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Applying behavioural insights to child protection: venturing beyond the low-hanging fruit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2019

ANNALESE BOLTON Open the ORCID record for ANNALESE BOLTON [Opens in a new window] ,
BEN R. NEWELL ,
SIMON GANDEVIA ,
JAMES PEEK  and
ELENA BERROCAL CAPDEVILA
ANNALESE BOLTON*
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia and Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), Sydney, Australia
BEN R. NEWELL
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, UNSW, Sydney, Australia
SIMON GANDEVIA
Affiliation:
Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), Sydney, Australia and School of Medicine, UNSW, Sydney, Australia
JAMES PEEK
Affiliation:
Family and Community Services, Behavioural Insights Unit, NSW, Sydney, Australia
ELENA BERROCAL CAPDEVILA
Affiliation:
Family and Community Services, Behavioural Insights Unit, NSW, Sydney, Australia
*
*Correspondence to: Annalese Bolton, UNSW/Neuroscience Research Australia, School of Psychology, Matthews Building UNSW, Randwick, NSW 2052, Australia. Email: a.bolton@unsw.edu.au
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Abstract

We explore whether simple behavioural insights techniques can be successful for addressing a policy issue within one of society's more complex and difficult sectors: child protection. Child protection reporting practices in New South Wales, Australia, reveal that the public's primary response is to report to the statutory authority, who only deal with cases of the highest risk. As a result, a large volume of statutory resources are spent processing lower-risk reports that lead to no benefits for lower-risk families and slow down response times for families that require a statutory response most. Our goal was to reduce lower-risk reporting by encouraging alternative responses to these situations. To do this, we altered report feedback for cases deemed lower risk in order to make alternative responses more salient and we added a persuasive message framed as a gain or loss. We then examined subsequent reporting accuracy. We found that our trial was linked to a modest improvement in reporting accuracy, though the results may have been diluted by a spill-over effect. We discuss how facilitating a greater behavioural change likely requires multi-organization collaborations, extending the range of insights drawn from behavioural science and/or addressing issues from multiple angles.

Type
Article
Information
Behavioural Public Policy , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 2022 , pp. 439 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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