The paper examines the impact that a decision making model can have on child placement decisions. Using a pre and post test design with three different conditions, the research investigated the ability to increase the consistency of the placement decision by the use of a decision making model that includes explicit criteria.

The study found that consistency of decision making was enhanced by the provision of the decision making model and that consistency could be further enhanced by the provision of training in the model. Implications for training of new workers and reduction of worker stress and burnout are discussed.

The incident of child abuse and neglect continues to rise. The National Centre on Child Abuse and Neglect estimates that approximately one million children will be abused or neglected this year in the United States. In the State of Illinois alone, during fiscal year 1981 nearly 80,000 reports of abuse or neglect were received. Almost 50% of those reports were found to be actual cases of abuse or neglect.

Whether the incident in Australia of child abuse and neglect is increasing or not is difficult to assess, since currently there is no standardised way of collecting data. However, from all indicators a similar increase is indeed occurring. Boss in his book, “On the Side of the Child”, reports that the number of cases seen by the Western Australian Department of Community Welfare has steadily increased. This is corroborated by statistics compiled by that State’s Advisory and Consultative Committee in Child Abuse (ACCCA). Their Statistical Information Report for July-December 1983 indicates an 86% increase in reports of sexual abuse and 12.5% increase in physical abuse. In Queensland the number of child abuse and/or neglect case investigations went from 1 095 in 1981 to 1 631 in 1982 – an increase of more than one third. In Tasmania between 1980 to 1982 the number of reports increased by nearly one-third, from 228-302. The Montrose Child Protection and Family Crisis Unit of the Department of Youth and Community Services in New South Wales report similar increases.

On almost a daily basis, social workers are called upon to make far reaching decisions that have the potential to be a life consequential both for the child who is the victim of abuse and/or neglect and that child’s family. Because these decisions, especially the placement decision, have such great ramifications, social workers should be expected to make decisions with great care, consideration and consistency. This may be due, in part because agencies have been slow to explicate, empirically validate, and systematically apply decision making criteria that assist workers in making case decisions.

While research indicates that criteria do exist and are used by child welfare workers, the research also indicates that they are not used in any systematic fashion. The result is that idiosyncratic decisions are invited and the potential spectre of gross inequities in the delivery of social services exists. Unless asystematic, consensually based decision making model is used that explicates both the decisions that need to be made along with a specific set of criteria for making these decisions, it is impossible for the child welfare agency to guarantee a minimum level of service delivery.

Many professional people working with families are frustrated by the fact that there is still a marked differentiation made between children of married parents and children of non-married parents in the courts. This division has persisted in spite of legislation to remove the status of illegitimacy and the reasons for this are far from obvious to those who are not lawyers. This paper traces the historical background of this split in jurisdiction between State and Federal Courts (i.e., the Family Court) and concludes that it is based on an anachronistic view of State’s rights which no social group or political party would support today.

Joy Rainey is a Social Worker and Clinical Psychologist. Until recently, she was Senior Social Worker at Southern Family Life.

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of treatment for encopresis, within a behaviourist framework. Whilst behaviourists’ methods demonstrate merit, many studies omit long term follow-up, and there is a tendency to view the child in isolation from his family. Behaviourist programs can be enhanced by viewing the child in the context of his family which the author sees as crucial when planning an appropriate and effective treatment regime.

This paper focuses on accidental incidents where there is no intention to misbehave/disobey. The children respond to projective material depicting children having accidents with no malice or forethought. The children’s reactions are discussed in light of their developmental stages as outlined by Piaget and Inhelder (1968) and Kohlberg (1976). The acts depicted are accidental, and should not provoke punishment. The results indicating punishment will be carefully scrutinised; in view of the linkage that exists between child abuse acts; the lack of differentiation that exists between types of misbehaviour that are unlikely to convey the fundamentals, which are a prerequisite for the development of moral judgement.

This is the text of an address given by Mrs. Gorman at a luncheon of the Children’s Bureau of Australia on Tuesday 23rd October, 1984.

This paper was presented as the opening address to the Seminar, ‘Directions for Residential Child Care in Victoria’ 26th November, 1984 at the University of Melbourne.

This was the fifth International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect that I have attended, others have been held in Geneva, Paris, Amsterdam and London. The 5th International Congress of Child Abuse and Neglect was held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in September 1984. In keeping with the Congress theme, which emphasised community responsibility for the prevention of child abuse and neglect, organisers, agencies, professionals and citizens who contributed to the congress and represented different levels of Government and various sectors of the community; thus a broad cross section of the people involved. Prevention is the only way of reducing child abuse and neglect. The aim of the conference was to bring together preventative strategies from both professionals and self help agencies. Child abuse is a community responsibility. Every child has the right to be protected “against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation”. Workers inthefield recognise that the help they bring to families is too little too late, and that we cannot rely on judicial strategies to reduce child abuse. Times are difficult, resources are strained, this affects service delivery, and brings increasing stress to the family, making them more vulnerable to breakdown. The U.S.A. spends $2 billion a year on treating the problem and only $2 million a year on preventative activities.