America. It has proven that mathematicians and actuaries, making use of bucket loads of data in a way that one person simply cannot, are actually able to make better decisions about families at risk than social workers.
Considering that the way most people manage the daily onslaught of work and life challenges is to find the ‘norm’ or pull everything towards the average, it seems entirely reasonable to us that more technology, science and skill is required to handle some of the critical calls in children’s services.
And if the out of home care system is only going to be more distributed to the private agencies, as per the Wood Royal Commission recommendations, more rigour, science and common standards are essential.
It sounds funny to consider that certain parts of the children’s services model need to lose the human element, but after mulling over this for a week we think it does.
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