CIRCY/CSWIR Seminar
Paper family in hand isolated on blue background By Ruslan Ivantsov/Adobe Stock
CIRCY/CSWIR Seminar: How do Child Protection Services determine appropriate residential care placements? A thematic analysis of pre-placement multi-agency meetings.
Abstract:
The UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children emphasise the principle of appropriateness, calling for a good match between children's needs and the characteristics of the out-of-home caregiving setting. This contribution focuses on matching processes in residential care, where facilities vary widely in organisational and intervention modalities and whose quality is difficult to assess. Available literature suggests that the choice of facility is often a compromise, undermined by limited availability and cost constraints. Furthermore, families' views are not always considered, and knowledge of residential facilities is often based on social workers' previous experience rather than on up-to-date information.
As part of a broader PhD project, a case study was conducted within the Child Protection Service of the Municipality of Bologna (Italy). Drawing on ethnographic fieldnotes from six preliminary placement meetings involving social workers and residential care managers, this contribution presents findings from a thematic analysis of the factors influencing the selection of a residential care setting. Informed by the Decision-Making Ecology framework, the analysis shows that matching is a multi-stage process emerging through the negotiation of different needs and constraints, including parental engagement, compatibility with the resident group, and the intervention model of the facility.