Balanced Decision Making in Child Welfare: Structured Processes Informed by Multiple Perspectives

Child welfare workers face considerable challenges in making consistent and effective placement decisions for children and families. The purpose of this article is to review literature regarding the benefits and pitfalls inherent in individual and group decision-making processes, specifically applied to the child welfare context. The article proposes a conceptual framework that draws from the strengths of both types of decision-making processes to balance consideration of risk factors with available protective factors. Drawing from multiple sources of information and opinion and using structured assessment tools should help promote placement decisions that are consistent across cases and workers and most appropriate to the family's level of need.