The Impact of Parent Advocacy Type on Child Protection Case Conference Intervention Decisions: A Vignette Study

Background and Purpose: One approach to enable effective partnerships with parents in child protection decision making is the development of independent advocacy services for parents. This study investigated the impact of three parent advocacy types—self-advocacy, independent legal advocacy by a lawyer, and independent nonprofessional advocacy by a parent’s neighbor—on social workers’ intervention decisions in formal child protection case conferences.

Methods: Data were collected via online questionnaire. Of the 170 social workers who completed the questionnaire, most were Jewish (92%), female (89%), and had children (82%). Their ages ranged from 25 to 67 years (M = 41, SD = 11). All participants held an undergraduate degree and more than half had a graduate or doctoral degree (62%). Their professional seniority ranged from 1 to 43 years (M = 13, SD = 9). Most participants had prior experience in three or more case conferences discussions (95%). The online questionnaire had two distinct parts. First, nine questions collected background information about participants (e.g., gender, ethnicity, seniority). Second, an experimental survey design featured vignettes based on real-life case conferences discussions, manipulating the advocacy type. Thus, the vignettes manipulated the identity of the person who voiced the parent’s wishes about solutions for the family, whether it was the mother (i.e., self-advocacy), a female neighbor (i.e., independent nonprofessional advocacy), or a female lawyer (i.e., independent legal advocacy). In relation to each vignette, participants were asked to choose among three intervention options: (a) maintaining the existing community-based intervention plan, (b) formulating a new community-based intervention plan, or (c) immediately removing the child to an out-of-home placement.

Results: In cases in which the mother voiced her wishes, the option of a new community-based intervention was chosen more (82%) than when a lawyer (77%) or a neighbor (73%) voiced her wishes. The option of child removal from the home was chosen less with self-advocacy (15%) than with a lawyer (21%) or a neighbor (25%) as the advocate. To examine the effect of advocacy type on social workers’ intervention decision, we conducted a robust logistic regression. Given the low number of cases in which participants selected the option of maintaining the current situation (n = 15), we decided to merge these cases with those in which participants opted to formulate a new intervention plan in the community. Thus, for the regression analysis, a binary outcome variable was used: provision of services in the community or out-of-home placement. Findings show independent nonprofessional advocacy had a significant effect on decision making, increasing the odds that social workers would select out-of-home placement intervention, against the parent’s wishes, compared to cases of self-advocacy. No such effect was found for independent legal advocacy.

Conclusions and Implications: Our findings suggest that a crucial expectation from parents is to speak for themselves in case conferences. Thus, policy designed to support parents by allowing them to bring any representative on their behalf may effectively achieve the opposite outcome.