The State as Parent: Metamorphosis from ‘Wire-Monkey’ Parent to Benefactor?
Susan Ceri Reidpath Diamond B. App. Sc. (Psych) WAIT1 1983
This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Western Australia, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Discipline of Social Work and Social Policy.
2009
1 Western Australian Institute of Technology, now Curtin University of Technology ii
A thesis in four parts:
1. Genesis
2. Discovery and Development
3. Transformation
4. Maturation
iv v
Recently I was reading an article in Time referring to the
development of a large industrial complex in the heart of a
Brazilian rainforest. The article sketched out the environmental
ravages, especially water contamination, soil and wind
erosion, and the destruction of a number of habitats for some
rare animal and bird species. The point of the article was that
each of the particular blunders, such as the water
contamination, for example, could be dealt with, at least to
some degree, by existing laws, but there were no laws to
prevent the loss of the whole forest. We may be in much the
same situation with children today. We have been successful in
identifying particular dangers to children and then fashioning
particular protections. But in our emphasis on the particular
threats, dangers, and stresses, we may be close to losing the
whole forest … is it possible that the quality of life and the well-
being of the young in our world has declined …?
(Carlson, 1979) vi
vii
Abstract
The question raised in this thesis, of whether the State has responsibilities to children and families to support successful parenting, currently has a high profile on the Australian policy agenda. Despite the currency of the topic, there has been little deep analysis of how the discourse, debate, and policy direction in Australia, and elsewhere, is largely informed by a historical position in relation to child protection, and the implications of this for finding new strategies to enhance the intergenerational success of families in their parenting role, and the wellbeing of our children.
The question of State obligations and responsibilities to children and families is explored in a number of ways. A chronological analysis of the historical record, as described in the research, scholarship and literature, and a thorough examination of the relevant contemporary discourse, provide context and informed points of view. A thematic analysis of the views of child and family policy experts, using data collected in interviews, focus groups and through a parliamentary debate case study, provides the data of the lived experience, through which to explore the research question.
Thematic analysis of the data supports a challenge to current family policy directions in Anglo–American countries, and confronts the possibility that population-level success, in what is called ‘the child-rearing project’, exceeds the capacities of individuals, and demands State buy-in as an ethical joint investor with families and communities. viii
ix
Table of Contents
Abstract ...... vii
List of Figures ...... xiii
Student Declaration ...... xv
Statement of Contribution ...... xvii
Acknowledgements...... xix
Key Words...... xxi
Acronyms...... xxiii
Interlude: Children in the Foreground — in their own voice...... 1
Part 1 — Genesis: The State as a ‘Wire-Monkey’ Parent ...... 3 Structure of the thesis ...... 5
Chapter 1: Introducing the Research...... 7 Background to the research ...... 8 Coming to grips with the research problem and questions ...... 10 Justification for the research ...... 11 Definitions...... 14 Delimitations of scope and key assumptions ...... 16
Chapter 2: State as Parent — A Chronological Study of Constructions of Childhood, Parenthood, Family and Developing State Obligations...... 19 Introduction...... 19 An historical view...... 20 Early twentieth century ...... 50 Childhood, parenthood and State obligations up to 1950 — in summary ...... 65
Chapter 3: Individualising Responsibility for Poor Child–rearing Outcomes — Child Protection and the Discovery of Risk ...... 67 Introduction...... 67 Theoretical and discursive foundations to conceptualising the State as parent ...... 67 Welfare States’ differential engagement with the child-rearing project — universal family policy or child protection ...... 74 Child protection ...... 79 Risk ...... 94 x
Individualising responsibility for poor child–rearing outcomes — in summary ...... 106
Part 2 — The Research Process: Discovery and Development ...... 109 Chapter 4: The Researcher ...... 111 Background...... 111 Current project ...... 115
Chapter 5: The Research ...... 117 The research question ...... 117 Research perspectives and methodology...... 118 Theoretical foundations...... 122
Chapter 6: The Researching ...... 127 Multi-method naturalistic inquiry...... 127 Data collection and analysis ...... 129
Part 3 — Persistent or Transformative Thinking about State Obligations to Children and Families: Findings ...... 145 Chapter 7: The Hoary Old Chestnut — The Poorly Differentiated Push and Pull of the Child Protection Continuum...... 147 Introduction...... 147 An obligation on the State to prioritise child protection...... 149 Uncertainty in child protection terminology ...... 151 State responsibilities arising from a child protection obligation ...... 153 Achieving child protection ...... 156
Chapter 8: Child Rights and Citizenship — Opportunity to Gain Lost Ground ...... 167 Introduction...... 167 Achieving child rights ...... 168 Implementing child citizenship ...... 188
Summary of findings ...... 194
Part 4 — Maturation of the Beneficent State: Ethical Joint Investment in the Child-rearing Project by States, Communities and Families ....199 Chapter 9: New Paradigm Thinking — Ethical Joint Investment in the Child-rearing Project ...... 201 Introduction — overview of findings and what this might mean for moving forward..... 201 Wicked problems and the power of the State and community ...... 205 Frameworks for informing a new paradigm of jointly invested child rearing...... 212 xi
Interlude: Children in the Foreground — media constructions of children’s circumstance...... 221
Chapter 10: Conclusion and Future Thinking for an Ethical Joint Investment in Responsible Child Rearing by Families, Community and the State ...... 225
References ...... 235
Addenda...... 277
Addendum 1 — A brief description of the Australian federal system ...... 277
Addendum 2 — Reflexive activities within the research ...... 281
Addendum 3 — By party and House, members of parliament involved in the debates of the Children and Community Development Bill 2003 (also known as the Children and Community Services Bill 2003) ...... 288 Legislative Assembly ...... 288 Legislative Council...... 289
Addendum 4 — Brief background to the international law on child rights....291 xii
xiii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Bronfenbrenner: ecological theory of child development ...... 70 Figure 2: Hermeneutical process (data analysis spiral) ...... 130 Figure 3: Interviewee characteristics ...... 132 Figure 4: Summary of thematic analysis of the data...... 142 Figure 5: Child Protection — Major field of interest 1 ...... 148 Figure 6: Child rights and citizenship — Major field of interest 2...... 168 Figure 7: The location for theorising a new paradigm...... 204 xiv
xv
Student Declaration
This thesis does not contain work that I have published, nor work under review for publication.
Student’s signature Wednesday, 9 December 2009
xvi xvii
Statement of Contribution
Having completed my course of study and research towards the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by research, I hereby submit my thesis for examination in accordance with the regulations and declare that:
The thesis is my own composition and all sources have been acknowledged.
The thesis content is original, although some of the thinking is informed by work in which I collaborated with a number of other researchers. The collaborative work, comprising the following, has been presented or published elsewhere: • Children in Care: Meeting their Parenting Needs, Diamond and Ash (2000) • Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse: Evidence and Options, a report by Harries and Clare (2002) to the Western Australian Child Protection Council in relation to research undertaken by the Discipline of Social Work and Social Policy • Enhancing Service Delivery to Children and Families: What is the Evidence For and Against the Mandatory Reporting of Child Maltreatment, Harries and Diamond (2003) • Caring Well — Protecting Well: Investing in Systemic Responses to Protect Children in WA, Harries, Harris, Diamond and Mackenzie (2004)
Research for the thesis was undertaken entirely during the course of enrolment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Western Australia, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Discipline of Social Work and Social Policy, 1999–2009, and has not previously been submitted or accepted for a degree at this or another institution. xviii
xix
Acknowledgements
My thanks go firstly to two mentors who, over a decade ago, convinced me to seek enrolment into a research degree. My deepest thanks to Professor Mike Clare of the University of Western Australia, Discipline of Social Work and Social Policy, for having faith in me, and a vision of what might be. I thank Mike also for his quiet but pithy approach to supervision over the intervening years. To Professor Nigel Parton of Huddersfield University, in the United Kingdom, I wish to express profound appreciation for his seeing the possibilities in a new researcher, and being so positive and reassuring about my taking the significant step into research.
Professor Maria Harries, my primary supervisor, your academic rigour, your guidance and ultimately your friendship are so very highly valued. We have worked well together on a number of projects — it has been a joy and, of course, an education.
There are a number of other generous women in my life who have offered unfailing affirmation and support, and whom I wish to acknowledge. I am indeed very lucky, and with all my heart thank Cheryl, Dianne, Shella and Sue — and their generous families who have shared them with me.
Alasdair, my gorgeous husband — What can I say, and how can I ever thank you for sharing the load of raising a family, in a way that has worked so well for me , and allowed me to do what I wanted to do?
Finally, I would like to acknowledge: the expert proofreading of Eugenia Koussidis, without whose eye for detail the thesis would have looked much less polished; and the assistance of Tina Pritchard in creating figures 4–7.
Key Words
Child protection; child wellbeing; paradigm shift; social policy; ethical jointly invested child rearing; risk; reform.
xxiii
Acronyms
ABR Australian Bill of Rights ALP Australian Labor Party BASPCAN British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect DCD Department for Community Development (Western Australia) DCP Department for Child Protection (Western Australia) ICCPR United Nations International Convention on Civil and Political Rights ICESCR United Nations International Convention on Economic, Social and Civil Rights ILO International Labour Organization ISPCAN International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect MACCP WA Ministerial Advisory Council on Child Protection, Western Australia NAPCAN National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (Australia) OEDC Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation UN United Nations UNCROC United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child UNDRC United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child
xxv
UNUDHR United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights USA United States of America WWI World War 1, First World War, 1914–1918 WWII World War II, Second World War, 1939– 1945
1
Interlude: Children in the Foreground — in their own voice
This Interlude is the only place in the thesis presenting children’s views of how a responsible State should behave in relation to them and their interests. The purpose of this Interlude is to introduce the voices of children and highlight for the reader that decision-making by the State, in global, national, corporate, non-government and community arenas, ultimately affects children’s lives.
Located as it is at the ‘entrance’ to the thesis, the Interlude invites the reader to ponder the proposal that the quality of children’s experiences of wellbeing and safety is a measure of the success or otherwise of structural decisions made by the State, as an expression of State obligations to children and families. Telling the stories of children’s experiences of the State, its support of their families and the ways in which the State promotes their wellbeing, locates the thesis in their lives and their needs.2
Children’s stories ‘in their own voice’, are difficult to find. Even when adults are working hard to empower children and young people, adults largely reconstruct the voice of children. The words in this section are those of children from around the world discussing Millennium Development Goals3 with the non-government care agency, Plan Limited™, and those of young
2 In this thesis (children’s) ‘needs’ terminology refers, in a general sense, to the essential conditions for healthy development and wellbeing, whilst recognising that these essential conditions are complex, contested, contextualised and at the same time both individually and co-operatively determined, and are an area of social policy controversy. (Also see the following for related discussions: Bowlby, 1969; Keating & Hertzman, 1999b; Maslow, 1954; Saulle, 1995; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000; Vleminckx & Smeeding, 2001). 3 Summit-level participants and high-level national delegates committed to Millennium Goals for children and young people following the United Nations (UN) General Assembly’s Special Session on Children, May 2002. 2 people who are, or have been in care, discussing issues with the advocacy agency CREATE Foundation4.
OBLIGATIONS NOT FAVOURS Eradicating hunger and poverty, we can reach people dying from malnutrition. Children and youngsters need health, education and a roof to sleep under.
As national leaders, you have to reach this goal — not because you want to do us a favour but because it’s your job, its your obligation. Victor, aged 13 (Plan Limited, 2005:9)
CHILDREN ARE NOT USELESS I want peace in the whole world. I want our rights to be respected. I want no more war, no racial discrimination and I want everybody to be treated equally.
I want you not to buy arms. I want you to use that money to allow children and youngsters to study and adults to work.
I am a child and we are not useless. We do not want to be ill-treated any more because we know what happens in the world and want to be taken into account. Nicolas, aged 12 (Plan Limited, 2005:8)
I HAVE A VISION The government should make sure children’s rights are not abused and that the children themselves are aware of their rights.
Children should be protected from all sorts of physical and mental abuse that can keep them from going to school and living a good life. Medical facilities should be available for children’s health at all times and they should not be forced to work or marry. Children should not be victims of political and religious conflicts that might arise in a country. Basic necessities like food and water should always be at their reach…
Children are tomorrow’s leaders to [sic] their welfare should be looked after for them to have a better tomorrow. Dingase, aged 14 (Plan Limited, 2005:11)
ACCESSIBLE HEALTH TREATMENT Health treatment is expensive and not enough assistance is given to young people in general. Just reducing costs of medication isn’t enough. Number of doctors bulk billing is decreasing and some treatments are not covered that are necessary but unaffordable. Penny, 17 (Create Foundation, 2006:28)
4 CREATE Foundation is an Australian organisation founded in 1993 to provide a voice and opportunities for children in Australia living in out-of-home care.
Part 1
Genesis: The State as a ‘Wire-Monkey’ Parent
“The State is inherently a hard breast and dry nipple.” (Emphasis in original Scott, 2006a)
(Photograph scanned from Schickendanz, Schickendanz, Hansen, & Forsyth, 1993:234)
Using a qualitative research methodology, this thesis explores current constructions of the obligations and responsibilities of the State, in relation to the wellbeing of children and families, as articulated in the research question: Contextualised by related historical and contemporary discourses, how are obligations and responsibilities of the State concerning child and family wellbeing, currently conceptualised in Australia by individuals working at the strategic level in public policy, legislation and scholarship? 4
The language of ‘the State as [archetypal] parent5‘ was utilised throughout the research process as the working shorthand for the perspective or expectation that the State does have a responsibility in this regard.6
The ‘wire-monkey’ analogy, employed in the title of this thesis, arises from Harry Harlow’s7 experiments on attachment. In the 1950s and 1960s, Harlow undertook experiments with monkeys on the process by which babies formed attachments to their mothers. He hypothesised that the critical factor for attachment was food rewards in the form of breast milk. Using a range of constructed ‘mother monkeys’, Harlow’s experiments were to prove that warmth and contact, even when this included aversive stimuli, were as important to babies’ wellbeing as nutrition; being critical to survival as well as to healthy development (Harlow, 1958; Harlow, Dodsworth, & Harlow, 1965).
In addition to the use of the wire-monkey analogy in this Part, the thesis uses ‘metamorphosis’ as a metaphor to describe transition points in thinking that occurred during this research journey. Whilst the metaphor includes the research as the process in the journey of discovery, the metaphor is largely about the intellectual transformation, which takes the reader from a view of the State as a grossly inadequate parent, to a position describing a necessary
5 Discussion of Statehood, parenthood, family and the historical role of the State in relation to child wellbeing occur in chapter 2, State as Parent — A Chronological Study of Constructions of Childhood, Parenthood, Family and Developing State Obligations, in chapter 3, State as Parent — Individualising of Responsibility for Poor Child-rearing Outcomes: Child Protection and the Discovery of Risk, and in chapter 8, Child Rights and Citizenship — Opportunity to Gain Lost Ground. 6 A view apparently shared by Nelson Mandela, in the quote attributed to him in The Forgotten Australians: “Any nation that does not care for and protect all of its children does not deserve to be called a nation.” (Senate Community Affairs References Committee, 2004:iii). 7 Harry Harlow (1905–1981), an American psychologist best known for experiments on monkeys investigating the effects of maternal deprivation and social isolation. 5 and viable role for the State as a joint investor in what I have called the child- rearing project. The wire-monkey is a metaphor for a parent who promises much and delivers little, within a metaphor that foreshadows that a metamorphic research journey may offer paradigmatic renewal and new possibilities. Scott’s quote (2006a) cited at the beginning of Part 1, supports the wire-monkey analogy, suggesting that the State provides neither warmth nor sustenance.
Structure of the thesis The thesis, carrying a metaphor of ‘metamorphosis’, is in four parts: Genesis, Discovery and Development, Transformation, and Maturation.
Part 1 — Genesis: The State as a ‘Wire-monkey’ Parent is in three chapters. Chapter 1: Introducing the Research, locates the thesis as an evolutionary process, and describes and justifies the research. Chapter 2: State as Parent — a chronological study of constructions of childhood, parenthood, family and developing State obligations is a critical analysis of an evolving State investment in the child-rearing project. Chapter 3: Individualising responsibility for poor child-rearing outcomes: child protection and the discovery of risk, identifies a process whereby governments in the Anglo– American countries have withdrawn from taking responsibility for poor outcomes in child rearing. This chapter juxtaposes State withdrawal with the challenge for State involvement that is inherent in Bronfenbrenner’s bio- ecological theory of human development (1979; 1989; 2005a). As a context for the thesis, chapters 2 and 3 highlight how historical and modern constructions of the obligations and responsibilities of the State in relation to the wellbeing of children and families, have and continue to affect directly the capacity of families to raise their children optimally. In many respects, these chapters serve to provide a lens on the State as a ‘wire-monkey’ parent, as being historically a rigid, frigid, insensitive parent.
Part 2, The Research Process: Discovery and Development, is in three chapters that explore the development of research/er maturity within the 6 context of this research journey. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 explicitly locate the researcher, discuss research methodology and describe the research process.
Part 3, Persistent or Transformative Thinking about State Obligations to Children and Families: Findings, is in two chapters presenting the findings within the context of the chronological study of evolving State obligations, and their foci. In Chapter 7, child protection is the identified major field of interest. In Chapter 8, the findings address child rights and citizenship as the basis for State obligations to children and families.
Part 4, Maturation of the Beneficent State: Ethical Joint Investment in the Child-rearing Project by States, Communities and Families, consists of two chapters. A discussion in Chapter 9 — New Paradigm Thinking: Ethical Joint Investment in the Child-rearing Project develops the concept of ‘the State as parent’, as a generous and compassionate co-investor in the wellbeing of children and families. The final chapter is Chapter 10 — Conclusion and Future Thinking for an Ethical Joint Investment in Responsible Child Rearing by Families, Community and the State. 7
Chapter 1: Introducing the Research
This thesis explores current constructions, obligations, and responsibilities of the State8 concerning child and family wellbeing, as conceptualised at the strategic level in public policy, legislation and scholarship, and contextualised by related historical and contemporary discourses. Whilst the thesis is particularly located within the Australian context, and its Anglo– American policy and practice roots, there are parallel conversations about State responsibility occurring in all jurisdictions, and the thesis visits a number of these.
This introduction is in five sections. These sections address the background to the research, a statement of the research question, justification for the research, and definitions and delimitations.
In providing a framework for considering the rest of the thesis, this introduction directs the reader to explore parts of the thesis document, without necessarily taking the most traditional route. One lesson I have learnt from my research journeys — and there have been many excursions within the primary expedition — is that people have different ways of knowing, understanding and creating meaning. This introduction will guide the reader in finding sense and meaning whether they start with the research process, the conclusion, or somewhere closer to the formal beginnings of this document.
8 Throughout the thesis ‘the State’, the primary structure of governance, is capitalised as recommended by Fowler’s Modern English Usage (Fowler, 1988:584), and is personified figuratively (Jackson, 2004; and Lomas, 2005; Wendt, 2004; for a discussion on personification of the State see Wendt, 2005; Wight, 2004). A brief discussion covering State, nation and other emerging sovereignty regimes is to be found in Agnew (2005). 8
Background to the research I enrolled in a research degree in May 1996 when I commenced a Masters by Thesis. Informed by a background in social welfare delivery and policy, the subject of that research was the construction of an integrated model of social work practice and service delivery in the area of out-of-home, preventative and alternative care for children. My significant literature review documented the history, models and outcomes of out-of-home care, the impact of child protection practice on out-of-home care, and preventative strategies. By July 1998, I was exploring ways of describing a model of practice, which I proposed would make the relevant information more readily available to practitioners, and in so doing would enhance the quality of out-of-home care experiences and outcomes for children and their families.
Time to think during a research break, a review of progress, further reading, and critical discussion with key practitioners, led me to rethink the nature of the problem. I came to speculate that the predicament for child welfare practitioners was not that they had no access to the latest information on the consequences of out-of-home care for children, but that there was routine, inadequate translation of this knowledge into practice.9
An example of the dissonance between research evidence and practice is that despite different types of child abuse being statistically associated with distinct configurations of family circumstances (Alter, 1985; Bath & Haapala, 1993; Berrick, 1997; Polansky, Gaudin, & Kilpatrick, 1992; US Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1995:11), placement in all sorts of out-of-home care facilities is used as an undifferentiated response to child maltreatment substantiations (Berrick, 1997). In particular, neglected children often come from disorganised families with poor attachments and a failure to distinguish between the individual needs of family members. In using out-of-home care 9 as an undifferentiated response for these children, the intervention apparently parallels the destructive family dynamics of their families of origin, and appears likely to exacerbate poor attachments and add to the disorganisation experience by the children concerned (Gaudin, Polansky, Kilpatrick, & Shilton, 1996).
Focus group discussion for the Masters Thesis underscored my emerging concerns that the way in which child welfare professionals were responding to children’s needs for care and protection had become entrenched and disconnected from the current research evidence (Diamond, 1999a). Furthermore, it was difficult to identify how even an evidence-informed model for change in practice, as intended in the Masters research project, would substantially challenge existing processes. The focus group was of the opinion that out-of-home care practice was the product of inflexible and pervasive policy, process and practice issues embedded at the macro-, exo-, meso- and micro-levels of various political and organisational structures.10 The group’s view was that any expectations of transformation were
9 Recognition of difficulties in translating research into policy and practice is now emerging, with related areas of inquiry appearing on academic agendas (Scott, 2005). 10 The concepts are derived from those developed by Bronfenbrenner, over a period of more than three decades, in what is now referred to as his bio-ecological theory of human development. In part, the theory is that an individual’s ecology may be understood structurally as nested, interconnected systems, sitting one within the other. Most proximal to the individual is the micro-system of relationships between the developing individual and their immediate environment. The meso-system pertains to the system of interrelationships between the micro-systems of the individual’s world. The exo-system is closely related to the meso-system and refers to the formal and informal interrelationships and structures, not containing the individual, which impact directly on the meso-system. Finally, the system most distal from the individual is the macro-system comprising the overarching cultural processes (economic, social, legal, political etc.), of which the other systems are concrete expressions, which, as a conduit of knowledge and the cultural world view, both by declaration and inference, gives meaning to the whole of the nested system (Bronfenbrenner, 1977:514–515; 1979:3–26). 10 unrealistic without an overhaul of these, within an aggressive and unifying macro-systemic paradigm for working with children.
The focus group went on to identify a conceptualisation of the role of the ‘State as parent’ as being a necessary element in appropriate and successful development of the system of service delivery for the children in State care. Group members perceived change to the current system as being critical if the experiences of the clients (the children in care) were to improve. Outside the scope of the Masters, this informed a new question about State obligations and responsibilities to children, which became the launching pad for this doctoral thesis.
Coming to grips with the research problem and questions Research reports often imply that the neatly packaged research question, as approved in the thesis proposal and ethics application, survives the test of the research process, satisfying the demands of the methodology, the data and the journey. I am unable to report anything so sanitary, having wrestled as much with the nature of the ‘real question’, as with complexity of the data.
The original stated purpose of this research was “the exploration and development of the concept of ‘the State as parent’ as a unifying paradigm for …the aggressive overhaul and the evolution of protective services for children” (Diamond, 1999b). In hindsight I am surprised at the singularly ‘child protection’ focus of this purpose statement, as I am able to recall neither that such a focus was intended, nor able to see the evidence of that focus in the interview schedule developed at the time. I have considered the essential nature of the question, and appreciate that this was not static, but changed and matured in parallel with the essentially hermeneutical research process.
A review of the current literature, and my own experience in child-welfare service delivery, policy and program development, research, staff professional development and quality improvement, confirmed a whole-of- 11 system avoidance of the conceptualisation of the obligations and responsibilities of the State and its agents, in relation to children, families and parenting. The question arising from the Masters was around the role of ‘the State as parent’ for children in State care, and the original question for this thesis focused on protective services. It quickly became apparent, however, that there was a bigger question about the roles of the State in promoting the wellbeing of all children, and their families. It is implicit in the following quote: The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children — their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialisation, and their sense of being loved, valued and included in the families and societies into which they are born (UNICEF, 2007:1).
The final research question, of how obligations and responsibilities of the State concerning child and family wellbeing are currently conceptualised in Australia by individuals working at the strategic level in public policy, legislation and scholarship, does approximate the original concept for the research. Using Western Australia as the focus of the research, and shaped as it is by a wider conceptualisation of the issues than was permitted by either out-of-home care or child protection perspectives, this thesis explores the role of the State in broader children’s agendas than those permitted by child protection, or out-of-home care alone.
Justification for the research The 1900s saw the beginning of a century of escalating interest in the child, their needs, the location of responsibility for meeting these and the role of the State in this regard. With the development of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) and its ratification by States Parties in 1989, the international community effectively placed its imprimatur on child rights as warranting special attention, thus heralding even greater activity in this arena.
Translation and expression of UNCROC occurs at many levels: global, national, provincial, regional, communal, familial, and individual. Historical, 12 cultural and socio-political contexts influence a multitude of mechanisms directing this process. In many countries, there is simultaneously a heightened focus on the child and their needs11 and a growing reliance on policies, which at once de-individualise the child and individualise responsibility for them.12 The effect is two-fold. Firstly, the importance of family and micro-level variables in a child’s development are emphasised at the expense of consideration of systemic and macro-level influences (see for example Department of Families Housing Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, 2007; Tejero & Torrabadella, 1999). Secondly, support for a child’s development is reduced effectively to the capacity of individual parents to respond to the totality of the child’s needs. That these factors
11 This heightened focus on the child has grown over time, and is evidenced by such ‘events’ as: the emergence of the child rescue movement and the development and growth of the societies for the prevention of cruelty to children at the end of the 19th century; the development of various instruments of human rights with specific implications for the circumstances of children as in the Geneva Convention, Declaration of Human Rights and UNCROC; the re-emergence of ‘child protection’ from the 1960s onwards; the appointment of Children’s Commissioners; development of charters of child rights; a heightened consumer voice; and the growing number of inquiries into systemic failures in relation to child wellbeing, in the areas of child protection, institutionalisation, child migrants, and foster care. 12 Examples include countries which have adopted the language of ‘best interests of the child’, ‘child focused intervention’, and ‘child protection’, together with increasingly punitive and net-widening programs that punish the disadvantaged and their children for the effects of structural and social exclusion as in, for example: the progressive introduction of mandatory reporting of child abuse in the United States of America and in Australia; community control and income management to address complex social issues and long- term structural disadvantage as in the 2007 Australian Government ‘Northern Territory solution’ (Altman & Hinkson, 2007); the use Parental Responsibility Orders in the United Kingdom and Australia to address the management of intractable social and behavioural problems in children for whom there are inadequate available professional services; and New Zealand’s Working for Families package, which aimed to compensate low- and middle- income families for 20 years of economic hardship, but because of an ideological tenet that employment was the pathway out of poverty, excluded the most disadvantaged families and 230,000 children who were regarded as un- or under-employed (Kelsey, 2007). 13 should concern us is underlined by evidence from the field of public health, of a growing crisis in the wellbeing of our young, despite increasing national wealth, education and living standards. Referred to by Keating and Hertzman (1999c) as “modernity’s paradox”, the evidence of rising individual distress, despite national wealth and development, reinforces the view that systemic impact on children’s wellbeing may well exceed the influence of individual parents and families.
The roles and responsibilities of the State concerning children affect all children and all families, often in ways that are not obvious or immediately apparent. These include, but are not limited to: access to safe and healthy neighbourhood environments, education, health, housing and financial supports; parental access to child-friendly working hours or to safe alternative child-care; and humane and child-centred processes for responding to child asylum seekers and refugees.
Currently there is a lack of clarity about States’ (as in State, Federal, National governments) bottom-line responsibilities for children and how these are defined, enshrined and protected from political whim. Children around the world have a great deal to gain from the uncertainty of the status and rights of children and their families being openly debated, and ultimately from States exploring these issues and better articulating underlying logical frameworks to the conceptualisation of States’ responsibilities and obligations to children and families. Exploration of these issues has the potential to change fundamentally constitutional, legislative and policy frameworks for services and supports to children and families, the paradigmatic basis for these, the articulation of inalienable rights and the role of the State in creating environments conducive to successful child rearing. 14
Definitions a) Corporate [parent] — ‘a group of people authorised by law to act as an individual [parent] and having its own powers, duties and liabilities’ (Collins English Dictionary, 1995:358) in so doing.
b) Care and protection — may be deduced from the legal definition of a ‘child in need of care and protection’, Child Welfare Act 1947, as being the provision of conditions likely to support the mental, physical and moral development of the child.
c) Child protection — an unstable sociological construct used particularly in Anglo–American countries and those developing nations that have adopted an Anglo–American model of child and family welfare. It is usually highly regulated, and associated with legalistic, punitive intervention, and the relocation of children where families are deemed unfit to care for them. A number of contemporary child welfare cultures have no equivalent to the Anglo–American ‘child protection’ terminology and paradigm (for discussion, see for example Bering Pruzan, 1997; Cooper, 2002; Khoo, Nygren, & Hyvönen, 2002; Catherine Marneffe & Patrick Broos, 1997; Olsson Hort, 1997).
d) The Children and Community Development Bill 2003 was debated in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly before being tabled in the Western Australian Legislative Council as the Children and Community Services Bill 2003, and being passed as the Children and Community Services Act 2004.
e) Parenting and parental responsibility — are culturally defined concepts which are broadly about providing the child with the circumstances and allegiances necessary for them to successfully access culturally important relationships necessary to their 15
sustenance, growth and development. Where a parent is found wanting and their responsibilities are assumed by another, it may reasonably be expected that the subsequent parent intends being, and has an obligation to be, a better parent than the relinquishing parent.
f) The State — may be used to represent a single State or as a more global term for all States; expressed through executive decision making, parliamentary debate, policy frameworks, Public Service policy, program decisions and service delivery, target populations and exclusions; the State as an entity is virtual, and constructed from multiple parts.
g) The child/children — young people yet to attain adulthood. In many States, and certainly in Australia, a person under the age of 18 years is legally a child, albeit that some government policies also respond to persons between the ages of 18 and 25 years as if they were children13, and to children from a young age, as if they were adults14.
h) Child welfare [services] — this often highly prescribed term is used in its broadest sense, to refer to the wellbeing of children and service provision, which broadly supports the wellbeing of some, most, or all children.
13 For example, in the application of curfews to P-plate drivers (the vast majority of whom are young adults) and applying means tests to parental incomes in assessing young adults’ rights to income support. 14 The most obvious being the denial of childhood, and the associated prosecution in adult courts, in the event of certain criminal behaviour. In addition, incarceration of young asylum seekers and a failure by the State to provide adequate care and support for other young refugees released into the community. 16
i) [Children] in the care of the State — children statutorily in the care of the relevant child welfare department but not necessarily placed away from home. Other terminology includes ‘being cared for’.
j) Out-of-home care — placed away from home as a result of child welfare intervention.
k) Placing out — the mid-1800’s child welfare practice of placing children in alternative families without subsidy, with the implicit expectation that the child’s labour would ‘reimburse’ the recipient family.
l) Boarding out — the late 1800’s child welfare practice of subsidising the placement of children in alternative families; for the first time recognising, ideologically if not in reality, the newly established relationship as one of ‘care’ not ‘labour’.
Delimitations of scope and key assumptions Many of the concepts upon which the thesis is founded are highly culturally, politically and historically contextualised; they do not necessarily have direct global or universal equivalents.15 The thesis is acknowledged therefore, as being socially, culturally and politically grounded; generally West-centric, specifically Westminster-system-based, and particularly Australian and Western Australian.
The thesis is not an audit of what the broad welfare sector is doing or how effective those strategies are. It is not a comprehensive review of government policy or practices; rather it is an analysis of current
15 Notions of Statehood and nationhood (Beck, 2005, 2006), childhood (Cunningham, 2006; James & James, 2001; James & Prout, 1997; Mason & Steadman, 1997; Punch, 2003) and child protection (Diamond, 2004; Garbarino, 1998; Lonne, Parton, Thomson, & Harries, 2008; Parton & Masson, 2002; Scott, 2006b; Thorpe, 1997a; Tomison, 2001), being cases in point. 17 constructions of the State’s role and responsibilities to children and families within a particular, largely Western Australian sample.
Voices of children are conspicuous in their absence. Ethical researching with, and of, children has become a specialist endeavour. I was of the view that whilst there were likely to be research questions arising from this exploratory research, of specific interest to the children’s researcher, to include children as participants in a respectful and empowering manner was beyond the scope of this project. The role of the researcher includes decisions on which aspects of a project require prominence or placing in the foreground. Whilst the decision to exclude the voice of children from this research is considered valid, it is noteworthy, given the current debates about children’s participation and inclusion.
The same is true of the similarly manifest absence of Indigenous voices, particularly given the evidence of how poorly Indigenous children and families fare (have fared) at the hands of the State (Diamond & Villaflor, 2001; Gordon, Hallahan, & Henry, 2002; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997; Leeds et al., 2007; Meemeduma & Atkinson, undated; Mullighan, 2008b; Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, 2007; Vos, Barker, Stanley, & Lopez, 2007; Zubrick et al., 2004). The absence of any identified Indigenous voices, however, is for reasons similar to those given for the absence of children’s voices. Indigenous research is a highly specialised area of inquiry with peoples of extraordinary diversity and heterogeneity, who have regularly had their circumstances (re)constructed and exploited for outsider research. In the absence of being in a position to develop an informed Indigenous construction of the area of research interest, the decision was made not to specifically target Indigenous participants.
18
If ultimately the focus of this research is of significance for children broadly, and Indigenous children and families specifically, this would warrant separate, sensitive and targeted inquiry. 19
Chapter 2: State as Parent — A Chronological Study of Constructions of Childhood, Parenthood, Family and Developing State Obligations
Introduction Not simply as background material, but as an essential part of this inquiry, this chronological study is a critical analysis of the historical–developmental context of the State as a joint investor in the child-rearing project. This chronological study is an attempt to highlight developmental weigh-points on the journey to a modern construction of a particular intersection in the complex and poorly articulated relationship between these. It is not a definitive analysis of the evolving conceptualisation of children, childhood, parenting and their relationship with the State.
Presented are: • an historical view of constructions of childhood, parenthood, Statehood, and State encroachment on parenting, from the pre- industrial Western experience through to the specifically Western Australian experience of the late 1800s; and • early 20th century constructions of childhood, parenthood and State responsibility, including Australian and Western Australian scenarios.
These parts describe, and reflect on, how parenting and State involvement in child rearing have evolved through the centuries and given rise to both State joint investment in the child-rearing project and the concept of ‘the State as parent’. They form the backdrop to Chapter 3, and articulation of the theoretical foundations for the concept of the State as parent, and an analysis of the individualising of responsibility through both ‘child protection’ and the discovery of ‘risk’.
Deceptively, there is an implied linearity in locating chapters 2 and 3 prior to those on methodology and findings. Literature in contemporary research 20 is both part of the context and part of the data, so whilst much of the chronological analysis was undertaken prior to or during the period of data collection, some occurred with the analysis.
An historical view
THE PRE-INDUSTRIAL WESTERN EXPERIENCE Prior to the 12th century, the historical record from which to construct the complexities of family and communal life, and the relationship of these to raising children, is less formal, less accessible and more fractured.
Evidence from the available record is that human survival depended on mutual co-operation in support of communal life in which kinship, family, community and lineage dictated relationships of reciprocal responsibility (Kociumbas, 1997:xii), including more extensive mutual obligations in support of the needy, documented in Britain at least as far back as Saxon times16 (Rossbret, 2004a). Relationships and reciprocity, as is the case today, were strongest in times of stability and were undermined in periods of turmoil (see the impact of the Black Plague for example Aberth, 2005; Bowsky, 1971:91–103; Byrne, 2004; Ziegler, 1998).
Scholars in this area, such as Gottlieb (1993), Pollock (1987) and Orme (2003) have established that throughout the Western world, up until 1350 at least, when the Black Plague ushered in a period of enormous social upheaval and change, most people lived in rural17 rather than in urban environments and more people were poor than were wealthy. Contrary to popular belief, informed by images of large manorial and royal households, the commonest experience of people living in pre-18th century households was of households not dissimilar in size to those of today, albeit that the relationships occurring within the households were different. The word ‘family’, derived from the Latin famulus and meaning servant, references an
16 400–500 CE in Britain. 21 original concept of ‘family’ that did not prioritise kinship. This original understanding of family made sense of both the running of domestic establishments as economic units containing outsiders, and the pre- industrial experience of childhood, which for many children meant relocating to a non-relative’s household from a young age for the purpose of survival, economic advancement and/or training.
The traditional mechanism for the setting up of a new family unit was through a common law agreement to cohabit, often associated with an exchange of assets, in the expectation of reproduction. Rules and taboos prescribed relationships within which parenthood and kinship could, and could not, be established. As is the case today, functional, socially constructed fictions served both to strengthen valued relationships and to obscure breaches of social mores (Campbell, 2003; Meulders, 1993).
Although there is evidence as early as 527–565 CE of the regulation of some marriages, and formal recording of arrangements through the Roman Justinian Code, Christian Church involvement in marriages was absent prior to the 9th century, and then only for informally blessing common law arrangements.
It was not until the mid-1500s that the Council of Trent (1562–63) mandated formal, public marriages across social classes for English Catholics. This extended to the masses a strategy previously used solely by the wealthy to record relationships for tracking property inheritance and succession. By the 18th century, all European marriages required public religious ceremonies, and although discrimination against illegitimate children predated Christianity, Christianity introduced a heretofore-absent moral judgement on illegitimacy (Meulders, 1993:x; Rossbret, 2004a).
17 In England, 90% of the population lived in rural environments (Rossbret, 2004a). 22
The requirement for public and recorded marriage was an example of growing administrative, quasi-legal intervention in families, extending outsider social involvement beyond the immediate community to a larger system and more formal interference in people’s lives. Prior to the advent of ‘the State’ and associated legislation, arrangements of this type were associated particularly with growing interference from religious institutions, occupational guilds, and feudal overlordship.
It is generally argued that, notwithstanding evidence of loving, compassionate nurturing by parents, historically children were valued primarily as economic assets without status as individuals, and that as assets they were managed and traded. Boswell’s research (1988:428, cited in Eekelaar, 1993:52) indicates that from at least 323 BCE (the Hellenistic period) through to the end of the 18th century, the care of between 20% and 40% of all (surviving) children was either formally transferred from the biological parents to others, or displaced by circumstances. Informal social arrangements in all social strata, abandonment, enslavement, trafficking and donation contributed to this figure (Meulders, 1993; Orme, 2003; Pollock, 1983, 1987).
It is also estimated that up to 40% of children did not survive their first birthday, and three-quarters of children failed to reach adulthood (Gottlieb, 1993:133). Those realities no doubt contributed to an environment in which adult roles and responsibilities were assumed early. The fact that dress failed to differentiate between adults and children, and developmental and sexual changes were not of particular interest, may also have contributed to a tension between consideration for, and disinterest in, children (Gottlieb, 1993:132–151; Kociumbas, 1997:xii).
Rather than being a measure of any lack of importance placed on children, such figures may reflect a lack of agency experienced by individuals generally, the realities of poverty and short life spans, and the specific 23 powerlessness of most parents to control the upbringing of their children and to provide for them. Furthermore, aside from locally transacted, private arrangements, which are now more usually construed as being callous and unthinking, pre-industrial Europe had limited alternatives for the care of children whose parents and communities had succumbed to such problems as epidemic, famine, injury, natural disaster, religious persecution and/or invasion. In addition, the majority of parents had few choices, beyond placement and marriage, for advancing the social standing of their children.
We know that pre-industrially, harm to children by both kin and non-kin was recognised. There are documented cases of physical violence, spiritual exploitation, sexual misconduct and prostitution (Orme, 2003:100–106) involving children, and of parents being charged by the Church, to provide safe care of their infants, including baptism (Cunningham, 2006:21–28). As early as the 7th century there is some evidence of overlords and the Church supporting foundlings (Orme, 2003:95–6), and by the 13th century there is evidence of legal mechanisms for punishing any who harmed a child (Cunningham, 2006:26).
One of the first structural responses to children’s circumstances, however, was specifically in relation to poverty, with the beginnings of modern Statehood and its formal legal systems. The Poor Relief Act of 160118 established English Poor Law. One might argue that this was the historical birthplace of an implicit notion of ‘the State as parent’.
Today, constructions of childhood in the period of the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries are contested. Historians of the 1960s–1970s have influenced current understandings. They argued that prior to the 17th
18 This remained on the statute books until 1930. Poor Law required that grandparents provided for children unable to be cared for by their parents, and failing that, that the children resorted to alms, the workhouse (a parish responsibility), or were forced into apprenticeships or emigration (Hegar & Scannapieco, 1995:204; Rossbret, 2004b). 24 century, European constructions of childhood were limited to an acknowledgement of infancy, and an understanding of later childhood as little more than a period of inadequate adulthood. What little interest there was in children, they suggested, was largely related to boys over the age of seven to ten years who were considered ready for training or schooling away from the influence of women (Gottlieb, 1993:132–151; Kociumbas, 1997:xii; Orme, 2003:3–10). Writers noted for their promulgation of this view include Philippe Ariès19 (1914–1984), Lloyd de Mause20 (1931– ) and Lawrence Stone21 (1919–1999). Philippe Ariès is probably distinguished as being the most influential with L’Enfant et la Vie Familiale sous l’Ancien Régime (1960) translated into English in 1962, as Centuries of Childhood.
Strong challenges are now being raised to the suggestions by the above historians that children of the twelfth to seventeenth centuries were routinely disregarded and undervalued (Hill & Tisdall, 1997; Orme, 2003; Pollock, 1983:103–107). Although there is greater surviving evidence of the recognition of childhood from the period of the Industrial Revolution onwards, this can be explained as an artefact of the volume and survivability of contemporaneous media of expression, rather than a shift in the importance of children. Furthermore, evidence of prior recognition of childhood, from sources such as everyday language, children’s games, canon law, toys, philosophy, schooling materials and common law, is rich
19Philippe Ariès, (1962), Centuries of Childhood, translated from the French by Robert Baldick, London UK, Jonathon Cape. Ariès was a French medievalist and social historian. 20 Lloyd de Mause (Ed), (1974), The History of Childhood: The Evolution of Parent Child Relationships as a Factor in History, New York USA, Psychohistory Press. Lloyd de Mause is an American-born and educated psychoanalysts and psychohistorian. He is currently Director of the Institute of Psychohistory (based in New York), editor of The Journal of Psychohistory and president of the International Psychohistory Association. 21 Lawrence Stone, (1977), The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500–1800, London UK, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. A Sorbonne- and Oxford-educated social historian, he spent the latter part of his life at Princeton where he was Founding Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Centre for Historical Studies. 25 and varied. Such evidence suggests that earlier understandings of childhood differ from later understandings more in the detail, than in the substance (Cunningham, 2006:28–42; Orme, 2003:3–10; Pollock, 1983:203–271).
The experiences of children, and understandings of childhood, vary widely across class, social status and gender. Just as today it is fallacious and simplistic to attempt a construction of the global experience of childhood (James & Prout, 1997:1–5; Woodhead, 1997:63–84), so too was the case previously, with historically familiar, more accessible constructions consistently being those of the upper and middle classes of the Western world.
Evidence is that parents have probably always understood childhood as in some respects requiring special consideration and being different from adulthood, but that by the late 1700s a different sensitivity to children and their needs began to proliferate in Western languages. The more widely described position of valuing children in their own right, and nurturing individual development, replaced an earlier view that children were easily corrupted and primarily required control by parents (Hendricks, 1997:34– 39; Pollock, 1987:11). If one accepts the growing evidence, however, that this view is a misrepresentation (Orme, 2003; Pollock, 1983), it would conduce to an alternative understanding. That is, rather than ushering in substantive changes to the way individual parents, kin and communities valued children, the Industrial Revolution marked a period of changing public constructions of childhood, including the universalising of these constructions through the growing middle class, and changes in the State’s relationship with children.
Modern Statehood, and the foundation of international law that recognises sovereign States as cohesive, self-governing entities able to be held externally accountable, has its origins in the Treaty of Westphalia22 (October
22 A treaty to which England was not a signatory. 26
1648). Although the Treaty gave absolute power to sovereigns, it was only a matter of months before John Locke, in crafting the English Parliament’s prosecution of Charles I of England, used the Bible, the law of nations and common law to conceive the end to hereditary dictatorship. At the trial of Charles Stuart, it was argued that the King was not a person, but an office, the occupants of which are entrusted to behave legally and in the interests of the people (Robertson, 2005), thereby confirming the earlier implicit existence of a notion of ‘the State as parent’. The ramifications of the successful prosecution of Charles Stuart were that heads of States are held legally responsible for the internal and external consequences of their decisions, and that the State has an ongoing duty to preserve the wellbeing of the people (Robertson, 2005).
In summary, pre-Industrial Revolution families were primarily units of economic activity, occupation, training, income generation and improvement of status, which negotiated their child-rearing practices socially, in community. Individual philanthropy and mutual co-operation, delivered through kinship and community relationships, were local, informal mechanisms for responding to unmet need. As Statehood emerged and the Industrial Revolution approached, so there was a growth in external quasi- legal structures and administrative processes which began affecting all levels of families’ bio-ecological environments.
THE BEGINNING OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION TO THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN CHILD, MID-1700S — LATE 1800S The Industrial Revolution was a period of rapid change marked by the development of industry through early mechanisation and technological advances, which in the United Kingdom (UK) occurred in the period late 1700s to early 1800s. The pre-Industrial/Industrial Revolution distinction signals a change in both the membership of families and in the activities in which families engaged. Furthermore, the transition in the role of families and the function of parenting, a development that may be characterised as a move from public to private activity, paralleled an evolution in the 27 phenomenon of Statehood and an unfolding of roles for that entity in both public and private spheres.
Pre-industrially, the welfare of needy children was largely outside the control of the State. Post-Industrial Revolution, loyalty to community and kin, already battered by the impact of recurrent plagues in destroying rural communities and livelihoods, and fracturing community and kinship ties23, was further challenged by the amplified importance and power of sovereignty and religion. In a reflection of these patriarchal gains, the power of fathers as undisputed heads of households was also augmented (Kociumbas, 1997:xii).
Childhood in the period of the Industrial Revolution, mid-1700s – mid-1800s, was marked by not only the impact of industrialisation24 but also by The Enlightenment25 and the complex and changing abstract conceptualisations of childhood. Occurring first in the new middle class, enabled by a surplus of resources, emerging constructions of childhood addressed matters including the child as a person deserving of childhood and the child’s value to the State as a future contributing member of society (Hendricks, 1997; Kociumbas, 1997; Pollock, 1983; Vandergriff, 2002).
Debate on the essential nature of children, which began in the 1680s, was cultivated by the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), who in 1693 published Some Thoughts Concerning Education portraying children as tabulae rasae, or blank tablets, and rejecting previously held notions of
23 For discussions on the impact of plague on the function and integrity of families and communities see inter alia, Aberth (2005) Bowsky (1971) Gottfried (1983) and Ziegler (1998). 24In this instance the term ‘industrialisation’ is inclusive of well known associated developments in urbanisation, print media, education, class politics, poverty, and social and economic order. 25 The Enlightenment (1650–1790) was a philosophical movement in which reason, as opposed to tradition and prejudice, was applied to religion and moral development. The Enlightenment overlapped the beginning of the period of the Industrial Revolution. 28 innate depravity. Fundamentally, this early work nurtured the polarised early 18th century debate on the nature of children.
Bracketing the extreme theories of childhood, were the founder of Methodism, John Wesley (1703–1791) and the French philosopher Jean Jacque Rousseau (1712–1778). Wesley’s evangelical preaching incited parents to break their child’s will, and in the interests of subjecting them to the will of God, to subject them to theirs (the parents’). Rousseau, on the other hand, perceived children as being constitutionally innocent, although corruptible by nature. His was a timely philosophy, meshing with a general sensitivity to the natural world and beliefs in the goodness of nature. Emphasising the child as a person in their own right, Rousseau’s 1762 publication Emile was a radical and foundational contribution to developing Western notions of childhood (Hendricks, 1997:36–37).
By the mid-1700s, the Romantic Movement dominated European literature and art. Two characterisations of the romantic child, as epitomised by English romantic poets, jostled for ascendancy in what was an elitist construction of childhood. William Blake’s concept of childhood was of a font of innocence, to be nurtured in adulthood as a lifelong source of enrichment. The contrary Wordsworthian representation was of a child endowed with goodness and God’s blessings at birth; a paradisiacal state forever lost with the passing of childhood. A Wordsworthian view survived as the basis of Victorian26 understandings of childhood through the last half of the 19th century (Hendricks, 1997:37–38).
Romantic notions of childhood gave way to evangelical constructions. A domestic ideal transpired, of a family bound by duty, love, respect and the authority of the male head of household. This bourgeois nonpareil included (good, middle class, non-working) mothers taking control of their
26 Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of Great Britain and Ireland 1837–1901. 29
(legitimate) children’s upbringing in prolonged childhoods enabled by wealth.
Such was the pressure from industry in Great Britain, however, for free labour in the late 1700s, that child labour from the lower classes became a ubiquitous accepted presence, particularly in mines and factories. In a calamitous irony, additional labour became available as peasants and their children, previously surviving through cottage industry and animal husbandry, became factory fodder because of their inability to compete with industrialised, large-scale production in an increasingly cash-based economy. During this period, foundling homes were overwhelmed by the demand caused by child abandonment, an effect which eventually resulted in increased State intervention in child welfare (Cunningham, 2006; Hendricks, 1997; Kociumbas, 1997).
A debate beginning in the 1780s saw the norm of a working or wage-earning child replaced. A campaign which was ultimately for a civilised Christian society, against the exploitative, brutalising, unnatural impact of industrialisation, and in favour of the more recognisably modern understanding of childhood as a distinct stage, warranting education and protection, had materialised fully by the 1840s (Hendricks, 1997:39–40). Three pivotal considerations assisted in the reconstruction of notions of childhood. Firstly, as a result of legislative debate, an understanding emerged that children were critically different from adults and not free to contract out their labour. Secondly, the anti-slavery movement gave impetus to an impression of the labouring child as an enslaved and brutalised child (Kociumbas, 1997:26–27). Thirdly, a debate about the natural order of society, which included consideration of gender, class, economics and power, further reinforced the natural place of (unwaged) children in the patriarchal family structure, with a wage-earning head of household (Cunningham, 2006:102–175; Hendricks, 1997:41; Jamrozik & Sweeney, 1996:21–26). 30
Legislation distinguishing between childhood and adulthood began to appear. It was upon this essential difference, legally established in Great Britain in relation to child labour in the Factory Act 1833, that other constructions of children being distinct from adults began evolving, and the modern Western universality of childhood was founded.
Researchers such as Pollock (1983; 1987), Jamrozik (1996), Cunningham (2006), and Orme (2003) submit that theorising about children, a pursuit of the better off and more educated, through a variety of circumstances came to affect children other than those of the upper and middle classes. Greater resource distribution made a difference in the lives and opportunities of all (Western) children. However, possibly at no other time in history was there a greater discrepancy between the middle class ideal and the working class reality of childhood, than was the case in the mid-1800s. Although the imagined middle class childhood of play and protection was largely a fantasy, with children of the better off also being subject to strong discipline and authoritarian controls, and the vagaries of care by servants and at boarding schools, the circumstances of working class children, as a population group, were dire. When not working in extreme and unsafe conditions, they were being managed by the State as a social problem.
Through the period of the Industrial Revolution, child welfare, amongst other affairs, increasingly became a matter of State concern. Identification of the State’s eleemosynary duty, in relation to children and others in need, anticipated a transition from private philanthropy to the welfare State, and what Hendricks (1997:34) refers to as “an increasingly compulsory relationship between the State, the family and child welfare”, marked in law by greater scrutiny and reporting of children’s circumstances.
In a manner not achieved by romantic conceptualisations of childhood, evangelical notions of original sin, and the importance of training and work, 31 synchronised with the Industrial Revolution’s requirement for free labour. This in turn resulted in State responsibility for child welfare, originally expressed largely at the local community (parish) level (Rossbret, 2004a), being subject to greater State level intervention and control.
The government began intervening in the lives of children and families in response to a growing range of concerns. These were about the welfare of children, juvenile crime, parental criminality (Kociumbas, 1997:1–6), child homelessness, incidence of harm to children and the failure of charitable organisations to manage existing problems (Cunningham, 2006:102–109). Early in the Industrial Revolution, the rationale for intervention was informed by the perceived importance of hard work in addressing the child’s potential for corruption and providing an opportunity for removing children from corrupt environments. By the end of the 1800s, the anti-slavery movement and emerging conceptualisations of childhood had resulted in a movement away from hard labour and institutionalisation, and towards compulsory education and non-institutional placements as mechanisms for State intervention for children removed from their parents.
By the end of the 19th century, this emerging modern Western childhood was further refined in two enduring strategies. The first of these, compulsory education, delivered to all children universal access to a period of non- waged, child-focused learning and development. The second, apparent in child rescue and the reformation of delinquent children, was essentially social control of the poor against middle class, normative child-rearing frameworks (Hendricks, 1997; Jamrozik & Sweeney, 1996).
The Industrial Revolution signalled the commencement of a centuries-long strategy that continues today, of significant State intervention in poor and disadvantaged families through the removal and relocation of their children (Cook, 1995; Everitt, 2008; Hacsi, 1995; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997; Humphreys, 1997; Kociumbas, 1997:6–9; Swift, 1995; 32
Toth, 1997). ‘Othering’ of both the parent and child recipients of State intervention, by labelling them as bad or immoral, emerged during this period, as the State increasingly took on direct parenting responsibility (Gillingham & Bromfield, 2008; Jamrozik & Sweeney, 1996:89; Kociumbas, 1997:25–27). Whilst in these early years the vast majority of affected parents and children were poor Englishmen and colonists across the empire, Indigenous peoples, and subsequently other ethnic minorities, began to bear the long-term brunt of this repudiation (McGillivray, 1997).
In a cascade of colonisation, transportation of British children27 and adults occurred from the early 1600s onwards. Commencing with the transportation of felons to New England, the geographical solution addressed a variety of problems at home and in the colonies. Quite clearly, to the extent that they were considered at all, the effects on children of being orphaned or abandoned through the transportation of either themselves or their parent(s) were deemed secondary to other considerations including population and crime control, punishment, management of overcrowding in facilities at home, and the management of labour shortages overseas. Furthermore, by the early 19th century, the notion of a fresh start also justified the relocation of children.
The ultimate circumstances of one hundred and fifty thousand children who were transported and later subject to forced emigration over a period of about two-and-a-half centuries, included: apprenticeship; indenture; adoption; child migration; placement in orphanages, asylums and other arrangements; and abandonment and homelessness. Overwhelmingly, children experienced permanent dislocation from kith and kin, ongoing trauma, and abuse. The history of State relocation and transportation of children is explored in detail by childhood historians such as Cook (1995), Hacsi (1995), Hill (2008), Holman (1986), the Human Rights and Equal
27 According to Hill (2008:xix), “Britain is the only country in history to have exported its children.” 33
Opportunity Commission (1997), Humphreys (1997), Swift (1995) and Toth (1997).
In the United States of America (USA), Australia, Canada and elsewhere, the same strategies of child removal became the models for early missionary intervention with Indigenous people, removing the children from extended families and communities for rearing in the dominant culture. Where the State was involved, the removal suffered by Indigenous children was for the stated purpose of schooling and training (Gottlieb, 1993:141–143; Hegar & Scannapieco, 1995:204; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997; Orme, 2003:88, 96).
Australia: colonisation to the late 1800s Colonisation of Australia was achieved with seven hundred convicts, some women and fifty children, and four hundred administrators who left Britain in 1787, establishing the colony of New South Wales in 1788. With absolute authority delegated from England, Governor Arthur Phillip oversaw an open jail model.
Governor Phillip quickly appreciated that the very inadequate provisioning of the First Fleet, and the extreme nature of the Australian environment, meant that self-sufficiency in the new colony was not easily achieved. Whilst most people would be significantly dependent on government stores and resources, some such as the sick, the mentally ill, and children required particular additional assistance.
In the period 1788–1835, social welfare in the colonial settlements of Australia was largely the province of government (for detailed discussion, see scholars such as Dickey, 1987; Jamrozik & Sweeney, 1996; Kociumbas, 1997). Whilst subsistence-level support was provided for the needy, action to alleviate destitution was limited and of low priority. As the colony matured, government encouraged public charities to assist the weak and the marginalised, using volunteer support, and local and imperial funds. Most 34 assistance was provided as outdoor relief in the form of food or materials. There were few institutional facilities and those that did develop were disciplinary and austere.
In an extremely simplified and binary expression of the mother country’s class structure, this early Australian28 community consisted of two broad groups in the first fifty years post-colonisation. There were the elite, whose status was determined by military commission, membership of the British landed gentry, or professional or religious status, and the poor, primarily comprising convicts and ticket-of-leave men, augmented by a growing working class. In this, at first binary and later more complicated classist reality, the experiences of children and childhood were linked inextricably to the children’s status (Jamrozik & Sweeney, 1996:53–88, 100–101).
Twenty-five thousand children under the age of 18 years, of both genders, are estimated to have been transported to Australia in the years 1788–1868. This represented 15% of the transported population, with boys transported at five times the rate of girls (Kociumbas, 1997:21).
Driven by a constellation of circumstances in Great Britain, child transportation numbers peaked by the mid-1800s. Contributory conditions included high breadwinner unemployment exacerbated by men returning from the Napoleonic Wars, high child unemployment resulting from the percentage of the population under 19 years of age and a change in labour laws restricting the employment of children, and the criminalisation of previously tolerated young people’s behaviour leading to moral panic about
28 The term ‘Australian’ is used for simplicity. In reality the colonies of New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia were separate entities until federation in 1901 rendered them “the sovereign states of the Commonwealth of Australia” which also exercised administrative control of the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory and a number of off-shore sites (Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1986:49). 35 a rise in juvenile delinquency. During this period, new theorising on such matters as penal reform, character, sexuality and religion influenced State intervention. An ideal of educational and penitential incarceration, driven by a reformist agenda to extend a childhood of innocence to poor and working class children, was at odds with labour demands. A child rescue-and- protection movement began to take shape, justified by blaming parents for the poor circumstances in which children and families found themselves.
Compared to Britain at the time, birth rates in the colonies were at first relatively high, infant mortality relatively low, with circumstances conspiring to increase the chance of illegitimate births and single parent families (Kociumbas, 1997:38–49). Eventually, growing numbers of illegitimate children in the colonies raised concerns about another criminal generation. Incarceration of children, and encouraging marriage between adults, became the twin strategies for tackling the problem. Promotion of marriage was thought to encourage men to exercise their paternal responsibilities.
Incarceration of the children punished inadequate parents by depriving them of their children’s labour, and creating a condition of credentialing parents for obtaining their children’s release. In addition, institutionalisation ensured children were educated and trained as an unskilled and semi- skilled labour force. These mechanisms of institutionalisation and prolonged control served to extend to poor children a semblance of the protracted childhood of the elite. Whilst charities were sometimes involved in this area of welfare provision, its long-term nature and limited successes meant responsibility rested largely with government.
The effect of a new concern for (poor) children was intervention that often delivered harsher conditions than they had experienced previously, with a range of secondary penalties arising from the disciplinary and retraining environment. Much of the practice within the new institutions was abusive and traumatising in the extreme, replicating conditions of adult institutions, 36 and ultimately fuelling debates on the direction of penal reform in Australia and in the United Kingdom.
As in Europe, class, race and gender mediated the impact of the new thinking, its greatest relevance being for wealthy upper and middle classes, and raising male property heirs. Australia, the child of the Empire, adopted conservative attitudes. Notions of childhood innocence were tainted with punitive intent when “applied across class and gender to ‘save’ children whose parents could not match the prescribed, child-rearing ideal” (Kociumbas, 1997:xvii).
With expansion of the colonies, even many committed fathers found, in the early years, that Australian conditions failed to support family stability and wellbeing. Dangerous, poorly paid, seasonal and frontier work such as land clearing and sealing took the men away from their families. In their absence, families were left dependent on government handouts, a situation exacerbated initially by a complete absence of family networks but which started to abate by the 1840s as related families or clans began to congregate near one another.
The period to the mid-1800s saw the colonisation of Western Australia in 1829, Victoria in 1835, South Australia in 1836 and Queensland in 1859. A move away from government dependence, the progressive withdrawal of British support for its colonies, and a shift towards laissez-faire capitalism, with an emphasis on property, investment and waged labour, dominated the separate economies. Informed by an ideology of liberal individualism, financial institutions promoted saving and investment as the keys to escaping poverty (for a detailed commentary on this era see Dickey, 1987).
Ultimately, however, as a consequence of the laissez-faire capitalist ideal, Australian society, through the mid- to late 1800s, began to view the destitute, sick, elderly and defenceless as being undeserving, having failed 37 to protect themselves financially against times of need. With financial viability and independence being the intended outcome of social welfare services, these focused on the deserving. Returning labourers to the workforce and training apprentices received much greater priority than women and children, the sick, the elderly, Aboriginal people and the mentally ill, who were regarded as hopeless cases as they were unable to be rehabilitated. Absent from the discourse was any debate on the equitable distribution of resources in addressing either rights or needs.
Whilst governments remained largely responsible for addressing social welfare concerns, a model was born for using incorporated, government sponsored, public societies to provide for capital costs in the delivery of government social welfare, in the less attractive aspects of social intervention. The dual systems of government and charity which arose in both England and parts of the USA remained absent from the Australian service provision landscape, where charity was dependent on, and dominated and mediated by, government.
For the Australian colonies generally, the 1870s and 1880s were a time of some stability, prosperity and growth. Several of the younger colonies were getting on for thirty years old. There was interest from overseas investors, developing infrastructure and facilities, a growing middle class and heightened debate on social issues and conditions. These provided opportunities for reflecting on achievements to date, planning for the future with renewed resources and reviewing practices.
A long period of economic collapse in Australia from 1890 saw the dominant economic ideology shifting dramatically from an individualistic, capitalist, free enterprise model to one favouring universal rights. This changed the face of Australian welfare practice. The notion of a basic wage (living wage) developed in a political climate of growing trade union membership and politicisation of the working classes. Debate occurred on responsibility for 38 health care, and welfare programs targeting children, invalids and the elderly.
In the face of suffering economic ruin from bank closures in the depression, the middle classes led a review of dominant beliefs regarding the respective roles of environment and character in determining individual success. Quite suddenly, environment and life chances were attributed greater importance than previously, and governments and charities began to provide more assistance to all in need. Australia’s first unemployment benefits and boarding out allowances for destitute mothers were paid in the 1890s.
Kociumbas (1997) describes how, coincidental with a new appreciation for the impact of environment on wellbeing, impressive advances occurred in nursing, particularly in sanitation and infection control, affecting attitudes to large-scale institutional care in all areas. In addition, there was a new environment of middle class exaltation of childhood and the family home. In this, Australia supported an ideal of mothers caring directly for their children, without the use of nannies; children being in the centre of the home, not relegated to the nursery, and children even becoming visible in public spaces, such as at church.
A bizarre twist in this construction resulted in childhood and children, not for the first time, becoming the battleground for good and evil, sexuality and innocence. The status of women was elevated, as they became children’s domestic champions. Men, whilst retaining their position as authoritarian protectors, were also cast as potential predators, both sexual and economic.
With their newfound authority on hygiene, raising children and domestic matters, middle class women were eager to extend their role to the moral education and deliverance of poor women and their children. This goodwill was conditional, expressed by managing benevolent institutions for orphans, 39 prostitutes and destitute women, and dispensing relief. Early paupers’ schools also arose out of this wave of feminised morality.
Liberals of the period saw education, and sexual segregation, as providing the key for children to escape their (working) class-bound backgrounds. In any event, developing technologies and industries required a better educated, more literate workforce, so universal education, whilst politically and economically motivated, was justified on the basis of child rights; the State became the innocent child’s champion and in so doing protected the child from labour exploitation and parental neglect. Paradoxically, the reality was that compulsory, universal education from the 1870s onwards, imposed on working class children a male middle class view of the discipline and control required by the poor: male domestic dominance, female subservience, strict gender stereotyping and containment of women to domestic roles.
Although in the early stages high levels of absenteeism were accepted, by the 1890s families are being fined for ‘truancy’ (Kociumbas, 1997:112–129). This was followed up with a tightening of labour laws in relation to children, and in New South Wales and Victoria, Factory Acts passed in the 1890s restricted the employment of children less than 14 years of age.
Introduced from the 1890s onwards, among the elite initially, extended education for children aged twelve to twenty reflected the emerging concept of ‘adolescence’. In addition, extending education to this age group paralleled growth of the sciences, professions and public service, which demanded a workforce with more extensive education, including a growing number of university graduates. An extended girls’ education was also made available through new denominational ladies’ colleges, which focused on teaching traditional class values and virtuous feminine behaviour.
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A newfound authority emerged in women. This arose from the movement sanctifying the home and childhood, and combined with a vision for rescuing poor children, served to hasten a re-assessment of the role of institutionalised care, and to promote boarding out or foster care for children who were the responsibility of the State. As a result, boarding out was used increasingly for children from the 1860s onwards, and by 1870 public censure of institutional care was overwhelming. The result was that by 1880, institutionalisation had been brought into disrepute as a system of providing care for dependent and needy children (Dickey, 1987; Kociumbas, 1997).
In reality, however, institutional care did not disappear altogether. Many children were returned from their new foster homes for being corrupt, incorrigible, dirty, infectious, lazy or otherwise unsuitable. Furthermore, far from experiencing the new middle class childhood and domestic ideal that was anticipated as part of a remedial boarding out experience, many children were placed in rural homes where the boarding out allowance and the children’s free labour were essential to the basic survival of the foster family.
As the century closed and middle-class birth rates declined, unemployed working class young people became more visible and concerning. Outsiders associated them with promiscuity, criminality and threatening behaviour. Increasing incidence of venereal disease and risk taking behaviour appeared to confirm worst fears, setting up this class for a new round of control informed by the emerging biomedical sciences.
There were two aspects to Australia’s response to the needs of children and families, which are of interest at this point. The first of these relates to the fact that unlike England, which was a nation State, Australia at this stage was a series of dependent British colonies. Where England began articulation of obligations of the State towards families in 1601 (Poor Law), and commenced and implemented a process of taxation and provision, the Australian colonies 41 were in a very different position. Australia had neither the Statehood necessary to make independent decisions about State obligations, nor in the absence of this status, the power to require Great Britain to meet those obligations. Nor did Australia have the population and economy necessary to support an adequate, independently derived, taxation base. The second aspect to Australia’s response to the needs of children and families is related to the long-term impact of Australia’s founding as a penal colony, and consequent attitudes and normative frameworks, which have underlined a continuing expectation of government dominance in social welfare provision (Dickey, 1987:24).
Indigenous Australians At the time of the European settlement, some 600 different Aboriginal language groups populated the Australian continent. Although there were a wide variety of political and economic frameworks informing group governance, all of the language groups managed religious, law, cultural and social matters within large kinship networks without wealth-based class structures.
In an analysis and reconstruction of the available Aboriginal history, Kociumbas (1997) provides insight into the rich and complex relationship that Australia’s Indigenous people have had with one another and the environment, and how this relates to their historical construction of adult– child relationships.
Derived as they were from a shared cosmology defining a Dreaming or spiritual ancestry, tradition, and associated responsibilities and rights, the Aboriginal peoples’ relationships with the land were a source of material and spiritual sustenance. As a survival strategy, in a very harsh environment, individual needs were subjugated to group interests with individual responsibilities to each other prescribed by gender, kin relationship, totem and status. Knowledge was handed down in oral and symbolic traditions in 42 which elder tribesmen and women had special status as storehouses of the collective memory.
From the time of birth, children embarked on a journey of discovery of their identity, as inherited from their parents and the spirituality of their birthplace. In this, the children were assisted by a network of related adults with shared responsibility for imparting knowledge necessary to the child’s survival and socialisation, largely by example and participation.
Colonists invading Australia had little or no understanding or experience of indigenous cultures generally or of the Aboriginal cultures specifically. Their role was to control and settle the continent and impose British rule. This was achieved by subjugating the land and the Aboriginal peoples in a manner dictated by the highly gendered, hierarchical, class-based and culture- bound frame of reference embodied by official thinking.
In the same way that working class children did not, either ideologically or in reality, have access to the same childhood as middle class children, so Aboriginal children captured or rescued by white colonists were not perceived as having the same right to a childhood. Aboriginal children were regarded as curiosities by wealthier colonists and were expected to act, as they were able, as interpreters, or to undertake domestic and outside labour.
Exploited in a number of ways, including sexually, Aboriginal women and the resulting children did not have access to the same paternal care and obligation as non-Aboriginal children.
Expansion of the pastoral frontier resulted in increased enslavement of, and violence towards, Aboriginal men, women and children. In some quarters, the planned extermination of Aboriginal people led to the specific targeting of women and children for mutilation and killing (Kociumbas, 1997:1–20), 43 activities apparently beyond official control and/or interest (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:28).
In a mirroring of the reformist zeal of the liberal middle classes, in relation to the depravity of the working classes, missionaries eventually brought a religious, moral and political conformist agenda to bear on the Aboriginal population. Although mission schooling and training were expected to shape an obedient and temperate workforce for the future, the movement was initially frustrated by the missionaries’ belief in indigenous peoples’ depravity, primitivism and evolutionary inferiority, and the reluctance of Aboriginal Australians to release their children. By the 1830s, missionaries were implementing a strategy of coercive removal and rescue, ahead of a pastoralist-led militia campaign of eradication of Aboriginal people.
As yet unprotected by British law, by the 1840s pastoralists were arguing that as a dying race the Aboriginal people’s unprotected status should continue. Humanitarians on the other hand were using the same notion of ‘dying race’ to add urgency to the argument that the law should enable the rescue of Aboriginal children from their parents and the traditional lifestyle. The result was a dramatic fall in the Aboriginal birth rate, and a corresponding rise in child mortality amongst ‘rescued’ family groups and children (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:28; Kociumbas, 1997:1–20).
In summary, this period resulted in traditional, socially organised, community-based Aboriginal family and child-rearing practices being negatively affected by an evolving State “colonization of Aboriginal childhood” (McGillivray, 1997:136). Overall, white settlement and associated massacre, warfare, disease, land acquisition, diet and then social engineering, had a long-term decimating effect on the population and culture of Indigenous Australians (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:28; Kociumbas, 1997:1–20). Despite this calamitous beginning, and the continuing and growing intrusion of the State on 44
Aboriginal child rearing, the evidence (Enembaru, 2001; Kearins, 2001) is that traditional Aboriginal Australian family and child-rearing models have survived into the 21st century, and could possibly provide a case study on the ill-informed focus of State involvement.
By the latter half of the 19th century, missionaries were so horrified by the disease, malnutrition and destitution suffered by Aboriginal people forced to the fringes of their traditional lands in New South Wales, that they lobbied the government and the public for reserved lands to be put aside for the sole use of Aboriginal people (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997).
The various States all pursued segregation as a strategy for managing the appalling conditions of the Aboriginal peoples: malnutrition, childhood infectious diseases, tuberculosis, prostitution and destitution. Aboriginal Protectors attempted to manage Aboriginal reserves and people brought under their control. Segregation policies were introduced particularly aimed at separating ‘half-caste’ and neglected Aboriginal children from traditional family and community groups.
There followed an extended period through to the mid-20th century, steeped in an ideology of integration, assimilation and dilution, and a specific aim of dispersing mixed-race children through the community. Aboriginal men, routinely exploited as cheap labour at the frontiers of white settlement, were paid wages in kind that were not transferable to their families who were often left unsupported on mission reserves. The expectation was that recognisably Aboriginal people would ‘die out’ (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:28–29, 39–41, 57–59, 71–72, 119–120, 131– 132).
The activities of two government instrumentalities warrant particular mention; these were in Tasmania and the Northern Territory. Tasmanian 45 colonists adhered to a rigorous eradication policy, which in 1830 included a ‘search line’ of 2000 men strung out across the island to force Aboriginal people onto two remote south-eastern peninsulas. Despite the failure of this particular manoeuvre, by the 1880s most remaining Tasmanian Aboriginal people had removed themselves to Cape Barren Island, in the Tasman Sea off the north-east coast of Tasmania (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:91–93).
The Northern Territory, under the control of South Australia from 1863, had been leased by 1903 exclusively to non-Aboriginal settlers, with Aboriginal people moved to the fringes of their lands and pastoral stations. The extreme environment and inaccessibility discouraged most mission activity until the 20th century. Prior to this, the only mission presence was that of the Lutherans at Hermannsburg (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:131:132).
A lack of non-Aboriginal women in the Northern Territory resulted in most settlers forming relationships with Indigenous women. The children of these relationships were raised largely in Aboriginal community groups. By 1890, the public concern expressed about the presence of a significant number of light-skinned children in Aboriginal communities, and the sexual exploitation of the female children by non-Aboriginal men, resulted in the appointment of a Protector of Aborigines for the Northern Territory who commenced a process of removal of Aboriginal children (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:131:132).
Ideologies of white male supremacy and Darwinian theories of survival of the fittest informed the eradication, control and management approaches taken by colonists towards Aboriginal people. Day-to-day interaction was informed by ignorance, cruelty, fear and suspicion, and certainty arising from power and position. Techniques applied to the control of the working classes were exaggerated in relation to Aboriginal populations whose 46 extreme vulnerability and social, economic and political disenfranchisement exacerbated the consequences. Whereas this period focused on (re)education of the working classes and the rescue of some children, separation, containment and seizure of children appeared to be the more punitive interventions preferred for Aboriginal people. The sweeping and negative impact of well-meaning intervention experienced by Aboriginal people at the end of the 19th century continues today at the beginning of the 21st and arguably, the impact on children continues to be the least well understood and the most extreme (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:423–558).
Western Australia Founded in 1829, the Swan River Colony in Western Australia was initially colonised by free settlers, private investors, bonded labourers and servants, government officials or government-endorsed, skilled craftsmen, professionals, and their families. As the free-settler model of colonisation did not provide the significant injection of labour and funding that had ensured success elsewhere, the Swan River Colony was the poorest and slowest colony to develop (Fletcher, 1989:96–99,127–131).
The extreme environment, and poor employment and farming opportunities resulted in a growing number of destitute families. A government ordinance in 1845 required that families take responsibility for destitute relatives. Worsening conditions, however, forced the Swan River Colony to approach the British Government for assistance, resulting in the colony receiving transported prisoners and associated support, from 1850–1867 (Department for Community Development, 1994; Fletcher, 1989).
Conditions in the Swan River Colony were tough, and by the 1870s, other strategies for welfare provision included men’s and women’s poor houses, and outdoor relief in the form of food and clothing for deserving destitute families.
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The first children transported to Western Australia were non-convicts, sent out by the London Society for the Suppression of Juvenile Vagrancy in 1834. Regulations passed by 1839 appointed a government officer as guardian of these children, and by 1842, the government role expanded to guardianship and control including the regulation of apprenticeships. Harsh conditions experienced by children as young as ten years of age included public whipping and use of the stocks (Department for Community Development, 1994:2–4). Local children, whose families were unable to care for them, became ‘wards’ of the State. Whether children were transported, or removed from parents in the colony, the result of this “public parent[hood]” (Murray, 1998:1) was the same; parents lost authority over their children, and children, parents and kin lost contact with one another.
From a study of court records, Garrick (1988) identifies a transition in providing institutional care and education for delinquent, orphaned and needy children. Under the Industrial Schools Act 1874, institutions had authority over the surrendered children until the age of 21 years, regardless of parents’ subsequent wishes. The Protestant and Roman Catholic churches established orphanages for boys and girls in Perth, and two rural orphanages for Aboriginal children were opened in the southern part of Western Australia. In 1894, the government set up a receiving depot for destitute children, which was to survive until the 1980s as an institution for receiving children requiring welfare intervention. In the years 1882–1891, boys older than 12 years were also incarcerated with Aboriginal offenders on Rottnest Island (Department for Community Development, 1994:2–4; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:101–102).
A gold rush in 1890 resulted in the migration to Western Australia of large numbers of people from interstate and overseas. Conditions on the goldfields were extreme. Prospecting men left their women and children dependent on the support of the government or extended family.
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In 1897, James Longmore, Superintendent of Poor Houses and Charitable Institutions, proposed that foster care might be more desirable than institutional care for non-Aboriginal children. So, quite paradoxically, started the largely unregulated practice of baby farming — the boarding out of babies of single mothers to carers in overcrowded, unsanitary and unsafe conditions. This ultimately calamitous and unsupervised arrangement was implemented despite the fact that a year earlier, in 1896, Western Australia had an Adoption of Children Act, which required that prospective adoptive parents prove their suitability in court. Public scandal, caused by infant deaths in unregulated ‘baby farms’, quickly resulted in health legislation requiring the registration of persons caring for unrelated children under the age of two years.
Aboriginal people, who, prior to colonisation had been self-sufficient within extended kinship and tribal networks, were perceived as problematic from the founding of the Swan River Colony. The appointment of a Superintendent of Natives in 1833 oversaw the distribution of basic foodstuffs. Religious orders set up missions, with Sisters of Mercy in the original colony (now Perth) and Benedictines to the north, in New Norcia. Prisons, indenturing and ‘mission reserves’, quickly followed (Department for Community Development, 1994:2–4).
In response to concerns about the treatment of Aboriginal people, the British Government appointed Protectors in 1837. Only 13 years later, however, in response to the pro-colonist stance adopted by the Protectors, the role was abolished, and responsibility for protecting Aboriginal people was vested in the magistracy.
As settlement of Western Australia extended north through the Murchison region, a ban on employing convict labour in this area boosted the employment of Aboriginal people, particularly as stockmen, station hands and domestics. Patterns of employment for Aboriginal people were different 49 in the south-west of the State, however, where Aboriginal communities formed on the fringes of towns, and survival depended on casual employment supplemented by hunting. Land acquisition in the early 20th century forced the few existing Aboriginal farmers off their land.
By 1886, the Aboriginal Protection Act had been introduced in response to cruelty and brutality towards Aboriginal peoples. This Act established an Aboriginal Protection Board, the functions of which included responsibility for “the care, custody and education of Aboriginal children” (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:102). In spite of this, the British Government remained sufficiently concerned about the treatment of Aboriginal people to retain control of Aboriginal Affairs until 1897.
IN SUMMARY: TO THE END OF THE 1800s This period of the Industrial Revolution resulted in internationally, highly significant socio-politico-economic changes with important, transformative consequences for families and children, and their relationships with the State. A movement, born of surplus resources, in which the new middle class led a State-sanctioned universalisation of a modern childhood, ultimately spawned divergent modern social welfare philosophies and had long-term consequences for the poor, disadvantaged, marginalised, and socially excluded. These consequences have been particularly calamitous for indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities in the Western world, as reflected by the story of Australian Aboriginal people.
The roots of this history, in the Industrial Revolution, were discussed in this chapter primarily from the perspective of Australia and its relationship with Great Britain, which remained Australia’s focus until the second half of the 20th century when the Australian worldview was more heavily informed by developments elsewhere, particularly the USA. 50
Early twentieth century In this section, consideration is given to the early and mid-term ramifications of changing understandings of children, childhood and the growth of related State obligations.
1900–1950 — WESTERN UNIVERSALISATION OF A MODERN CHILDHOOD During the late 1800s and early 1900s, as part of a national project (Dingwall & Eekelaar, 1988:353; Hendricks, 1997:47–49), State concern for children shifted from residual, charitable and punitive intervention in the lives of the poor to a more assertive involvement in the lives of children. In Great Britain, in a process of modernisation, each of the inter-war periods resulted in significant developments in the way citizenship, and the welfare of families and children were constructed, and ultimately articulated and supported by the State. Whilst behavioural and psychological theories competed for ideological supremacy in the construction of childhood, eventual dominance of psychological theory had the effect by the 1950s of placing families and family membership at the centre of our understandings of childhood (Cunningham, 2006:195–202).
In Great Britain, the first two decades of the 20th century were marked by concerns about declining birth rates, infant mortality and child health, which in the United Kingdom created anxiety about the nation’s continuing imperial strength. Concerns about the health of the nation and its future wellbeing escalated when 30% of Boer War29 recruits were rejected on health grounds, highlighting the poor conditions and health of the working classes in particular. Healthy, happy children were important to the future of the nation, as workers in new labour-hungry industry, as soldiers and, for girls, as the next generation of mothers (Davis, 1988:161).
29 The Boer War 1899–1902 was the second of two wars fought by Great Britain against Dutch settlers in South Africa, which resulted in annexation of the Transvaal and Orange Free State (Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1986:85). 51
With rhetoric linking the nation’s future to the healthy development of its children (Davis, 1988:161), the debate polarised with eugenicists versus environmentalists. Eugenicists, concerned with heritable diseases, encouraged the upper classes to outbreed the unhealthy, degenerate lower classes (Kociumbas, 1997:155), but in studying masses of children, contributed valuable evidence to the scientific study of population health, medicine and developmental psychology about physical, behavioural, intellectual and psychological norms. Environmentalists, recognising the impact of poor living conditions on child survival, undertook to prevent child deaths through the education of mothers, and to influence health and wellbeing through environmental management. Unsurprisingly, variants of this nature/nurture debate have persisted to the present day.
In Europe, the UK, the USA and the colonised world, the new sciences were informing developments, and the environmental approach to reducing child mortality was endorsed early in the 20th century. Medicine, home economics, social work, and other new professional occupations, focused on the domestic situation and the role and responsibility of mothers as primary agents of change in the home. Initially the education of mothers was simple and direct.
By the second decade of the 20th century, however, with support from developing biological, medical and psychological sciences, obligations to both the child and the nation were more obviously linked. This led to messages to mothers becoming more reproachful, and an increasing number of reforming, middle class women and women’s organisations becoming involved in the control of their working class sisters (Davis, 1988; Kociumbas, 1997).
Families were identified as responsible for the physical, medical and psychological wellbeing of the child, thus, in view of the importance of children to the future of the nation, increasing the obligation on the State to 52 hold families accountable through legislative control and surveillance. Towards the mid-1900s, this created impetus for the growth of child welfare.
Of these developments, Davis states: Emphasis on the home and housewifely tasks was detrimental rather than beneficial to the contemporary status of women. The separation of work and the home, public and private spheres, left many women without a stable and constructive niche … The whole gamut of what was regarded as the concern of women, including reproduction and childrearing-functions, came into the focus of experts, who initiated and exploited a child-centred ideology, which saw the child as a means to a better future society. Standards of child-raising were thus set by experts from outside the home and beyond the control of mothers …. (Davis, 1988:162)
As the child-rearing project became the focus of scientific, government, non-government and middle class interests, an increasingly legislative framework helped in consolidating thinking around the government agenda. Legislative activity further assisted a new construction of childhood, which, aligned with the purpose and needs of the State, was defined by expertise and class, and protected by the State as the enforcer of ‘child rights’ (Cunningham, 2006; Hendricks, 1997).
Led by the sciences of psychiatry and psychology in the USA, the UK and Europe, the initial interest in the physical child gave way to interest in the child’s mind. These professions became highly influential in the construction of the psychological child with an inner world, an unconscious and a developing intellect. Child psychiatry and child guidance clinics then medicalised childhood behaviours and, through professional networks, widely disseminated a new view of the roles of child mental health, family, and behaviour management in child wellbeing (Hendricks, 1997; Jamrozik & Sweeney, 1996).
From the beginning of the 20th century, in Europe, Great Britain and the USA, schools and child nurseries provided previously unimagined opportunities to collect longitudinal data on large numbers of children. Initially these data, organised to assist understandings of normative behaviour, focused on the physical child, but this extended to the psychological child as development 53 of the related sciences progressed (Hendricks, 1997:54–56; Rose, 1999a:145– 147). Evacuation of British children in WW II brought the physical and psychological wellbeing of children to broader public, government and scientific attention, in the same way that mass public education had done previously. Surveys provided data on hundreds of thousands of children, revealing endemic child and family poverty; the dire physical, psychological and social circumstances of many of them; and the strong emotional attachments shared by children and parents. The lexicon of attachment and attachment disorders began informing constructions of childhood, and from a psychoanalytic point of view, contextualised children within the family and the population system. The identification of ‘problem families’ revealed that family membership and State surveillance were insufficient to maintaining the welfare of some children who required more proactive intervention (Hendricks, 1997:54; Rose, 1999a:162–164).
With the 1930s–40s came a developing view that the State could influence wellbeing with macro-level, promotional intervention. In the US, this occurred in response to the Great Depression with President Franklin D. Roosevelt implementing the New Deal30 for economic recovery, employment growth and better financial management. In the UK, it was William Beveridge’s report31 on social reform that ultimately resulted in a policy shift and delivery on what became known as the welfare State (Beveridge, 1942).
30 The New Deal delivered on economic recovery through employment growth and financial regulation. Although WWII resulted in removal of many of the employment reforms, and financial deregulation occurred in the 1970s–80s, a number of significant reforms remain, including Fannie Mae and the Social Security System, Securities and Exchange Commission (Alford, 2003). 31Sir William Beveridge, an economist, chaired the UK Inter-Departmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services, the report of which was tabled in UK Parliament in 1942, gaining bipartisan support for social reform and in that country ushering in the Welfare State. 54
Conceptualisation of the welfare State emerged as post-war “democratization of citizenship” (Hendricks, 1997:55), delivering free social and health services. Politically, welfare state strategies were partly aimed at future proofing the nation through healthy economic and population growth. Towards the end of the 1940s in Britain, legislation supported this process in the areas of education, family allowances, health, income insurance, family assistance and children in State care (Cunningham, 2006:195–202; Hendricks, 1997:55). The child-rearing project had been “linked in thought and practice to the destiny of the nation and the responsibilities of the State” (Rose, 1999a:123).
The individual child focus of the psychological child movement, and of such developments as the Children Act 1948, informed and reinforced the emerging notion of the child as a citizen with rights32, including a right of access to family. Family membership and the rights of individual citizens in democratic welfare, coloured by psychoanalytic understanding of their importance, became the theoretical foundation stones in the modern construction of childhood and of the child in the care of the State (Hendricks, 1997:56; Jamrozik & Sweeney, 1996:27). In reality, the extent to which developments of this period reflected a genuine extension of citizenship to the child is debatable. Not only did the disenfranchised have to fight for equity and access, but much inequity was, and continues to be, embedded in, and maintained by, State governance and surveillance (Rose, 1995:125).
Although there were, and remain, a wide variety of basic ways of responding to the out-of-home care needs of children, at any one time and in any particular geographic area, the constellation of available models are influenced by factors such as political pressure, religious beliefs, social policy, social theory and available resources. To complicate matters, multiple trends may be current across all of these factors at any one time.
32 T.H. Marshall first presented this notion in his 1949 Alfred Marshall Lectures at Cambridge, UK (cited in Rose, 1995:124). 55
Models of care are not discrete or peculiar to particular eras. Institutional and family-based care for children are systems which co-exist, their relative ascendance waxing and waning. The reasons for favouring one style of care over another have changed, but whichever system has been ascendant, has used the other to augment its capacity to respond (Hacsi, 1995).
As already mentioned, the late 1940s marked a turning point in constructions of childhood and State obligations for children in the care of the State. When children were removed from families, greater efforts were made to find alternative family placements and to avoid the use of institutionalised care. Attempts to radically change practice were undermined by economic realities and the fact that institutional care could be provided more cheaply. The preference for child rescue over preventative intervention and family support was much slower to change, embedded as it was in the UK at least, in a 400 year old history of punishing, and stigma-bound Poor Law (Holman, 1986).
Australia Concluding a discussion that commenced in the mid-1800s, Australia’s Commonwealth Constitution came into effect on 1 January 1901, forming a federation of previously separately constituted British colonies (Saunders, 2000:3).
Collapse of the Australian economy, through the depression of the late 1800s, and only limited recovery in the early 1900s, resulted in a widespread challenge to conventional economic wisdom that prosperity rewarded hard work (Herscovitch & Stanton, 2008:52). Given the prevalence of hardship, even traditionally conservative capitalist voices questioned the logic of minimal State intervention, individual fault-finding and intervention limited to services for the ‘deserving poor’. An embryonic liberal discourse, concomitant with similar developments in other Western countries, began to influence welfare responses and to support the expression of a new social action and social policy (Dickey, 1987:72–75). Consequently, welfare 56 provision, which was largely State-based until at least the 1940s, continued through a predominantly charitable, targeted approach to intervention in individual cases, moderated by a racially biased debate on universalism, citizenship, egalitarianism and associated entitlement, having the effect of further disadvantaging the already vulnerable (Kociumbas, 1997:156). Developments reflecting the influence of a new Australian liberalism at the beginning of the 20th century included the introduction, in New South Wales, of a universal old age pension and family subsidy, and a growing interest in other interventions such as health visiting, crèches and prenatal care.
Despite the fact that unemployment and its consequences was never on the Australian agenda to the same extent that it was in Great Britain in the early 1900s, Justice Higgins, in the Australian Commonwealth Arbitration Court Harvester Judgement 1907, handed down a revolutionary ‘living wage’ judgement. This decision provided the mechanism for a largely casual working-poor labour force to demand greater equity in the labour market. In addition, to the extent that the cost to a male breadwinner of supporting a wife and three children was considered in Higgins’ determination, the living wage decision implied notions of child and family rights. Unfortunately, it also came to imply that women, children and young workers, who by definition were not breadwinners, did not require access to a living wage, and were by extension dependent for not only income but also for other citizenship rights (Bryson, 2000). Although the Harvester Judgement was subsequently overturned, the groundbreaking ruling influenced wage decisions and social policy debate across Australia from that time onwards (Dickey, 1987:94–111).
Despite Australian children being generally healthier than those in England, nation building awareness prompted growing concerns about the declining birth rates, an issue that became more obvious following a trend, from the 1890s, for States to pass legislation implementing birth registration (Kociumbas, 1997:148–149, 154). So serious was the issue of declining births 57 that in 1903–04 the New South Wales Government, concerned, inter alia, by declining birth rates amongst the better off, and high rates of illegitimate child mortality amongst the poor, appointed a Royal Commission on the Decline of the Birth Rate. Notwithstanding that “…foeticide, infanticide, baby-farming and defective management by benevolent institutions” (Davis, 1988:161) were identified at the time as the causes of this high incidence, maternal responsibility and ignorance were targeted by social reformers as being at the root of child deaths. Government also addressed subversive birth control practices of the middle and upper classes, with restrictions on access to contraceptives.
Recent analysis of the historical evidence suggests that a decline in family sizes in Australia, from the 1880s onwards, probably had less to do with contraceptive use and more to do with the Depression, delayed marriage, and improvements in the education of women. A similar re-analysis of contemporaneous illegitimate child mortality data suggests that inner city living, rather than illegitimacy, was the key factor (Kociumbas, 1997: 148– 154).
In the early years of the 20th century, legislation was passed in most Australian States protecting children from unlicensed fostering and violent parenting. Children’s departments and children’s court systems, intent on preventing neglect, cruelty and harm, enforced the responsibility of parents to care for their children. A swing towards family support, reflecting some early influence of the psychological movement, meant that by 1916, foster placement was being replaced by in-home parental supervision as the primary response to child neglect and delinquency (Dickey, 1987:97–99).
A shift to conservative politics in WW I, however, resulted in two decades characterised by conservative nationalism, reduced support for universal approaches to welfare, and favouring of contributory schemes. Australia’s long-term commitment to capitalism and a laissez faire economy influenced 58 the dominant social discourse of this period, that opportunity rewarded self-motivation and labour force participation. Where this subsequently failed, there was a derived entitlement to social support for labour market participants.
A brief boom period 1921–1926, artificially inflated State revenues and allowed some unobtrusive social welfare financing. Nevertheless, an optimistic and individualistic dominant ideology confined welfare supports to deserving returned servicemen and war widows. Responses to family poverty were more contentious and the introduction of such supports as child endowment were framed within conservative politics, whilst broader universal approaches to income maintenance for the sick, unemployed and elderly were regarded as being too risky.
Conservative politics also influenced the focus of child-saving interventions, which by the end of the 1920s were highly interventionist, legalistic, judgemental, stigmatising, and delivered through children’s courts, charitable organisations and good works — often threatening middle class intrusion into, and control of, working class families (Dickey, 1987:99–102). The ensuing bureaucratic, highly regulated, and punitive administration of child welfare in all Australian States, focusing largely on child neglect and destitution, resulted in foster care numbers generally exceeding those of children supported with in-home supervision, and a renewed interest in institutional care — trends which continued until the prosperity of the post- WW II period (Dickey, 1987:119–121).
Despite a depression in the 1930s, this unsustainable belief in the power of a capitalist economy remained largely accepted dogma by both sides of politics in Australia (Dickey, 1987:122–130; Herscovitch & Stanton, 2008:53– 54) until the 1940s. A change of philosophy then informed social services provision, which not only built on Australia’s earliest forays into social services in the early 1900s (Herscovitch & Stanton, 2008:51–53), but reflected 59 trends arising in the UK and the US (Beveridge, 1942; Pawlick & Stroick, 2004:8). Despite the influence of external factors on Australia’s social policy development, Herscovitch and Stanton (2008) argue that the Australian system, which celebrated a centenary since inception in 2008, is unique, robust and has retained a “basic structure and philosophy … very much as [it was] at the start [albeit that] change within that framework has been extensive” (p52).
The war years and the election of federal Labor governments in Australia, 1941–1949, saw unemployment virtually disappear; women entered the workforce for the war effort, and this marked the beginning of a long period of prosperity with an associated opportunity for wealth redistribution. The war simultaneously provided the Australian Federal Government with conditions requiring more centralised control and the need to raise additional revenue through a centralised taxation system.
Following WWII, contemporary conceptualisations of benevolence and the State shifted from charity, to social welfare. A reciprocal sense of social indebtedness to a suffering population resulted in Australians being the recipients of the distribution of the additional centralised wealth, both directly and through the States, in the form of a variety of universal and selective social welfare benefits (Herscovitch & Stanton, 2008:54–55). These benefits included widows’ pensions, unemployment and sickness benefits, and child endowment. The payment of unemployment benefits was a clear signal that a universal social welfare approach had replaced the previous ideology of providing charity to the deserving poor (Dickey, 1987:131–144; Herscovitch & Stanton, 2008), and signalled a reversion to State-based policies of the early 1900s.
Unfortunately, universal entitlement had the impact of blunting awareness of the particular and additional needs of vulnerable minorities. Charitable organisations were left to meet the basic material and social support needs 60 of the destitute, in a residualist approach for those who had ‘fallen through the net’.
Western Australia The provision of day nurseries in the 1900s marked the beginning of a 30 year effort in Western Australia, to improve the conditions of children generally. Initially the changes targeted the economically vulnerable, but eventually began to approximate a universal program. The Children’s Protection Society in 1908 provided the first day nurseries for the children of working mothers. Then, in a co-operative effort in 1911, the Children’s Protection Society, the Women’s Service Guild and the National Council of Women introduced kindergartens into Western Australia. These catered for inner city children aged 3–6 years, from low-income families. Although some fee-paying kindergartens appeared, by the 1930s the State Government was funding local councils to provide kindergarten places. The Federal Government in 1940, through the Department of Health, established demonstration centres in Australian capital cities for the purpose of enhancing the general care of children in such areas as daily care, nutrition, instruction and physical growth (Department for Community Development, 1994).
Although overall infant mortality declined in Australia in the first two decades of the 20th century, Western Australian infant mortality rates remained comparatively high. Western Australia’s vulnerability was a direct result of a gold rush, which resulted in a rising number of new families experiencing first births in extremely harsh living conditions, and a commensurate number of wives and children deserted by partners heading off alone to the goldfields (Davis, 1988:163).
In the absence of a concerted State medical department response to the broad environmental causes of infant mortality, and in the context of populating a vast State, and the need to provide future (male) community leaders, middle-class women’s organisations developed and embraced the 61 ideology of motherhood. Organisations such as the Children’s Protection Society, the Kindergarten Union, the National Council of Women and the Women’s Service Guild became highly influential in mother-and-baby health in Western Australia. Their services reflected the attitudes and castigatory tone also adopted in children’s and women’s welfare work in the UK, and on the Australian eastern seaboard (Davis, 1988:165–167).
By 1906, conditions for children in paid care were of such concern that a non-government lobby group, the Children’s Protection Society, employed a full-time trained nurse as an inspector of paid carers. Also around this time, a public furore erupted over the case of Alice Mitchell, a private foster carer with a clientele of unmarried mothers who paid her to look after their babies. Thirty-eight babies died of starvation and neglect whilst in the care of Alice Mitchell. Inadequacies of the Health Act were highlighted with Mitchell being charged with murder and convicted of manslaughter, marking a move to the criminalisation and prosecution of carer inadequacy.
The Children’s Protection Society responded by providing a fostering service but was unable to gain support for the establishment of a non- government agency to oversee children’s services. A State children’s department for the inspection and regulation of children’s institutions was established in 1907, and private arrangements became illegal with the establishment of a departmental register of foster carers (Department for Community Development, 1994).
A number of small, non-government residential children’s institutions in the Perth area, and a government farm school for boys created in 1936, resulted in a number of different options for the State care of children by the early to mid-1900s (Department for Community Development, 1994).
Conservative social and political attitudes, dominant in the period 1916– 1949, affected the circumstances of children and families in Western 62
Australia. As elsewhere in Australia, universal benefits were curtailed in favour of contributory schemes in the post-WW1 period, with public interest, sympathy and action directed primarily towards returned servicemen and war widows. Bureaucrats took over from reformers in this period, emphasising control, rules and accountability. There was growing general concern about unrecoverable monies, spent by the State on outdoor relief and children for whom the State had responsibility. Attitudes did change with the Great Depression33, however, when it became apparent that the State system was ill equipped to also assist large numbers of deserving poor (Department for Community Development, 1994).
Whilst in Western Australia many more children were maintained at home with support than were cared for out of home, institutional care provision escalated in preference to foster care. Although new institutions were smaller than they were previously, care still emphasised control and surveillance rather than affection. Adoption, introduced in Western Australia for the first time in 1899, but not in other States until the 1920s, provided an alternative care option, which served the purposes of punishing wayward and unfit mothers, permanently severing previous relationships, and reducing long-term costs to the State (Kociumbas, 1997:155–6).
In Western Australia, the Aborigines Act 1905 legally defined ‘Aboriginality’ as being determined by both heredity and association, bringing those people deemed to be Aboriginal under the care and protection of the Chief
33 The Great Depression was a worldwide economic slump that commenced with the Wall St stock market crash of October 1929, and continued for varying lengths of time, into the 1930s and 1940s, in different locations. Australia experience the Great Depression from 1929, when unemployment was already at 10%, through 1933 when unemployment reached its peak of 32%, until the mid-1930s when the unemployment rate was in decline but was still 21%. The effect of the Great Depression was moderated by class, geography and race. In Australia, unemployment amongst Aboriginal communities is estimated to have reached at least 85%. Rural communities, and large, or single parent, poor families, also experienced increased privation for a variety of reasons (Kociumbas, 1997:172–193). 63
Protector. In reality, care and protection was experienced as coercive, interventionist, thoughtless and often harmful (Baines & Hume, 1988).
This careless protector, who removed fairer skinned Aboriginal children from kin and country, placing them in non-family settings with strangers at distant locations, was quite at odds with Aboriginal constructions of adult responsibilities to children and child raising, which remain current today, as described by Baines and Hume (1988:43).
Through extensive but intimate kin networks, which included siblings in relationships of individual (rather than generalised) responsibility, Aboriginal grandparents have particular obligations to future generations. One of these responsibilities is to recognise the relationships with land and animals with which a child is endowed from his/her birth place and to assist him/her in developing, as he/she requires. Part of the child’s endowment is knowledge and awareness, which placed on the carer an obligation to hear the child’s expressed truth and to nurture the child to self-actualisation (Baines & Hume, 1988:44–45).
The Chief Protector’s heavy-handed intervention resulted in a diaspora for generations of ‘in-between’ Aboriginal children: a social and cultural calamity from which many kinship groups have never recovered (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997).
The circumstances of Aboriginal people were often precarious. Waves of epidemics assaulted them; “ ‘ …measles around Mount Stirling … the Nyungars died in their hundreds…whooping cough around York, Greenhills they died in their hundreds…no doctors, no nurses…after TB…Quairiding they got ’flu…’ ” (as told by ‘Granny Flora’ to Baines & Hume, 1988:46–47). Although men may have travelled to farms and ‘stations’ for work, where they were paid in personal provisions, women and children were left to fend for themselves without their menfolk. Hunger was a persistent problem. 64
For Australian Aboriginals, the first half of the 20th century was marked by racism, attempts to “breed out the black blood” (Baines & Hume, 1988:42) and assimilation policies for children of mixed Aboriginal–European parentage.
From 1904–1947, the State progressively increased its regulation of Aboriginal people, including control over their children (Department for Community Development, 1994). In 1904, a Western Australian Government inquiry found the white fathers of mixed-race Aboriginal children generally guilty of failing to provide for their children, who were subject to various atrocities and exploitation (Dickey, 1987). These findings led to the Aborigines Act 1905, which allowed for the appointment of a Chief Protector as the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and mixed-race Aboriginal child to the age of 16 years. By implication, it was an act of State negligence to leave these children in the care of their mothers (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:103). Successive legislation removed Aboriginal children from their parents, made the Commissioner for Native Affairs the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children under the age of 21 years, banned Aboriginal people from city centres and promoted resettlement to remote rural reserves with punishing regimes (Department for Community Development, 1994; Dickey, 1987). There are estimates that during this time, between one in ten and one in three Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their parents (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997).
In the case of Aboriginal children, separation from parents was intended to allow for their education as domestic help and tradesmen. For mixed-race children, assimilation was the primary intent. From the early 1950s, opinions about the need to isolate Aboriginal children from their parents began to shift, but the opening of schooling to Aboriginal children meant that in reality many children were forced to live in hostels, unable to return to parents, who 65 had neither the housing nor money for fares, even for school holidays. This coincided with the closure of Aboriginal settlements, or their transfer to church mission control, with the physical relocation, not settlement, of the inhabitants in the nearest town (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997:110).
Childhood, parenthood and State obligations up to 1950 — in summary What is revealed by the chronological study is that the pre-Industrial Revolution period was for most people marked by a lack of surplus. The effect was that people’s worldviews and relationships networks were, for the most part, simple, small and proximal. Energy was directed towards actively coping with the here and now, as opposed thinking or theorising about a bigger picture. This depiction is evidenced by what we know today about the role of ‘surpluses’, expressed as such things as literacy and nutrition, and in overcoming disadvantage.
Growth and dispersal of surpluses during the Industrial Revolution required developments in the diversity and complexity of relationships and transactions, including those of and between social classes, parents and children, State and citizens. In relation to this thesis, there are four developments worth mentioning from this period.
The first of these was the labour demand caused by the Industrial Revolution. The second was parents’ concerns for (their) children, now more readily, overtly and publicly expressed through the middle classes. Next, and possibly arising from their more obvious relationship with them than with inherited wealth, the third development was a growing interest by the middle classes in controlling and enhancing the behaviour of the (now) working classes.
The fourth, and linking development, was the burgeoning role of organisations, particularly the State and charities, in managing the new 66 world order according to new middle class principles. What results from these developments of the 19th century is the beginnings of formalised, but little theorised, external incursions on the lives of children, and by association, their parents, with related legislative and practice precursors to (child) labour law, compulsory child education, juvenile justice and the broad arena of parent–child–family relationships and responsibilities. In particular, we see the germination of child rescue and protection.
The first half of the 20th century was, for the purposes of the thesis, a period of professionalisation. In this period, the developing sciences were employed in providing a growing band of organisations and their workforces, with the taxonomies and tools for intervention, not only in the physical, but also in social and other newly acknowledged localities. For children’s services, the preeminent professions were nursing, teaching, medicine, law, psychology and social work, and although for the working classes the experience continued the organisational (middle class) attempts to intervene and control, universal strategies were preferred. In a very real way, universal strategies had the effect of sharing surpluses, albeit that the sharing was not necessarily fair, and was insufficient for addressing significant social disadvantage and in parts of the West, was dependent on being waged. 67
Chapter 3: Individualising Responsibility for Poor Child–rearing Outcomes — Child Protection and the Discovery of Risk
Introduction This chapter forms part of the chronological study, commenced in Chapter 2, of the historical–developmental context of the State as a joint investor in the child-rearing project.
It is in four sections, the first of which explores the theoretical and discursive foundations to conceptualising the State as parent: a task necessary to any understanding of why the State might have joint responsibility in the child-rearing project. A brief overview of welfare States’ differential engagement with the child-rearing project follows. This provides context for an analysis, in two parts, of the identifiably Anglo–American approaches of the late 20th century. Specifically, the last two parts of this chapter provide a critical analysis of child protection and risk management as dual strategies for promoting the safety and wellbeing of a nation’s children, and, in particular, responding to the needs of the most disadvantaged.
Theoretical and discursive foundations to conceptualising the State as parent Conceptualising the State as having responsibility for, and obligations to, children and families is rooted is two quite distinct but related logical frameworks. The first of these is Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological theory of human development, which from an interactive systems perspective clearly identifies the importance of macro-systemic processes on life-long, healthy, individual human development. The second is the emerging population- health discourse, which is also applicable to macro- and mega-systemic levels of human interaction. In locating the health and wellbeing of individuals as a subset of the health of whole populations, this discourse reinforces the importance of systemic thinking and the criticality of 68 participants, at the macro- and mega-levels, understanding and accepting responsibility for the impact of their behaviour and decisions on the micro- systemic order.
BIO-ECOLOGICAL THEORY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT The relevance of giving consideration to ‘the State’ as an ecological context for understanding the broad wellbeing of children and families has the following theoretical foundations in the interface of, inter alia, systems theory and theories of child development.
An underlying assumption, in exploring theories and their implications for the State, is that in this era of evidence-based practice it is timely for legislation and public policy to have transparent ontological and epistemic foundations, as evidenced by the integration of these into policy and legislative agendas. This may result in research more obviously affecting both the development of law, and ethical and effective public policy, in Australia and elsewhere.
Theories of child development help to establish that the social childhood of the last century has particular associated developmental realities; that these are variously related to age and stage of development and that they include physical, social, psychological and neurobiological aspects (Schickendanz et al., 1993:43–71).
Traditionally, the theories of child development include those categorised as maturational, psychoanalytic, learning and cognitive–developmental theories. Each has a view of the child as an individual and, to a greater or lesser degree, describes the child’s development in terms of limited interaction with his/her environment. These theoretical perspectives, informing our understanding of child development, have underlined the importance of, amongst other things, attachment and bonding, a sense of belonging, and the development of self-esteem and identity.
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It is the more recent development of ecological systems theory, and the subsequent bio-ecological theory of human development, locating individual child/human development within a dynamic systemic context, which puts child development on the broad socio-political agenda (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 2005a). This relatively new paradigm, co-emerging with a multidisciplinary developmental perspective, in no way diminishes the value of the older theories in explaining particular aspects of child development.
Ecological systems theory was developed by Bronfenbrenner (1974; 1977; 1979; 1989; 2005a; 2005b; 1998; 2006) in response to a growing appreciation of the importance, to wellbeing and healthy development, of both an individual’s experience of their environment, and their social context. He describes development as the contribution of the interactive individual occurring within a hierarchy of nested, interconnected systems, classified from the most proximal to the individual, to the most distal. These are the micro-system, meso-system, exo-system and macro-system, which are located within the chrono-system, a socio-historical continuum of time and events (see this illustrated in Figure 1 below). Whilst Bronfenbrenner (ibid.) articulates the role of each of these systems in the development of the individual, it is his definition of a macro-system which is critical to this thesis because of the way it locates children and their carers at the highest level of their ecological system: A macrosystem refers to the overarching institutional patterns of the culture or subculture, such as economic, social, educational, legal, and political systems, of which micro-, meso-, and exo- systems are the concrete manifestations. Macrosystems are conceived and examined not only in structural terms but as carriers of information and ideology that, both explicitly and implicitly, endow meaning and motivation to particular agencies, social networks, roles, activities, and their interrelations. What place or priority children and those responsible for their care have in such macrosystems is of special importance in determining how a child and his or her caretakers are treated and interact with each other in different types of settings (Bronfenbrenner, 1977:515 my emphasis in bold).
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Figure 1: Bronfenbrenner: ecological theory of child development (source Santrock, 2007)
Johan Galtung (2000), international peace activist and philosopher, identifies an additional layer to this systemic hierarchy: the world- or mega-system characterised by interactions and interconnectedness of whole regions, communities and populations through intergovernmental agencies, multi- and trans-national corporations and international civil societies in the form of non-government organisations. He refers to this trio of “States, corporations and civil societies”, as expressed in the global context, as the “triad of modernity” (Galtung, 2000:860). World peace and good governance, environmental health and sustainability, regional access and equity, and food and water guarantees are examples of issues affected by mega- systemic relationships and processes, which underpin the viability of the child-rearing project and the capacity of parents.
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In this thesis, Bronfenbrenner’s (op. cit.) bio-ecological theory provides the theoretical basis for arguing the responsibility of the State to adopt a joint investment approach to the child-rearing project. In the first instance, if the system is to serve children well, children need to be visible in all the nested systems of the child’s ecology (Bronfenbrenner, 1974:2–3). The corollary of this, illustrated in the above quote and enabled through the interconnectedness of the systems, directly establishes the conceptual link between the place or priority of children at the macro-level, and the experience/s of parenting received by children generally at the micro-level, and by extension, by children for whom the State has a special interest. Finally, Bronfenbrenner conceives of the State’s direct role in parenting: And that’s not all — parenthood and not only on the part of parents…
And finally we take the giant step, the quantum leap. We pass from the invaluable to the absolutely essential: not only on the part of individuals, but of institutions.
Again, I have in mind not the institutions that directly serve children and families…but the truly powerful systems — both formal and informal — that really determine what happens to human beings in our society: business and industry, federal, State and local government…
But we have arrived at our destination, for here is where the crux of the problem lies. The issue is not who cares for the children but who cares for those who care? (Bronfenbrenner, 1978:776–777)
Galtung’s identification of the mega-system as part of the ecological hierarchy achieves two important results. Firstly, the concept of mega- system extends the responsibility of the State/civil society and significant global, regional and local corporate companies, to ensure that in this interconnected system, children and their carers get priority. Secondly, the concept of the mega-system highlights the role of the global environment in creating local conditions that assist or interfere with parenting, and thus the crucial role of the State in managing this on behalf of children and their carers.
A complication to this is that States’ capacities to take overarching responsibility for the wellbeing of children and families are dependent on 72 their administrative viability. Understanding how States’ viability is threatened as a result of increasingly influential mega-systemic processes, hints at the importance of children and families having access to alternative champions and processes, if they are to receive priority at both the macro- and mega-systemic levels.
At a theoretical level, Bronfenbrenner’s (op. cit.) bio-ecological theory encompasses the macro-system that Galtung identifies as ‘mega’. Nevertheless, it is Galtung’s engagement with matters of Statehood, critical to the thesis in Chapter 8, which warrants combining his and Bronfenbrenner’s terminology. Bio-ecological theory conceptually links changes at the mega- and macro-systemic levels, to the healthy development of individuals and families, and in so doing, underlines the importance of environment in behaviour and development. As the most significant effect on individual development results from the interactions between and within systems, influencing child development and child, youth and parental behaviour for the good is highly dependent on changing those environments, which ultimately shape the proximal processes. This requires the integration of public policy and the science of human development — they must inform one another (Bronfenbrenner, 1979:3–13; 2005a; Cole, 1979).
Ecological systems theory alerts one to the notion that an ecological environment, sturdy and responsive to the developmental needs of children, is necessary for their healthy development. This establishes a theoretical rationale for the State making children a priority in everything done at the meso-, macro- and mega-systemic levels. If the State does take responsibility for creating an optimal environment for the healthy development of children, the frame of reference will need to include visible evidence of three principles: • that children have unassailable rights to opportunities likely to support their positive development; 73
• that parents and other carers have rights to the necessary supports/opportunities to undertake their parenting functions, and associated ongoing responsibilities to children; and • the macro-system (including the State) acknowledges its broad role in the parenting and development of children, and as such, evidences responsibilities for, and obligations to, children and their parents, in the articulation, upholding, promotion and realisation of their individual and collective rights; endorsing Bronfenbrenner’s thesis that “…human abilities and their realization depends in significant degree on the larger social and institutional context of individual activity” (Bronfenbrenner, 1979:xv).
POPULATION HEALTH DISCOURSE Population health is a late-20th century emerging discourse currently located within a progressive political dialogue and a primarily epidemiological research paradigm (Keating & Hertzman, 1999b; Raphael, 2000; Rose, 1995; Sanson, 2002; Stanley, Sanson, & McMichael, 2002). Currently there is some overlap in the use of the terms ‘public health’ and ‘population health’ (Peterson & Lupton, 2000:1–6). Population health is dependent upon multidisciplinary data access, the capacity for complex analysis, a growing understanding of multi-causality in social issues and an appreciation of the knowledge gained through social science research and social policy analysis in this area.
Population health links broad complex data sets, including measures of population resources, affordability, employment, housing, community stress, health, crime and safety and participation, in an analysis of the wellbeing of entire communities and nations (Raphael, 2000). In particular, population health discourse has identified poverty levels, the socio-economic health gradient and income inequality as measures indicative of broad population health and wellbeing. In making transparent the structural barriers to good public health, together with the necessity for across-sector, multidisciplinary 74 interventions, this emerging discourse has identified a growing role for social development organisations and policy institutes.
Unfortunately, there is evidence of the broad population health discourse colliding with a narrowing of public health practice in a number of the Anglo–American countries. The same reluctance to acknowledge the structural issues and manage related social policy understandings of mandate and responsibility in public health, is also evident in child protection practice. This highlights that a transfer of population health knowledge into broad public health and welfare practice, aimed at addressing underlying causes rather than effects, is currently proving to be problematic (Raphael, 2000).
IN SUMMARY — THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS Bio-ecological theory and the population health discourse highlight the critical importance for individual health and wellbeing of the management of the macro-environment, and the sustained development of the relationship between social policy and research. These theoretical positions underline the importance of distal aspects of the environment to family functioning, and child safety and wellbeing. Given that control of the distal systems is quite beyond the control of individuals and families, it is clear that the child- rearing project too exceeds parental capacity and that the State has a pivotal responsibility in ensuring both the project and the system.
Welfare States’ differential engagement with the child-rearing project — universal family policy or child protection Prior to WWII, there was an acceptance amongst the Western European States, and their colonial offspring, that the populace was responsible for its own welfare. Founded on a related view that hard work would pay off, and current provision could be made against future need, this position was seriously challenged by the Great Depression (Midgley, 2003:6), and more recently by the global financial crisis of 2008–09, which indiscriminately hit the delinquent and the deserving alike. 75
The widespread impact of the Great Depression, particularly the consequences for the middle and upper classes, confronted existing assumptions of an automatic and positive relationship between hard work, fair market price for labour, and financial wellbeing. Evolving notions of rights, and an historically established obligation of the State towards the wellbeing of its citizens that had been developing since at least the 17th century, conflated to re-emerge as the ideal of social citizenship and the new rights this entailed (Esping-Andersen, 2000a).
The term ‘welfare State’ was eventually coined, following WWII, to describe Western European economies that had expanded their social services programs, to not only promote wellbeing and address privation (Parton, 1998:12), but also as part of the adoption of Keynesian economic policy, and acceptance of the role of government in moderating the extremes of boom and bust in market-driven economies (Palier, 2004). As other economies adopted similar models of welfare service provision and monetary policy, they too came to be included in the term ‘welfare State’ (Esping-Andersen, 2000a). More recently, the meaning of the term has continued to change with new applications in Asia and Latin America (Goodman & Peng, 2000; Huber, 2000).
There is scholarly agreement as to the existence of at least three welfare State variants. These include the meridional or southern, the Nordic or Scandinavian, and the neo-liberal, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK and the USA34 (Esping-Andersen, 2000a; Ferrera, 1996; Karger,
34 Given their very different social welfare ideological origins (McDonald, Harris, & Wintersteen, 2003) it must be acknowledged that even as a group these countries sit along a policy continuum. Despite their social policy variation, however, they have shared a preference for residual punitive child protection intervention rather than promotional family policy. Kamerman (1999) is of the view that the ‘Anglo American countries’ (United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain) are peculiar amongst the Organization 76
2003; Katrougalos, 1996; Kautto, Fritzell et al., 2001a; Midgley, 2003; Palier, 2004; Pawlick & Stroick, 2004; Webb, 2006:50–57).
The meridional or southern model argues commonalities in welfare provision across the Latin rim of Europe, particularly Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece. However, not only was welfare State provision in these countries relatively late in its development, and articulation of the model in its infancy, but the regional commonalities are open to debate (Ferrera, 1996; Katrougalos, 1996). For these reasons, this model is not an essential part of the discussion on the differential post-war welfare State engagement with the child-rearing project. For similar reasons, nor are emerging models mentioned by Esping-Andersen (2000a) as developing in Eastern European, Asian and South American countries.
The Nordic or Scandinavian model, on the other hand, developed in a similar time frame to the welfare model of the Anglo–American countries, but where the latter always had a tendency to be residualist, and subsequently developed neo-liberal overtones, the Nordic model remained a distinctively social democratic one. The health promotion, universal, holistic, collective and social justice characteristics of the Nordic model sit in contrast to how far the neo-liberal welfare States have pursued the individualisation of risk and for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, in so far as they have failed to give family policy the status of a specialist policy domain, and have relied on implicit rather than explicit family policy. In opting for implicit family policy, the Anglo–American quinary are able to avoid articulating the role and responsibilities of government as a social agent. Whilst Kamerman may agree that Australia represents a mid-point in the Anglo– American family policy continuum, she is clear that this group, as a whole, has taken less universalist and coherent approaches to family policy development than have other Western industrialised nations. In so doing, the Anglo–American countries have failed to capitalise on, and build, family policy consensus in the community (Atwool, 1999; Kamerman, 1999; Rodger, 1995).
77 responsibility, wage based and residualist approaches to social welfare provision, and devolvement of State obligations to the populace.
In their study of the Nordic welfare States — Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden — Kautto et al. (2001b) and (Kautto, Fritzell et al., 2001b; Kautto, Heikkilä, Hvinden, Marklund, & Ploug, 1999) have investigated not only the characteristics of the Nordic model, but whether or not the model persists, distinct from welfare services provision in other Western European democracies.
The Scandinavian or Nordic welfare State model has been well described since the 1980s, as a model embodying social justice values, and framed in an institutionalisation of citizenship rights, supported by a broad, holistic social policy scope, and social security and services provision. Amongst other things, the model aims to deliver access and income equity, gender equality, individual and collective rights, stigma reduction and poverty eradication, through a mix of high taxation, social welfare expenditure, income redistribution and reduction of income disparity. There is a high level of State responsibility for creating the necessary macro-level legislative, policy and values environment.
Kautto et al. (Kautto, Fritzell, Hvinden, Kvist, & Uusitalo, 2001) have concluded that although there has been some separation of the Nordic States on policy lines since the 1990s, they continue to share a distinctive welfare State model. Despite an increase in income inequality across the board, income inequality has grown faster in Western Europe than in the Scandinavia countries, and the separation between the outcomes of Western European welfare State intervention and the Nordic model has increased (Kautto, Fritzell, Hvinden, Kvist, & Uusitalo, 2001). Not only do the Nordic States retain a distinctive welfare State model, but also the circular relationship between policy and values, and values and outcomes, extends its influence well beyond the strict purview of the welfare State. The 78 uniqueness of the model persists despite the fact that in the empirical realities of social policy and services provision in the Nordic States, there may be some departure from ideology (Kautto, Fritzell, Hvinden, Kvist, & Uusitalo, 2001: 264–267).
Despite experiencing a range of significant economic challenges and opposing trends, since the 1980s, the Scandinavian countries’ social welfare model has a continuing existence, and differentiation from other Western European welfare provision. Based on universal entitlement and broad social and family policy, this model stands as an example of State engagement as a joint investor in child rearing, with responsibility for the macro-systemic context, for population-level wellbeing, and, where necessary, an additional shared investment in individual care and support.
The child welfare response of the Nordic bloc has “a family services orientation [that] assumes that the interests of families and the state are indivisible” (Freymond & Cameron, 2006a:291). In family service systems, there is a culture of shared responsibility for child welfare between State and families. Access to child welfare services is encouraged as part of universal provision. When the legal system is brought to bear, the aim of the inquisitorial, rather than adversarial, approach is to reach an agreement with parents on how best to support child wellbeing (Cameron & Freymond, 2006:5).
Whilst it is true that the social democratic States have resisted the neoliberal challenge to welfare policy, this sits in stark contrast to the much less well- formed, or articulated family policy environments of Anglo–American countries, and the rest of Europe, which, despite the impact of welfare State constructions of the roles and responsibilities of the State for the most disadvantaged, remain informed by historical beliefs about the role of individuals in determining their own circumstances (Krislov, 2006; Patulny, 2005). In the values-Petri dish of neo-liberal Anglo–American countries, child 79 protection and risk management have developed to cope with high levels of residual distress, particularly in disadvantaged communities. The child protection approach is informed by separation of the identities of State, individual, family and community, and an understanding that State intervention in private family life should only occur with legal authority, and in the most extreme of circumstances (Freymond & Cameron, 2006a:293). The following analysis explores the growth and consequences of the twin strategies of child protection and risk management.
Child protection There is considerable scholarly analysis of how various models of social welfare delivery interact with associated discourses, and explanations for why some families experience child-rearing difficulties, to produce characteristic clusters of responses to families in adversity (for some of these see Cooper, 2002; Cooper, Hetherington, Baistow, Pitts, & Spriggs, 1995; Esping-Andersen, 2000b; Freymond & Cameron, 2006b; Harries & Clare, 2002; Hill, Stafford, & Green, 2002; Phipps, 1999). Child protection discourse is one of a number of internationally documented stances aimed at improving the circumstances of children and families, and reducing the rate of avoidable harm of children.35
Child protection practice, as the active expression of the discourse, is associated with considerable evidence of failure, either to reduce the population incidence of child maltreatment, or to intervene positively and effectively in the lives of the vast majority of children who are referred to child protection agencies (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2004; Harries & Clare, 2002; Melton, 2005; Scott, 2002c; Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996; Trocme & Wolfe, 2001; US Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1995). The child protection discourse has responded to these problems repeatedly, with strategies to tighten, focus, and better target the child
35 Historically, non-accidental child harm is referred to as child abuse in the US, and child maltreatment in the UK. 80 protection approach. The two primary techniques for achieving this have been: theorising the aetiology of child maltreatment and controlling reporting.
Emerging in the 1960s, child protection is a jurisdictionally and temporally unstable concept, embraced as their primary child welfare strategy (Hearn, 1997:224; Jack, 2000; Kamerman, 1990; Weber, 1990) by the Anglo– American countries, namely Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and the United States of America,. In conjunction with the risk society paradigm, it signified a renegotiation of the State–people social welfare contract and the individualisation of responsibility for poor child- rearing outcomes (Callahan & Swift, 2006; Parton, 1996; Webb, 2006:38, 59– 65). A decline in family support provision and increasingly targeted State intervention became obvious hallmarks of Anglo–American child welfare.
THEORISING THE AETIOLOGY OF CHILD ABUSE Three major theoretical perspectives — the medico-psychological, the sociological, and the interactionist — informed the child protection discourse of the closing decades of the 20th century. Professional interest groups aligned with particular theoretical positions, which supported, in turn, various definitions of child maltreatment and their structural application.
The medical perspective led the first wave of ‘child saving’ with the publication of ‘The Battered Child Syndrome’ (Kempe, Silverman, Steele, Droegemueller, & Silver, 1962) in the Journal of the American Medical Association. This heralded the new discourse of child protection, encouraged media attention, identified child maltreatment as a disease condition of the perpetrator, and confirmed maltreatment by examination of injuries sustained by the victim. Research was directed to the characteristics of the perpetrator. Legal intervention held the perpetrator fully responsible, and because of the medical perspective, there was no accommodation of structural factors or cultural norms of behaviour in child rearing. 81
The second wave of child rescue added the psychological aspect to the medico-psychological perspective and commenced in the USA with the passage of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act 1974 (CAPTA). This Act retained a restricted definition of child abuse but extended coverage of the term to include neglect, physical injury, and mental and sexual harm. Systemically, the implications of CAPTA remained residual in that intervention was problem-focused on individual involuntary clients. By the mid-1970s, academics had largely abandoned the medico-psychological perspective as being inadequate. In particular, a fundamental assumption of this model, that all parenting failures occurred in environments otherwise optimal for providing for the care needs of children, was recognised as patently incorrect.
With the decline of the medico-psychological approach to child maltreatment, the sociological perspective began to dominate. The sociological perspective encompassed multiple considerations including those of labelling, cultural norms, values and context, poverty and other environmental factors, and societal and institutional abuse. Despite the new theoretical framework for understanding the association between child maltreatment and disadvantage, many Western governments remained unprepared to address the broad structural factors influencing child maltreatment. Conflation of child protection and risk discourses acted to support this.
The language of risk, predictability and probability, began to permeate the child protection discourse at this stage (Gray, Cutler, Dean, & Kempe, 1977; Manciaux & Deschamps, 1977), enabling a cross-over from the medical model of child abuse to the identification of social risk factors, whilst retaining an individual responsibility focus.
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This individualistic, medico-social approach to families in adversity, and child harm, was not, and is not, evident in the Nordic approach to broad social wellbeing. The Nordic countries have favoured universal service provision, multidisciplinary approaches, and greater community responsibility for child wellbeing and family support (Cooper et al., 1995; Gilbert, 1997; Kautto et al., 1999; Khoo et al., 2002). They have largely avoided individualising responsibility for difficult family circumstances, and the negative impact these can have on child-rearing outcomes. Another understanding of alternative European approaches is to include Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands in a more broadly identified family support approach (Allen Consulting Group, 2008:27–29; Bering Pruzan, 1997; Catherine Marneffe & Patrick Broos, 1997; Catherine Marneffe & P. Broos, 1997; Olsson Hort, 1997).
The 1980s saw the ascendency of the interactionist perspective in defining child maltreatment. This perspective drew from the valuable input of the medico-psychological and sociological perspectives to create a model which recognised the important interaction of variables, including those of the child, their parent/s, the societal context, and care-giving provided by both individuals and institutions. Whilst research within an interactionist framework explored a multi-causal view of child maltreatment, in child protection practice, and in law, the family remained the location of intervention.
The history of child welfare with indigenous and First Nations peoples identifies child protection discourse and practice as racist and harmful. Amongst First Nations peoples, the child protection paradigm undermines alternative paradigms and local frameworks, for supporting child and family strengths in the development of wellbeing and safety (Cameron & Freymond, 2006:6; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997; Libesman, 2004; Westerman & Hillman, 2004). 83
CONTROLLING THE OVER- AND UNDER-REPORTING OF CHILD MALTREATMENT Inherent in child protection, as a preferred systemic approach to child and family welfare, are two significant and related problems, referred to in the literature as over- and under-reporting, and discussed in detail by researchers including Besharov (1988; 1990; 1993; 2000), Thorpe (1994; 1997a), and Pelton (1978; 1990).
In a more universal, inclusive, and health promotional approach to child and family welfare, over-reporting is not an issue. Universal and voluntary access, and systemic responses to disadvantage are the intended outcomes: costs management favours effective, efficient, early intervention; and prevention strategies, and structural change are prioritised.
Arising, as it did, in an environment of gross under-recognition of serious, non-accidental injury to children, one of the first requirements of the child protection approach was the rapid expansion of awareness, and reporting, of child maltreatment. Strategies for achieving greater awareness of child harm were: • development of definitions of child maltreatment, which quickly spread from physical abuse alone, to encompass neglect, physical injury and moral harm, and later to include an array of definitions including those of emotional, educational, medical and supervisory neglect; • introduction of specialist child protection personnel and agencies; and • regulation of reporting through the use of interagency protocols and/or mandatory reporting legislation.
The initial problem of under-reporting eventually became the reverse, as child protection systems and related out-of-home placement services began to reel under the pressure of notifications, and definitional expansion.
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In the modern child-protection system, the first of the twin problems — over- reporting — is perceived to occur when, in the absence of adequate access to public health, prevention and early intervention, early child and family problems are channelled into what is essentially a costly, end-stage system. Whilst the danger of not referring families is that there are few alternative welfare provisions, by making referrals the system is over-extended, unable to respond most appropriately to the types of problems referred, and may fail to identify serious cases. Most child-death inquiries relate to this problem of children already notified to the system not receiving the attention, supports and intervention necessary to address their and their families’ circumstances. The levels of ‘unsubstantiated’ notifications and ‘no further action’ outcomes indicate the size of the over-reporting problem (Pelton, 1990).
The second problem, of under-reporting, is perceived to occur when serious instances of child harm are not referred to child protection services. With potentially lasting, significant, negative results, these families and children suffer the consequences of the systemic lack of universal and early intervention service capacity, inherent in the child protection response. Consequently, they remain below the radar for most intervention, including that which is largely forensic and legal in nature. The size of this problem is unknown (Besharov & Laumann, 2002).
In the absence of undertaking a fundamental restructuring of child and family welfare, child protection systems have responded to the systemic issues by attempting to fine-tune inclusion and exclusion criteria, and access portals. In large part, this technique relies on regulation of reporting, through controlling what should be reported (definitions of maltreatment), and by whom (reporters). The circular effect of these approaches to system regulation has been long-term exacerbation of the problems of both over- and under-reporting, and the ensuing systemic problems: 85
• long-term failure to address structural causes of child and family adversity • child maltreatment definitions, affecting rates of notification, investigation, substantiation and prosecution (Besharov, 1985; Holzer, 2008; Swift, 2001), with growing definitions, and inclusion of ‘risk of harm’, having an inflating effect on the recorded rates of each of these (Barth, Berrick, & Gilbert, 1994:1–4; Besharov, 1985:558; Hutchinson, 1994: 6–23) • definitions of child maltreatment that are not universally accepted, and are unable to accommodate culturally and socially diverse attitudes and behaviour, diverging from understandings of maltreatment accepted by the general public of all cultures and classes, and aggravating over-representation of minority, and socially excluded groups (Abela & Borg, 1998) in the child protection statistics • an explosion of reporting (notification) with almost no impact on child morbidity or mortality (see inter alia, Callahan & Swift, 2006:210; Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996) • preferred responses to children and families, workloads and resource distribution, all negatively affected by increases in the numbers of children reported because of child maltreatment (Besharov, 1988; Tomison, 2002:1–4; Zellman & Antler, 1990)
Regulating of reporting and the overwhelming numbers of reports that have resulted has increased the problems in responding, which have been aggravated by: • the exiguity of preventative and family support services (Allen Consulting Group, 2008; Kamerman, 1990; Parton, 1998:18–19; Weber, 1990; Wood, 2008) • relative reductions of public child welfare dollar expenditure on remaining services 86
• expectations that existing, stretched services will meet demand for increasing numbers of seriously disadvantaged children and their families (Barth et al., 1994:1–5; Hearn, 1997; Wood, 2008:201–260) • service access and type being dictated by whether a behaviour is classified as child maltreatment, or not, rather than on the basis of need. This can mean the difference between services that are: cooperative or adversarial, investigation or assessment, legal intervention or family support, stigmatising or normative, promoting access or exclusion. • child welfare resources, previously used to meet children’s more general needs, absorbed by investigation, and identification of child maltreatment (Barth et al., 1994:1–4; Besharov, 1985; Department of Health, 1995:54–55; Kamerman, 1990; Wood, 2008) • service access confined to only the most seriously damaged children and traumatised families, and excluding children not found to be maltreated from receiving any service, are common techniques for managing growing waiting lists, and excessive demand for child protection services (Bromfield & Holzer, 2008:54–56; Hearn, 1997; Wood, 2008:245; Zellman & Antler, 1990), with cumulative harm occurring, particularly for disadvantage populations least able to access (purchase) alternative services • stagnation, and decline, of early intervention, prevention and family support in child protection (Hearn, 1997; Weber, 1990),36 and
36 This was the case in Australia, until a resurgence of interest in the public health model, in the late 20th–early 21st century (Allen Consulting Group, 2008; Council of Australian Governments (COAG), 2009b; Department of Families Housing Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, 2008; Diamond, 2004; Scott, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2004, 2006b). The impact of this policy shift, in terms of resources and provision, outcomes for children and families, and impact on the child protection discourse and child maltreatment, is yet to be seen.
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• growing problems in placement quality and practice, for children needing to access this option (Besharov, 1985:560, 584; 1988; Pelton, 1990).
As if the overwhelming reports and service provision difficulties were not enough, the system has also been affected by the nature and quality of child maltreatment data, research, and research outcomes which depend on clarity and comparability in such areas as definitions of maltreatment, reporting pathways, practice and service responses, and are undermined by lack of stability in these (Bromfield, 2004; D’Cruz, 2004; Gillingham, 2006; Hutchinson, 1994:4).
Refining definitions: whether to go broad or narrow The terminology of ‘child maltreatment’, ‘child abuse’, and the associated response of ‘child protection’, is used as if there are common, even universal, understandings of meaning. In reality, these concepts are: unstable; socially constructed; temporally, geographically and culturally contextualised; and influenced by theoretical and practical ‘multiversity’ (Midgley, 2000), and ‘fractional realities’ (Regan & Thorpe, 2005).37
The growing focus on child protection as a strategy for intervening in disorganised and disadvantaged families (Besharov, 1988; Department of Health, 1995:54–55; Freymond & Cameron, 2006a:293; Regan & Thorpe, 2005; Wood, 2008:i–ix), and the developing list of definitions of maltreatment (reasons for intervening), result in increases in reported incidents of child maltreatment, and a declining rate of substantiations as a percentage of reports (Holzer, 2008). The complex and expensive process of child protection investigation, and identification, and the resultant numbers of
37 Terms capturing the concept of multiple, co-existing realities and epistemological positions, within which “lies the problem, which is often described as a conflict between a realist ontology (the “fact” of child abuse) and a social constructionist perspective” (Regan & Thorpe, 2005). 88 children in out-of-home care, absorb resources previously directed to service provision for needy children and families (Besharov, 1988; Tomison, 2002:1–4).
Scholarly pressure to broaden definitions of child maltreatment, in the hope that this would promote universal services for all children, backfired. Assumptions that broad definitions of child maltreatment offer safety to children in need are ill-founded: there is no evidence that ‘child protection’ strategies, however broad, are effective as a primary child-wellbeing response, in promoting wellbeing and addressing population-level disadvantage (Jack, 2000; Kamerman, 1990; Weber, 1990).
A body of scholarly research, undertaken by such experts as Pelton (1990), Besharov (1985) and Hutchinson (1994), argues that definitions of child maltreatment are too broad. The evidence cited includes a cycle of increasing reasons for intervening in families, spiralling costs, high levels of reported concerns that are unsubstantiated as child abuse, low incidence of serious harm, and significant iatrogenic effects for those children and families receiving child protection intervention.
Professional pressure to pursue increasingly narrow definitions and target services has also failed to achieve intended, positive outcomes. Here, the problem is that as child protection has become the singular, neo-liberal, child welfare strategy, more and more children and families are excluded from accessing services until the identification of demonstrable, serious, child harm. The narrow definitions of child maltreatment and consequential contraction of service delivery have been challenged as residualist and revisionist.
Regulating reporting of child maltreatment Instruments for regulating compulsory reporting, in child protection, encourage identified professionals to report suspected instances of child maltreatment to child protection services. Teachers, doctors, nurses, social 89 workers and police are commonly identified as the minimum group of preferred reporters, with protocols, agreements or memoranda of understanding preceding the use of more formal regulation through legislation.
Historically, the experience of regulation of reporting in child protection is that it becomes increasingly formal, punitive, demanding, and extensive as ‘flaws’ are identified in the system. By the late 1960s, the USA had established mandatory reporting legislation in every State, and other countries, including Australia have followed suit. Mandatory reporting refers to systems, which legislate for specified groups of people, often including the public, to report child maltreatment concerns to a public authority, usually with sanctions to punish breaches. In the absence of legislated mandatory reporting, formal protocols may create a de facto mandatory reporting arrangement amongst key agencies, whilst shared databases or information sharing agreements assist in this (for a discussion on this issue see Munro & Parton, 2006).
Often, in response to investigations and inquiries into worst-case scenarios, the changes to the regulation of reporting that have ensued — in both legislation-based and agreement-based jurisdictions — have been as if there were under-reporting problems in the system. This is despite the fact that in the vast majority of child deaths that are the focus of major child protection enquiries, children and their families are involved with, and known to multiple public agencies, including specialist child protection services. Critically, despite knowing about each child and family’s circumstances, the child protection system was unable to prevent the children’s deaths, and ‘failure to report’ was not the reason for the tragic outcomes (see for example the tragic deaths of Daniel Valerio in Australia, Victoria Climbié in the United Kingdom, baby Kate in Australia, and Bradley McGee and Jeffrey Harden in the US, discussed in Besharov, 2000:29; 2001; Garner, 1993 ; 90
Goddard & Liddell, 1995; Lord Laming (Chair), 2003; Queensland Ombudsman, 2003; Swain, 1993).
There is a significant body of literature, either implicitly or explicitly supporting the mandatory reporting of child maltreatment for various reasons, including its moral stand, the large number of reports such a system generates in Anglo–American countries, and its assumed role in prosecuting offenders (for a wide range of commentary on these topics also see Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2001; Bell & Tooman, 1994; Goddard & Liddell, 1993; Layton, 2003; Melton, 2005; Parkinson, 2000; Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996).
There is limited but growing critique of existing proceduralisation and regulation of reporting in child protection systems. This critique is particularly informed by detailed analyses of outcomes achieved for children and families as a result of increased surveillance, reporting, and tertiary intervention, and the relative loss of access to universal, preventative and early intervention. Those analyses describe a system beset by problems of under- and over-reporting, as previously noted, and a system that has become less effective, less efficient and more dangerous for children, families and workers (Harries & Clare, 2002; Harries & Diamond, 2003; Harries, Lonne, & Thomson, 2006; McMahon, 1998; Melton, 2005; Mendes, 2001; Meyers-Young, 2000; Rayner, 1994, 2002; Scott, 2002a, 2002c, 2004, 2006b; Waldfogel, 1998a; Wood, 2008; Zellman & Antler, 1990).
How effective have been the efforts to manage problems in the child protection system Campaigns against behaviour, considered normal by many sections of the public,38 are being used to change public opinion in the face of failed
38 Examples of such behaviour include, but are by no means limited to smacking, leaving young children to mind even younger children, allowing children of a very young age 91 alternative strategies. Still, professionals may lose credibility if the definitions of child maltreatment are too at variance with reality.
Arguably, the real dilemma for child welfare is one of discovering techniques for providing services to children and families, based on need, in ways that maximise voluntary participation, and reduce child maltreatment investigation to the minimum required to pursue the very small percentage of parents who deliberately criminally harm their children.
The scholarly evidence of this chapter would suggest that strategies that are more effective need to be found to improve the overall wellbeing of children, particularly the disadvantaged, and to protect children from criminal injury. Not only has the tradition of modern child protection not achieved this, it has depleted resources that were previously available for supporting the welfare of families and children. The evidence of this includes that: • mortality and serious morbidity rates have remained largely unaffected • chronic neglect is usually implicated in welfare-related child death enquiries (Lord Laming (Chair), 2003; Victorian Child Death Review Committee, 2006:viii). Not only is neglect very difficult to define, and the most seriously under-reported form of child maltreatment, it is also most likely to occur in circumstances in which it is most difficult to effect change through tertiary intervention, for which care has the most negative consequences, and in which structural issues are most implicated (Victorian Child Death Review Committee, 2006) • current responses to maltreatment are an adversarial system working with involuntary clients, offering grossly inadequate or even inappropriate services, which are unsuccessful in effecting long-term positive change or ameliorating damage. considerable freedom to explore outside the confines of house and garden, and leaving 92
Child protection, in the Anglo–American countries, depends in part on the premise that child maltreatment is a specialty area. As a specialty, child protection relocated from medicine (the battered baby syndrome) to social work, but the sociological and the structural understandings were relentlessly suppressed. Other models of practice, used in the Scandinavian bloc and in First Nations, focus not on child harm, but respond to family and child need from an expectation of family strengths, and a multidisciplinary appreciation of the issues. In these systems, child harm, like other crimes, is the responsibility of the criminal justice system, but the legal system is accessed only as a last resort, with prevention, early intervention, community caring and family support being the preferred options.
Typically, child protection discourse and practice places blame for harm to children on parents or primary carers (Hansen & Ainsworth, 2007), is non-ecological, forensic, and disease- or deficit-focused. In this model, protection of a child is achieved through evidence gathering, investigation, prosecution and, often, relocation of the child (Jack, 1997; Parton, 1996). Carers are targeted as responsible for poor child-rearing outcomes, despite ample evidence that child maltreatment is very often concomitant with poverty, as are childhood accidents, and accidental child death (Jack, 2000; Pelton, 1990:23). The narrow application of responsibility is unhelpful, and fails to assist in addressing the multi-causal nature of child maltreatment, and associated disadvantage.
Child protection practice is expensive, resource-intensive and involves the transfer of resources from preventative, early intervention and welfare programs to post hoc tertiary level treatment and investigation (Karoly et al., 1998; Scott, 1995).
babies and toddlers in prams outside the shops whilst parents conduct some daily business. 93
Over-reporting has, with hindsight, been found to have occurred because of a culpable child protection system. The science is wrong; resulting in the exclusion of many children and families in dire need, and the misidentification of others, often with extreme, negative ramifications for them and their family, the Orkneys, Cleveland and Rochdale39 being spectacular examples of the latter (Jack, 1997:660; Parton, 1996:108).
Reporting regulation has not provided the answers. It is not, in and of itself, a service to, or intervention for, children and families. As a strategy in child protection systems, regulation of reporting has resulted largely in the creation of unmanageable lists, and the introduction of increasingly burdensome thresholds for exclusion, inclusion, and service access. It is a vehicle for focusing righteous anger at individual ‘failed’ parents, and it ignores the morbidity and mortality associated with the less obvious systemic abuse of children and families, perpetrated by failure of the State to support family welfare.
The growing crisis for children and families is expressed as ongoing and endemic problems with the wellbeing of the community, and is well documented by researchers such as Jack (2000; 1999), Garbarino (Garbarino, 1998), Stanley (2005), McCain and Mustard (1999), and Keating and Hertzman (1999b). As child and family welfare have disappeared from the policy agenda, poverty and disadvantage have been depoliticised, the dominant paradigm has become one of individualised fault and failure, and the child protection strategy has failed, we have witnessed an explosion of social problems, associated with disadvantage and traumatised communities. These include, but are not limited to: • drug and alcohol misuse • growing levels of homelessness and poverty • poor mental health
39 All towns in the UK from which groups of children were removed from families, and 94
• rising levels of tooth decay • growing economic and social inequality and the impact that this has on parents’ capacity to provide an adequate environment and effective parenting • endemic sexual abuse in some Indigenous and poor communities • toxic neighbourhoods, and • a growing disregard for State level responsibility for the wellbeing of all children. The effect on children is visible in the levels of trauma that many are experiencing and the effect of this on early brain development and life-long wellbeing.
As the supreme example of State level disregard for children, consider Madeleine Albright’s comment when she responded to a question about the number of Iraqi children dying as a consequence of the ‘oil for food’ program: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think is worth it” (quoted in Pilger, 2002:61). This could be interpreted as meaning that the welfare of all children is important as long as it is not the responsibility of the State.
Risk
ORIGINS OF THE RISK DISCOURSE Risk regulation systems have evolved as part of the development of scientific technologies in the post-Enlightenment period. Initially, the concept of risk applied to naturally occurring events, and the likelihood of either positive or negative consequences. With industrialisation, risk terminology became more closely associated with the negative consequences of risk created by man-made technologies. These perceived risks include the ‘big ticket’ items of environmental degradation, climate change, gene modification technologies, terrorism, and modern disease epidemics, but also endemic subsequently returned, following unsupportable findings of satanic ritual (sexual) abuse. 95 poverty and social exclusion, as consequences of industrialisation and urban living (Webb, 2006:2).
Public fluency in scientific methods and language increased during the 20th century. So too did public understanding of risk, particularly as this related to medicine and public health. Without anticipating the impact, public expectations increased in non-traditional areas, including the social services, for both the application of science technologies, and the use of risk regulation (Mythen, 2004:5–6). Rather than improving the general experience of safety, this transfer of knowledge and technologies to the general population resulted in a more widespread perception of insecurity and uncertainty, with increasing attendant demands on government to manage the risk (Mythen, 2004:3, 11).
Despite its long history, and the ubiquity of the concept, risk terminology is unstable across both time and interest groups, multi-dimensional, hotly debated, and highly variable in its application (Mythen, 2004:14). Where risk once expressed neutral calculations of probability, this meaning has been lost to the risk society, with new understandings of risk as danger, threat, exposure and failure, actualised through scientific inquiry technologies (Parton, 1996:105). Simultaneously, the apparent certainties of risk assessment undermine appreciation of the prevalence, magnitude, and repercussions of uncertainty, particularly in social services (Parton, 1998).
Drawing on Douglas’s original thinking about a cultural theory of risk (1986; 1992; 1982), and the relationship between risk and blame, Beck (1992; 2004; 2009; 1994) and Giddens (1987; 1994; 1998) developed the risk society paradigm, in seminal works describing a post-welfare model of governance that emerged in the 1980s and rewrote the contract between the State and citizens. Scholars such as Rose (1999a; 1999b), Parton (1996; 1998; 2008) and Webb (Webb, 2006) have continued development of this scholarly debate, in the context of the modern social policy arena. 96
In the post-war social welfare–social citizenship contract, the State was responsible for addressing need; using centralised planning, ensuring fiscal and material wellbeing, returning government earnings to the people through the delivery of essential social services of at least acceptable standard, and encouraging social inclusion and responsibility for wellbeing (Parton, 1996:98–99).
The social contract changed insidiously with the growth of neo-liberal, free- market politics and the growth of the risk society as the expression of the new contract. In the form of responsibility for individual risk, practitioners and professionals have mediated the devolvement of responsibility for ensuring the wellbeing of the people from government to individuals. In the place of social welfare provision, government undertakes control and compliance monitoring in relation to the targeted use of a dwindling social welfare budget, for increasingly vulnerable, disadvantaged and disenfranchised societal groups. In the risk society “the axial principle is the distribution not of goods but of bads — the distribution of hazards, dangers and risks” (Parton, 1996:109), to a community with less and less social capital or capacity to absorb the privatisation of risk (Cooper, Hetherington, & Katz, 2003; Webb, 2006).
HOW THE CONCEPT OF RISK AND ITS MANAGEMENT HAS BECOME A DOMINANT WESTERN DISCOURSE The risk society paradigm has an excellent discursive fit with the ideology of neo-liberal politics and to this extent, it is logical that its adoption across neo-liberal regimes has been so thorough and dramatic. In addition, globalisation exerted pressure to streamline business processes, and in the theorisation of this, risk has been adopted as a constituent concept (Callahan & Swift, 2007:67–8; Palier, 2004).
Risk terminology is widely accepted, and through the use of the language and interactions of social interest groups, the concept of risk is 97 reconstructed, interpreted, transacted and experienced on a daily basis (Mythen, 2004:11–20; Webb, 2006:2). This is part of a process that Beck (1992) refers to as reflexive modernity, in which, as risk is individualised and redistributed from the State to the citizens, and individuals — adrift from theoretical, class, gender, and family reference points — negotiate a route of increasing responsibility for life choices and outcomes. In this model, as State service provision is withdrawn, what remains is increasingly residual in nature (Webb, 2006:53), and lacking in the entitlement accorded by welfare politics (Rose, 1999b:89).
Need is redefined as risk, and the science of risk assessment aids professionals in the discursive creation of new risk identities for the socially excluded and disenfranchised (Hearn, 1997; Wearing & Dowse, 2000:3). These bad, or anti-citizens, so defined because of their lack of capacity to manage their own risk adequately, become the victims of managed self governance (Wearing & Dowse, 2000:3–5), and are increasingly stigmatised by the exclusionary social policies of neo-liberal welfarism and risk management (Parton, 1996:98; Rose, 1999b:88–89,253–259; Webb, 2006:53– 61).
Risk society has democratised expert knowledge, rendering the language, if not the theory, familiar and in many respects contemptible. In an hermeneutic of contrariety, risk society relies on scientific methods that are now part of distrusted expert systems, to validate the use of risk assessment tools. Risk society, and the risk discourse, simultaneously undermine trust in traditional expertise, and make individuals experts in their own life planning. Though taking no account of the vulnerability created for both individuals and marginalised groups by this model, the accessible, albeit illogical proceduralisation of decision making is accepted routinely as empowering people to become self-made.
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As is the case in child protection practice, circumstances are quite different in the non-neo-liberal European economies, where the political and cultural landscape is not risk-bound. In these economies, where the contract between State and citizens remains more traditional and focused on provision and wellbeing, risk is not a prioritised concern for daily existence, professionals have not become scapegoats for failures in State responsibility shifting, and there is a greater sense of trust and optimism across the trinity of State, citizenry and practitioners (Cooper et al., 1995; Cooper et al., 2003:61).
WHY RISK ASSESSMENT HAS BECOME SO UNCRITICALLY AND WIDELY ACCEPTED IN CHILD PROTECTION The risk society discourse that Beck analyses and critiques (1992; 2006; 2009; 1994), that gives prominence to structural and societal risk in its construction, has been uncritically adopted in child protection practice. Risk, with its inherent acceptance of predictability and probability, and modern transfer of responsibility to the individual, are close conceptual allies of modern child protection, focusing as they currently do almost exclusively on problem identification, and individual and family-level locus of responsibility and intervention (Gillingham, 2006:1–2).
Leveraging off the risk discourse, the State, in a process mediated by practitioners, has shifted responsibility for population-level risk to the most vulnerable individuals in society. Indeed, a major consideration in critiquing child protection practice in the late 20th century, must be the degree to which this shift, and the uptake of risk assessment tools in child protection, are related products of the wider risk society discourse that has renegotiated the citizen–State contract, and the definition of a good citizen (Callahan & Swift, 2006:217).
The danger to the State, government organisations, service providers and practitioners, in failing to relocate responsibility for risk, has spawned a risk manufacturing and management industry in high-exposure, tertiary 99 interventions such as child protection (Wearing & Dowse, 2000), an approach that is now unfortunately permeating the primary and secondary health promotion arenas of family support, prevention and early intervention (Gillingham, 2006).
It is social work’s interface with individuals most exposed to the State’s withdrawal from service provision and resource redistribution that has driven the profession’s interest in risk assessment and risk management, as tools for controlling exposure and shifting liability (Webb, 2006:3). Indeed, in developing specialist risk-assessment tools, social workers exercise a degree of professional control, by creating an impression of expertise, which simultaneously separates them from, and increases their value to, both masters and clients.
Risk assessment and risk management have provided the rationale for government organisations to redistribute shrinking service delivery resources. The individually focused risk assessment and risk management of late 20th century child protection, have reduced complex social problems to a series of simple parental behaviour issues. Unidimensional, targeted service delivery has become the strategy of choice for responding to these now simplified problems, limiting individual access to dwindling, redistributed resources, and fragmenting accountability for outcomes at the level of service providers and individuals. Caught in networks of marginalised, micro-service provision, subject to increasingly invasive and disciplinary controls, the now responsible individual whose problems have been deconstructed and redefined, loses choice and autonomy (Callahan & Swift, 2006; Ranald, 1996; Rose, 1999b).
The rationality of scientific thinking, and our growing capacity to harness science in influencing physical processes, has buoyed unrealistic expectations of increased capacity to influence social processes through measurement and management. This has been encouraged by embracing 100 the new information record and management technologies, which have altered the nature of work in the social services from a practice, theory- based, relational engagement with the developmental narrative of people’s lives, as characterised by the work of such practitioner-scholars as Connolly (Connolly, 2007, 2009), and Thorpe and Reagan (Regan & Thorpe, 2005; Thorpe, Regan, Mason, & May-Chahal, 2007), to immediate reactivity and decontextualised information sound bytes (Buckley, 1999; Parton, 2006; Parton, 2008; Wearing & Dowse, 2000).
Whilst risk assessment tools and risk management technologies have provided the pathway by which the risk paradigm has so profoundly influenced child protection practice (Callahan & Swift, 2006), it has been public tragedies and the increased expectations of scientific methods, and of preventative capacity, that have assured its uptake (Callahan & Swift, 2006, 2007). Inquiries and their findings, focused on high consequence–low probability cases (Cooper et al., 2003:57), have increased pressure in child protection practice, to adopt medical triage approaches, scientific thinking and technologies, and predictive models in determining priorities for intervention (Callahan & Swift, 2007; Webb, 2006). Practice is also skewed towards that most likely to prevent the most tragic, but least likely, outcome — that of child death (Cooper et al., 2003:57). For government, increased control, and reduced liability have been the pay-off (Parton, 1998). Risk assessment tools and risk management strategies fulfil all these requirements.
In the following ways, the reductionist approaches of risk assessment and risk management impose apparent simplicity and order on the reality of complex lives: • measurement and recording, and construction and objectification of new risk identities, justify intervention by repositioning need as risk, and apparently predicting dangerousness (Callahan & Swift, 2006; Gillingham, 2006; Parton, 1998:19–21; 2006; Wearing & Dowse, 2000) 101
• the tools themselves enable government to devolve risk and responsibility initially to the expert practitioners (Callahan & Swift, 2006; Gillingham, 2006), who in turn devolve it to service providers and individuals • focus shifts from an holistic understanding of the problems affecting people’s lives, to disconnected detail which is reconstructed as evidence of blame and problem behaviour (Callahan & Swift, 2006; Hansen & Ainsworth, 2007; Parton, 1998:19–21; Wearing & Dowse, 2000) • simplification of recording divides the work into manageable, if not effective administrative tasks40 (Parton, 1998:20), and • information is reconstructed as ‘evidence’, through the scientific methods of risk assessment (Callahan & Swift, 2006) .
Risk has become another measure of how [disadvantaged] parents fail: it allows individualisation of responsibility for problems located beyond individuals’ spheres of influence, avoids questions of State-level service provision and health promotion, and justifies State intervention in individual families.
PROBLEMS IN THE CONCEPTUALISATION AND APPLICATION OF RISK ASSESSMENT IN CHILD PROTECTION PRACTICE Justification of risk management in child protection is founded on the proposition that it will prevent future harm and that intervention is effective. This understanding is predicated on medical and actuarial models of risk identification, and the role of prediction in population health. Unfortunately, actuarial models, which are prone to producing high rates of both false positives and false negatives, are population models and completely invalid in predicting and determining probability at the individual level.
40 Recording for risk management has had the added complication of tying practitioners to the administrative tasks of recording the minutiae whilst preventing them from working holistically and engaging in the development of meaningful and productive relationships with children and families in need. 102
Furthermore, individual intervention is ineffective in addressing structural, population-level problems, such as the poverty and disadvantage associated with adverse experiences for children and families in a number of identifiable population groups. These problems with risk assessment in child protection practice are well documented and discussed by researchers and academics such as Wearing (2000), Rose (1995), Webb (2006), Gillingham (2006), and Callahan (2006).
The risk assessment approach, based as it is on the beliefs that the identified risk factors are causative, peculiar to the population identified for child protection intervention, and that individuals are the most appropriate focus of intervention, perpetuates blindness to multi-causality in children’s adverse experiences, multi-finality for families and children who experience the impact of the identified risk factors, and systemic avoidance of structural considerations (Gillingham, 2006; Parton, 1997; Stanley et al., 2002).
Recent work has been undertaken to address concerns that risk assessment strategies embed the adversarial nature of child protection practice, undermine relationship building, and construct new realities. Perhaps the most notable work in this area is that of Turnell and Edwards (1999). In their risk assessment framework, protective factors are intended to act as a counterbalance to risk factors. Nevertheless, failure to address the transacted, non-predictive nature of the information, and the impact of the workers’ lens — in detail selection, sorting, prioritising, classification and response — results in denial of some of the major concerns about risk assessment tools, in particular, the matter of risk assessment’s mantle of scientific rigour. According to Gillingham (2008), the real utility in risk assessment is the use to which it is put in justifying how best to deploy scarce resources, rather than in identifying any probability of harm by individuals.
There have been significant negative consequences for workers, families and children, arising from both the inquiry-driven search for rigour and 103 accountability through scientific methods, and the concomitant and related adoption of risk assessment tools and risk management strategies. These include: • reduced tolerance for disadvantage in the system and by workers, , which is reconstructed through risk assessment as dangerousness (Callahan & Swift, 2006, 2007; Parton, 1998:19–20) • widening use and focus of mandatory reporting (Callahan & Swift, 2006) • increased energy expended on ineffective risk assessment and risk management (Callahan & Swift, 2006) • sharp increases in workload as numbers of reports and investigations rise (Callahan & Swift, 2006; Parton, 1998:13–19), and related continuing problems of worker burnout and low morale (Callahan & Swift, 2007; Cooper et al., 2003:17–28) • efforts by the State to devolve responsibility to practitioners, service deliverers and individuals (Callahan & Swift, 2007; Wearing & Dowse, 2000) • complex issues are reduced to simple disconnected parts, with practitioners’ views limited to the parameters of the tools, which lead to circular, self-fulfilling, less considered, automated, procedural responses, and reduced practitioner reflexivity (Gillingham & Bromfield, 2008; Parton, 2008) • risk assessment tools essentially measure and confirm the dangerousness of disadvantage, and authenticate workers’ discomfort in working in this area • identification of parental behaviours as risk, and the reason for the disadvantage, confirm the individual as responsible, and as the location for intervention • redirection of the practitioner’s focus from the worker–client relationship, to data collection and warehousing, risk and resource distribution, identity construction (Callahan & Swift, 2007; Gillingham, 2006), contracts and processes (Wearing & Dowse, 2000) 104
• loss of worker–client relationships, high levels of worker-blaming for poor outcomes (Cooper et al., 2003:17–28) • unhelpful focus and over-simplification imposed by risk assessment (Callahan & Swift, 2006) • deskilling of workers, and exponential increases in proceduralisation and managerialism (Wearing & Dowse, 2000).
Although some scholars have argued that risk assessment in child protection practice enables early intervention and better management of child abuse (for example see Turnell & Edwards, 1999), others argue that despite risk assessment’s apparent empiricism, it has had no effect in reducing the incidence of child abuse. There is no evidence of child safety having improved (Callahan & Swift, 2006, 2007), and risk assessment has made no substantive difference to safety and wellbeing in the population targeted by child protection practice (for a discussion on risk assessment see Webb, 2006:153–154). Thus, despite the enormous investment, single women, ethnic minority groups, and low-income disadvantaged people are targeted for end-stage, punitive, legalistic, child protection intervention (Callahan & Swift, 2006). Despite neglect being identified as the most common reason for child abuse reporting, substantiation, and children coming into care; despite neglect’s cumulative dangerousness to children having been recognised for decades; and despite its known association with poverty; less and less energy is expended on addressing structural disadvantage for the groups who come to the attention of the child protection system (Callahan & Swift, 2006).
Risk is something now carried largely by practitioners, mostly social workers, who have taken responsibility for developing the risk discourse, encouraging its democratisation, developing pseudo-scientific tools for measuring the risk, and managing dwindling resources. By withholding services from people in need until the consequent risk results in the 105 identification of obvious levels of dangerousness (Webb, 2006), a situation is created warranting the most invasive action (Cooper et al., 2003:56–64).
Unsurprisingly, the State is distrustful of practitioners’ capacity to manage the risk, and the recipients are distrustful of intervention that is often too little, too late, delivered by practitioners who no longer have credibility or even special expertise.
Despite vastly increased understanding of risk regulation in many areas of scientific endeavour, there is no indication that the increased proceduralisation and managerialism that it has imposed on the social sciences has been either effective or harmless (Mythen, 2004:3–4). Cooper et al. (2003:56–64) are clear that the model can create problems for both families and practitioners. In particular, this effect has resulted from the tendency for practitioners to avoid early intervention, and to be more crisis- driven.
IN SUMMARY — CHILD PROTECTION AND RISK MANAGEMENT Webb (2006) questions whether the politics of neo-liberalism, and the social context of the risk society, have actually delivered to children and families a more dangerous environment, as centralised planning and universal service delivery have disappeared, and the middle classes have plundered good quality services, leaving a dwindling, and increasingly overstretched, public resource for the disadvantaged, disillusioned and disenfranchised.
It is his view that the neo-liberal model has delivered to children and their families enormous responsibility for resolving structural problems far beyond their control or spheres of influence (2006:62). He suggests that the State has abrogated responsibility as a joint investor in the child-rearing project; the impact of which is an exponentially heightened rating of dangerousness and responsibility assigned to the individual.
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In this process, professionals, including social workers, are seen to have colluded with the State in: disempowering and marginalising a growing underclass; normalising their social circumstances; undermining their political unity by failing to acknowledge the common negative impact of the withdrawal of State provision; and marketing risk management and inappropriate micro-skills as solutions to structural distress (Rose, 1999b:88– 89, 254–263).
In the light of the aggregated data, observations I made in 2004 at an international symposium on human rights in public health are resonant: Countries looking to develop strategies for the protection and wellbeing of their children would be wise to look beyond the child protection discourse. Whilst forensic child protection does have a place in responding to a very small minority of offences against children, it is population health, public health and human rights which are likely to deliver the most significant gains in child wellbeing and safety in the next two decades. The benefits of child wellbeing will accrue through access to adequate levels of potable water, nutrition, education, medical attention, housing, recreation and employment for the family.
In the same way that, as an African leader recently stated when Australia opposed a United Nations’ Economic and Social Council resolution on a right to food: “human rights begins with breakfast” (Zifcak, 2004), so child protection starts with political will (Gil, 1975) and a more responsive paradigm (Diamond, 2004).
Individualising responsibility for poor child–rearing outcomes — in summary In this chapter the theoretical and discursive traditions of bio-ecological systems theory and population health are introduced as being the logical foundations to an exploration of State responsibility for, and obligations to, children and families. Both of these positions clearly identify the systemic location of wellbeing, and therefore the responsibility of the socio-political executive to take responsibility for the health and impact of the environments that are more and more distal from the individual, the family, and their capacity to influence.
The chapter then explores the growth of the welfare State, and the peculiarities of the Anglo-American model. This model has become 107 increasingly punitive; individualising responsibility for the impact on parenting capacity, of bio-ecological disadvantage at all levels of the system. Ultimately, the Anglo-American approach to child and family welfare has enabled the socio-political executive to abrogate responsibility for systemic wellbeing, by managing the responsibility for structural problems away from government instrumentalities and the broad community, down to families, through the language of individualised risk.
What have not been presented, as part of the background for this thesis, are either the numerous valiant attempts by various jurisdictions to reduce the iatrogenicity, and increase the effectiveness, of intervening within the extant child protection paradigm, or the consistent, albeit specialised academic assault on the model as evidence by work by such experts as Freymond (2006a), Beshrov (1985, 1988, 2000), Cooper et. al (2003), Waldfogel (1998a, 1998b), Munro (2002), Melton (2005); and Melton et. al. (2002b). The reason for a failure to represent this interesting work is that despite best efforts to work within the child protection paradigm and alter its trajectory for impacting children and families, the vexing and more strategic question of this thesis, as to how obligations and responsibilities of the State concerning child and family wellbeing are conceptualised, remains, and is essentially very different from previous conversations about working differently within the know child protection paradigm.
Part 1, and in particular chapters 2 and 3, which provide the chronological study of the historical–developmental context of the State as a joint investor in the child–rearing project, provide the context for the research findings and transformative discussion in Part 3.
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Part 2
The Research Process: Discovery and Development
Whereas Part 1 locates the thesis in the historical development of the research question and the chronology of discourses about State obligations, Part 2, Discovery and Development in the Research Process, explores elements of the research process in three chapters.
Chapter 4, The Researcher, is an exposé of the researcher, her context and her relationship with the research question and process. In Chapter 5, The Research, the focus is on the research question, methodological matters and related theoretical foundations. Research methods, data collection and analysis are the domain of Chapter 6, The Researching.
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Chapter 4: The Researcher
Background It would be dishonest for this thesis to be written in a manner that locates myself, the researcher, as a distant spectator and truth finder, for in reality I have been at different times insider researcher, outsider researcher, participant and observer. Furthermore, whilst the research process was not intended to investigate my own experience, in the fascinating hermeneutic of naturalistic inquiry (Adler & Adler, 1994; Patton, 2002a:436), my own experience has in fact entered the realm of the research and thus become subject to analysis.
As part of the reflexivity of the thesis, this chapter aims to make transparent some of the personal experiences, which inform my own analysis, structuring, and knowledge making. Also described is the role played in this reflexive process by a series of presentations undertaken during the life of the research.
Kenneth Pike (reported in Patton, 2002a:267) was the first to distinguish between the quality of observations made by indigenous and non-indigenous anthropology researchers. He coined the terms ‘emic’ and ‘etic’ to distinguish the meanings of lived experience of an insider’s perspective from those of an outsider’s interpretations of meanings of the lived experience. Today the language of insider–outsider perspectives is more commonly used, and as Patton states, “the challenge is to do justice to both perspectives” (Patton, 2002a:268).
Qualitative researchers often study groups and/or issues with which they are intimately involved privately, professionally, or both. These intimate relationships make them insiders to the groups, or in relation to the issues they are studying. The position of insider researcher is considered particularly useful in researching process rather than outcome and 112 contributing to the knowledge base of the group rather than building expertise in an external authority (Bonner & Tolhurst, 2002). Other benefits associated with insider researcher status include: a perceived ethical advantage (Bonner & Tolhurst, 2002); little disruption to the studied group (Adler & Adler, 1994); greater capacity for the researcher to assess the authenticity of their data; and enhanced levels of trust by the researched group, giving the researcher entrée, and access to material and understandings (Bonner & Tolhurst, 2002). Difficulties associated with insider research include the possibility of being blind to routine events, unable to step aside from conventional group constructions of knowledge, and being unable to take a critical perspective in relation to the data (Bonner & Tolhurst, 2002; Breen, 2007).
As previously indicated by Patton (2002a:268), researchers may need to accommodate both insider and outsider perspectives.
In her description of ‘researcher in the middle’, Breen (Breen, 2007) argues that the insider–outsider dichotomy is unhelpfully simple, failing to capture the complex relationship between most qualitative researchers and their topics, participants and data. Similarly, in her review of another researcher’s ethnographic study of the Amish, Eppley (2006) states that Weaver-Zercher (2005) “implores [researchers] to re-conceptualize the seemingly stable binary positioning of the researcher as insider/outsider”. This is because he understands the subject of his analysis to have a positionality that is “dynamic and tentative, falling within an insider/outsider continuum”. In her concluding comment, Eppley (op. cit.) observes that the usefulness of conceptualising an insider/outsider dichotomy is accepted. What is in question is the plausibility of researcher positionality being at one of the extremes and remaining static for the duration of the research. Where appropriate, qualitative researchers need to describe a fluid positionality, thereby making more transparent their changing relationship with, and in, the research (and Langhout, 2006; see for example Pitman, 2002; Young, 113
2005). There are some techniques, such as naturalistic inquiry and a grounded theory approach, that enable the researcher to immerse him/herself in the construction of another’s world, and simultaneously position him/herself as an outsider. These are discussed further in the next chapter, in relation to data collection and analysis.
For some participants in this research I was perhaps an insider (i.e. for child protection workers), for others I was possibly an outsider (i.e. for police, child health nurses, legal advocacy workers), and for still others I was probably both insider and outsider (i.e. as a child welfare department co- worker, an external presenter and an external researcher). It is also likely that every participant would, if asked to locate me on the insider–outsider continuum, have done so differently. About such positional mobility, Kusow (2003) argues: The relationship between the researcher and participants cannot be determined a priori…research status is something that participants continuously negotiate and locally determine. A researcher can be an insider in a particular local situation but an outsider in another. I argue that the researcher’s characteristics do not solely determine insider/outsider status. Rather, this status emerges from the interaction between the researcher and the participants as well as from the social and political situation within which the interaction occurs.
Cognisance of one’s location and stance in relation to the research, the participants and the data is imperative for the social constructionist and critical inquirer. Reflexivity, or analysis and awareness of one’s own context and position affects the way the researcher analyses and organises the feedback from participants and develops both the data and the thesis, all of which are socially, historically and ideologically constructed.
I have worked in the child welfare arena for thirty years, having begun work as an undergraduate with the then Western Australian Government Child Welfare Department. That department has changed its name and orientation several times over ensuing years, and despite overseas experience, consultancy and secondments, largely I have remained with what is now called the Department for Child Protection. In that time, my responsibilities 114 have included child and family welfare practice, adoptions, research and program development, policy development, staff training, business management and the drafting of legislation. This professional experience, peppered by memorable organisational examples of good intentions, that often appeared to me in practice to dehumanise children, families, practitioners and managers, and hindered real opportunities to explore the issues and conceptualise alternative approaches, consolidated my thinking about the State’s broad responsibilities for the general wellbeing of children and families, and its contested approach to child protection (Cashmore, Dolby, & Brennan, 1994; Cooper et al., 2003; Fernandez, 1996; Mendes, 1996; Thorpe, 1994; Waldfogel, 1998b). I hold deep reservations about the humanity, purpose and ethics of removing most children from their families. Most particularly I hold these reservations when the children are targeted for removal because their highly disadvantaged and disorganised families are unable to manage and overcome enormous eco-systemic failure, largely beyond their control or influence.
A trans-racial, cross-cultural family network and life experience, with sensitive exposure to issues facing indigenous peoples (as an oppressed majority in Southern Africa, an oppressed minority in Australia and a dominant majority in Saudi Arabia), made me heedful of the ways in which discrimination is perpetrated, powerlessness experienced, and of the importance of access, power, self-determination and freedom of expression. In quite fundamental ways, a family-of-origin culture of social justice and anti-apartheid primed my awareness of those burdened by ‘underdog’ status. It was my experience in child welfare, which reaffirmed that that unenviable position inevitably involved seriously disadvantaged families including indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities and single parents.
As I reflect on the past, I am conscious of how my lessons about families and childhood shaped career choice and research orientation. I am conscious of how dependent children are on parents for their wellbeing and how, in the 115 absence of psychological, social and structural support, parents sometimes have no alternative but to make costly decisions in an attempt to address the complex needs of children and families. Clearly, located as I am within this personal history, I can seek to be transparent and reflexive, but I cannot argue neutral observer status.
Current project Much of my journey as a researcher, the examination of complex relationships and conceptualisation of new frameworks, happened outside what I saw as the formal researching process. That is, it happened ‘in my head’ and in conversations with others, often around ideas that initially appeared to sit adjacent to concerns about State obligations to children and families, but were eventually subsumed within the topic. Some of the reasons for this lack of separation between the formal research process and the real thinking were that I continued to work in child welfare, presented at a variety of national and international forums, and undertook simultaneous, collaborative academic research projects. These activities not only served to highlight the multiple arenas in which constructions of State obligations to children and families have relevance, they also influenced contemporary thinking, gave ‘the State as parent’41 greater currency in Australia42 and clearly nested protective work with children in a larger paradigm. In addition, the various research and presentation activities in which I was involved, formed part of a reflexive hermeneutic that enabled me to explore new models and escape extant constructions of State obligations to children and families that were profoundly directed by a past experience in statutory child protection. The details of these activities, which heavily influenced my
41 This term relates to a similar concept used by Professor Roy Parker in the early 1990s to stress how the obligations of an ordinary parent extend to the State in its role as parent to children for whom it has statutory responsibility. 42 See both Layton (2003) and Vardon (2004) for examples of this. 116 thinking but were not central to the research process, are documented in Addendum 2, Reflexive activities within the research.
This chapter locates the researcher as a participant in an evolving and reflexive process of inquiry, which included the research for this thesis and extended to a variety of other affiliated activities informing the research hermeneutic. Understanding how the researcher’s lens is informed by their personal experience is important in qualitative research because of the potential this knowledge offers for interrogating the research findings. 117
Chapter 5: The Research
In this chapter, I discuss how the research is located as a qualitative work: what are the question, the perspectives and methodology, and the theoretical foundations. Crotty’s (Crotty, 1998:1–14, 42–63) framework in particular, has informed my thinking about research theory.
The research question The research question, so taut and carefully constructed at proposal stage, was, in the reflexive transacting of the research process, ‘worried-at’ like a piece of over-handled chewing gum; retaining its essential characteristics, but stretching and consolidating to meet the needs of the thesis to best explore an emergent and mutable phenomenon. Tortuous unpicking and reworking of the language, in an effort to ensure the essence of the question, was evident in its various permutations including:
At 19.10.99, the proposal stated: The purpose of this research is the exploration and development of the concept of ‘the State as parent’ as a unifying paradigm for both the aggressive overhaul and the evolution of protective services for children.
A note in the research diary in 2006, strove to express the research question coherently and comprehensively in a way that unified the constant and continuing essential characteristics of the question whilst capturing the transformative, hermeneutical process: Is the emergent concept of ‘the State as parent’ able to be constructed and articulated; does this include an understanding and acceptance of the role of ‘parent’, and how is it expressed?
Despite the ongoing angst about how best to express the research question, it remained essentially the same throughout the research: Contextualised by related historical and contemporary discourses, how are obligations and responsibilities of the State concerning child and family wellbeing currently conceptualised in Australia by individuals working at the strategic level in public policy, legislation and scholarship.
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Arising from earlier research, and in addition to this research question, was a secondary interest in the currency and value of the emergent concept of ‘the State as parent’.
Research perspectives and methodology
CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH This is a qualitative research thesis. Qualitative research is not a single entity but a class of research with a rich, multidisciplinary history that draws on multiple paradigmatic perspectives, multiple approaches and multi- methods, both naturalistic and positivist. This plurality is evidenced by the many terms synonymous with qualitative research, which include amongst others: naturalistic, post-positivistic, phenomenological, hermeneutic or descriptive research (Patton, 2002a:75; Wolcott, 1990:10).
Based on a view which holds that reality is dependent upon context and subjective experience, qualitative research methods have evolved from a range of social science disciplines including psychology, anthropology, ethnography and sociology. Social work practice and research, the discipline within which the research for this thesis has been undertaken, are also historically influenced by the qualitative/naturalistic research traditions (Franklin & Jordan, 1995; Green, Jensen, & Jones, 1996; Hartman, 1990; Riessman, 1994; Rodwell, 1987).
Qualitative research is characterised by shared underlying assumptions that Creswell (1998) identifies as: …the multiple nature of reality, the close relationship of the researcher to that being researched, the value-laden aspect of inquiry, the personal approach to writing the narrative, and the emerging inductive methodology of the process of research (Creswell, 1998:73).
A unifying paradigm or perspective is not implied by Creswell. Rather, qualitative research is an approach embracing multiple frameworks, lenses and perspectives which place in the foreground the role of the researcher as 119 bricoleur–theorist (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994a:2) in developing a bricolage that aids in the representation and understanding of people’s lived experiences.
The bricoleur–theorist’s role is to engage with, and interrogate the research material in order to represent it in a manner that encourages new understandings (Crotty, 1998:49–50), with the resulting bricolage being: …a complex, dense, reflexive, collage-like creation that represents the researcher’s images, understanding, and interpretations of the world or phenomenon under analysis (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994a:3).
The bricolage is therefore not a statement of truth in the positivist sense, but is reasonable, credible and trustworthy.
Essentially, qualitative research is a research approach rich in the contemporary expression of its multidisciplinary origins and the tensions inherent in the ontological, epistemological and methodological demands ensuing from the paradigmatic profusion.
Although I agree with the view that qualitative research has come of age, and as such does not require researchers as apologists (Creswell, 1998:75–76; Patton, 2002a:68–71), the labyrinthine morphology of qualitative research has led me to address research perspectives in some detail. A significant part of this research journey has been spent nurturing a level of discernment in relation to qualitative research as a mechanism for developing a researcher gestalt of the process, and for exploring and integrating experienced dilemmas, particularly around theoretical perspectives, methodology and methods.
My analysis is that the manifold, and not necessarily well appreciated, ramifications of undertaking a qualitative approach, warrant greater researcher transparency and penetration of the coadunate ontological, epistemological and methodological dialectic. Transparency is vital, not only for confirming the researcher’s understanding, but to assist new researchers 120 in grappling with the conceptual intricacies and multiple agendas of qualitative inquiry.
EPISTEMOLOGICALLY SPEAKING… Much of the research literature is clear that one of the earliest tasks for any researcher, having determined that the area of study may be reasonably pursued within a qualitative approach, is to determine the foundational perspective framing the research (Creswell, 1998:73; Crotty, 1998; Denzin & Lincoln, 1994b). There exists a variety of labels for this foundational perspective, depending on how the various authors conceptualise and construct the epistemological, theoretical and methodological matrix. For example, Creswell (1998) calls this a philosophical perspective, Crotty (1998) refers to epistemology and Patton (2002a) describes paradigms. As qualitative research has matured, and the range of possible strategic pathways has multiplied, agreement about both the preordained nature of particular combinations of paradigm and methodology, and the requirement that foundational perspectives are determined a priori, has been challenged (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Patton, 2002a:32–142). What is clear, however, is that eventually the researcher must be able to articulate the logic of their paradigmatic, theoretical and methodological choices.
My certainty about how to nominate the philosophical location of this research has wavered as I have attempted to integrate various positions discussed in, for example, Lincoln and Guba (1985), Denzin and Lincoln (1994b), Patton (2002a), Crotty (1998) and Creswell (1998). Essentially, it was clear from the start that this research is philosophically naturalistic, and for me it emerged that more specifically, it is constructionist. This raised the question of how constructivism and constructionism differ.
Constructivism is an anti-objectivist, even anti-modernist, position in which the plurality and pliability of reality is recognised. Constructivists understand us to construct, as opposed to create (see Crotty, 1998:44), and shape our own knowledge and truths, through culturally informed frames of 121 reference, perceptions and symbols such as language, used for describing and recording the knowledge and the truth: It [constructivism] is the view that all knowledge, and therefore all meaningful reality as such, is contingent on human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction, between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context (emphasis in original Crotty, 1998: 42).
This position is in stark contrast to the more etic, objectivist approach, which honours the role of the inquirer in exposing and measuring pre-existing and immutable facts (Crotty, 1998:42; Schwandt, 1994).
Goodman (1984), the philosopher largely responsible for describing a constructivist epistemology, understands the constructivist process as one of ‘world making’. In ‘world making’, the individual does not simply construct a different understanding of the same world: they actually construct a different world. The applicability of these world versions is not that they possess an intrinsic truth but that they have a ‘rightness’, dependent upon the level of fit between the world version and the discourse that is occurring, and are thus useful in furthering an understanding of the ‘real world’. Goodman provides a beautiful definition of cognition, as the understanding of reality: [developing] from what happens to be currently adopted and proceed[ing] to integrate and organize, weed out and supplement, not in order to arrive at the truth about something already made but in order to make something right—to construct something that works cognitively, that fits together and handles new cases, that may implement further inquiry and intervention (Goodman & Elgin, 1988:163).
Constructionism, or social constructionism, places a greater value on the social processes in reality construction than does constructivism, thereby reinforcing ‘reality’s’ historically and socially located nature (Crotty, 1998:54). For constructionists, although the reconstructive and interpretive role of the researcher is etic, research is essentially (but not exclusively) emic: to understand lived experiences from the point of view of those who are directly involved. 122
METHODOLOGY Whilst Chapter 6, The Researching, describes the research methods, the data and their analysis in detail, a very brief summary at this point simply establishes the relevance of the following discussion on methodology to that material. In this multi-method naturalistic inquiry utilising interviews, focus groups and a case study for primary data collection, a grounded theory approach was used for primary data analysis.
Epistemologically constructionist, this research was accordingly, methodologically deeply dialectical and hermeneutical. Social constructions were revealed and refined through an interactive process between the researcher and the data. Interpretations of the constructions were undertaken using traditional hermeneutical procedures. These emphasised interpretation and context, negotiation of meaning, the identification of patterns of similarity and difference in the ‘text’, and the use of relevant social theory enabling the examination of harmonies and contrarieties through a circular, logical and analytic exegesis. Hermeneutical procedures, congruent with a dialectical approach, reconciled and resolved different points of view without establishing ‘a truth’. The methodological approach to this research was determined by a number of factors — the ‘real world’ nature of the question, the non-interventionist process most likely to inform a coherent and sensible understanding, and the overriding issue of how the ‘reality’ of the phenomenon under consideration might be meaningfully constructed. Epistemology influences methodological choice, and constructionist epistemology biased the researcher to an hermeneutical and dialectical methodology.
Theoretical foundations The separation of theoretical foundations, from perspectives and methodology in the previous section, was informed by Crotty’s framework (Crotty, 1998:1–14), which was of much assistance in developing an understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of qualitative research. Patton’s analysis of the many different ways of making sense of these 123 research traditions (Patton, 2002a:75–142), and the importance of a healthy dose of pragmatism (ibid. 137–138), was also immensely helpful.
In this section, I discuss the postmodernist theoretical foundation to the hermeneutical and dialectical methodology selected for this research. Theoretical foundations address assumptions about language, inter-subjectivity, power, community and communication informing the research methodology, and how these understandings underpin the research process as a basis for logical analysis.
This is a focus on the theoretical foundations of the research design as opposed to the separate theoretical foundations of the research content or subject area. Whilst the distinction is necessarily and blatantly obvious, and is quite possibly never directly considered by the experienced quantitative researcher, as a naive researcher I was thoroughly confused by the undifferentiated use of ‘theoretical foundations’ and related terms in relation to both design and content. The separate and unrelated nature of these different theoretical foci is not generally articulated explicitly, although research success depends on at least an implicit understanding.
POSTMODERNISM Postmodernism is a social theory perspective of the second half of the 20th century. Founded on an age of modernity, and contemporary with constructionism, postmodernism followed from the emergence of modernism earlier in the 20th century.
Modernity refers to the ‘normative projects’ of an era (Dodd, 1999:3), characterised by a new dominant philosophical framework for knowledge construction which persisted for two centuries following The Enlightenment of the 17th century. Modernity’s philosophical framework provided for new processes of scientific inquiry, often using industrial technological developments to obtain value-free results in the exploration of immutable facts. This is distinct from the preceding traditional or medieval societal 124 knowledge paradigm in which largely unknowable God and Fortuna (the Roman goddess of good luck) were regarded as the two powers shaping the natural environment. Although our capacity to influence our environment, within the bounds of God’s Great Plan, was influencing our thinking and understanding of the world and our context by the 14th century Renaissance (Hamilton, 1994), it was not until 17th century Enlightenment that logical reasoning, scientific truth, causality and the impact of the individual began to significantly influence our philosophers (Grbich, 2004:Chapter 1).
Modernity was characterised by an acceptance of a context of pervasive universal conditions for humankind — industrialisation, urbanisation, technological development, the medicalisation of illness and universal access to primary education as examples. It was an era of legitimating scientific progress and technological development through grand narratives that depended on a promise of future, value-laden outcomes such a world peace and the eradication of poverty (Pedersen, 2000).
Modernism, emerging in the early 20th century, began to question whether the pursuit of truth and definitive answers was a realistic or achievable goal. This question was generated from a growing appreciation of the world’s cultural mosaic aided by mass communication, and concern about the dehumanising and exploitative consequences of industrialisation and technological growth.
Based on the view that real knowledge required a multiplicity of approaches to uncover aspects that may be obscure, complex, embedded and constructed, modernism was, by the third quarter of last century, directly criticising the philosophical and scientific certainties of modernity. This marked a paradigm shift from objectivist to relativist, associated with a despairing attitude, and the replacement of certainty with prediction and provision as probable outcomes.
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Many calamitous events and circumstances of the 20th century (e.g. Auschwitz, US ‘War on Terror’, the absence of AIDS-aid to Africa) had impugned underlying modern grand narratives. It was from the modernist challenge to the implicit promises of modernity’s doctrine that postmodernism emerged; recognising complexity, multi-causality, multi- directionality, multi-disciplinarity and challenging existing ways of legitimating developments.
Previously established cultural values, morality and scientific and technological certainties were challenged (Kilduff & Mehra, 1997:454–455). The confrontation was transformative, shifting the balance of power in intellectual and artistic domains, challenging established hierarchies and the dominance of Western discourses, and resulting in the diversification of transacting what Pedersen referred to as ‘symbolic merchandise’ (Pedersen, 2000:417). Postmodernism built on the critical modernist dialogue but the mood, Pedersen argues (ibid.), was one of excitement, optimism and liberation as opposed to despair. Other analysts are not quite as positive about postmodernism’s dynamic. Kilduff (1997:455) reports that Rosenau (1992) describes a differentiated postmodernism as having followers with either optimistic or sceptical worldviews. Optimistic postmodernism offers interpretive approaches as mechanisms for the meaningful accommodation of competing perspectives, whereas sceptical postmodernism is pervaded by a sense of despondency, overwhelmed by equally valid competing interpretations, and is critical of attempts to make sense of a complicated world.
Pedersen (2000) argues that the term ‘postmodern’ has become part of the contemporary lexicon, largely because of its use in designating a particular architectural movement. In relation to architecture, postmodernism stresses eclecticism, plurality of style, complexity and environmentally sensitive organic design. By the mid-1980s, postmodernism was well established on the European philosophical and intellectual agenda, particularly following 126 the release of Lyotard’s book The Post-Modern Condition (Lyotard, 1984 [1979]; cited in Pedersen, 2000). Unfortunately, because of their dependence on, and derivation from, the negating of definitions of ‘modern’, definitions of ‘postmodernism’ are often adumbrative (Kilduff & Mehra, 1997:453), and this has resulted in some confusion as to how postmodernist social theory can be usefully applied in the construction of knowledge.
Constructionism is theoretically postmodern, taking a pluralist and relativist position in relation to the development of knowledge, and viewing reality as socially constructed through language, and therefore an object of power and control by interest groups. Deconstruction is seen as both one of the emphases of postmodernism and as an analytical tool of constructionism.
The postmodern influence is apparent in this thesis in a number of different ways. The thesis is an examination of a complex, systemically situated, emergent construct, explored through inexact and contested language that is often associated with the disempowerment of children and families. Critical reflexive pauses occur throughout. In Chapter 4, researcher positionality is exposed in the text for the purpose of making explicit some of my personal referential markers and their possible influences.
In exploring and articulating the ontological, epistemological and methodological pedigree of the research undertaken for this thesis, this chapter supports the analysis process, discussed in detail in chapter 6, that manages complexity in the inquiry and conclusions. In addition this theoretical heritage validates a thesis which de-emphasises predictability and transferability, aims for progress in our thinking rather than definitive answers (Grbich, 2004: Chapter 8), and deals with otherwise “neglected aspects of contemporary everyday life” (Kilduff & Mehra, 1997:459).
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Chapter 6: The Researching
Although researchers access a specialist language to identify the numerous methods used in interpretive inquiry, all methods are based on the fundamental techniques of questioning, observation, attending, documenting and analysis (Schwandt, 1994:118–137). Epistemological foundations, theoretical perspectives, methodological concerns as discussed in the previous chapter, and the researcher’s intent, dictate how these strategies are deployed.
This research was conducted using a qualitative/naturalistic approach and an hermeneutical, multi-method research design. The naturalistic approach is highly suited to exploratory research in practice areas where theory structure and/or service and practice relationships are unclear or poorly articulated.
Ethics approval by the University of Western Australia Human Research Ethics Committee was granted for this research on 5 September 2001 and data collection commenced shortly afterwards.
Multi-method naturalistic inquiry The multi-method research design is one strategy for managing the complex and exploratory nature of this research, as it has the capacity to assist in eliciting meaning from the data and their particular frames of reference (Franklin & Jordan, 1995). Multiple methods also support triangulation (Singleton, Straits, & Straits, 1993) and reflexivity (Riessman, 1993; Trautha & O’Connor, 1996), for generating and establishing the trustworthiness of data.
Historically, triangulation is a surveying term in which a particular point of reference is reliably established as being at the intersection of no fewer than three tangents. Transplanted into qualitative research, triangulation enables the establishment of an analytical position from a number of points of view and in so doing is understood to increase the credibility of that position. 128
There are a number of available triangulation techniques. Those utilised in this research are: data triangulation, with data being obtained from a variety of different sources; methodological triangulation in which data were collected using multiple methods; and to a degree, investigator triangulation in which data are collected by a number of researchers (Janesick, 1994: 214– 215; Patton, 2002a: 247). How the data were collected is described in some detail in the following section.
Reflexivity is a key concept from ethnomethodology, rooted in an epistemic that perception is not value-free, and referring to the process of the researcher deliberating on the subjective nature of their interpretive practice (Scott, 1989): Reflexivity reminds the qualitative inquirer to be attentive to and conscious of the cultural, political, social, linguistic, and ideological origins of one’s own perspective and voice as well as the perspective and voices of those one interviews and those to whom one reports (Patton, 2002a: 65).
Altheide and Johnson (1994:489) use this term in a hyphenated validity concept, that of “validity-as-reflexive-accounting”, which recognises the social, interpretive, constructive and deconstructive processes present in qualitative research, and “…places the researcher, the topic and the sense-making process in interaction” (Altheide and Johnson, op. cit). Reflexive accounting is the technique by which the researchers substantiate, and make accessible to review, their research and interpretive processes.
Triangulation and reflexivity have been understood previously to increase the validity of qualitative data. However, validity is a positivist concept, which does not translate readily into the relativist epistemic. Furthermore, it and other positivist concepts have been subject to criticism by qualitative researchers, over a period of nearly four decades, as being inappropriate to today’s more mature and assertive qualitative approaches. Nevertheless, what triangulation and reflexivity do bring to the research, are rigorous alternatives to the logico-positivist concept of validity, through processes 129 that encourage trustworthiness, transferability, dependability and authenticity (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994a; Patton, 2002b: 267).
A further technique for attaining the trustworthiness required of qualitative research is that of rendering obvious the decision-making, which is akin to leaving an audit trail (Richards & Richards, 1996). This transparency is provided in this chapter in the section Analysis of the data, and in chapters seven and eight, each of which addresses a major field of interest in the findings.
Data collection and analysis Naturalistic inquiry blurs distinctions between data collection and analysis, in order that emerging themes, patterns, ideas and hypotheses, influence and inform subsequent fieldwork in a dense dialectic of developing and interpretive understandings (Patton, 2002a:436). Given the hermeneutic spiral, naturalistic inquiry is ideal for the impartial investigation of unremarkable aspects of our social reality. Whilst naturalistic inquiry is a design decision, it is separate from decisions about methods and data types. As in experimental research design, multiple methods and both qualitative and quantitative data have a place in naturalistic inquiry. As utilised in this research, however, naturalistic inquiry was entirely qualitative in its approach.
In a deeply hermeneutical and dialectical approach to the totality of data collection, spanning a period of six years, the research question was explored and reiterated with a variety of techniques and with a number of different audiences. These are addressed in more detail later in this chapter.
Figure 2 below provides an overview of the data sources embedded in the hermeneutical process. Following Figure 2 is a description of both the primary and secondary data collection techniques utilised in the research. Primary data arose from in-depth, open-ended interviews, focus groups, and parliamentary debate as recorded in the Parliament of Western Australia 130
Hansard43. Secondary data sources in this research, which are essentially “recording and tracking analytical insights that occur during data collection and are part of field work and the beginning of qualitative analysis” (Patton, 2002a:436), are reports, papers and presentations, and journal notes.
Figure 2: Hermeneutical process (data analysis spiral)
Aspects of Original Historical Primary Data Secondary Data Analysis hermeneutical thinking and Collection Collection: Reflection of process paradigmatic and theorising primary context data Data collection
activity
Formal Formal submission Chronology of the State as Parent Interviews Focus groups Hansard & other Reports research Papers & presentations Journal notes NVivo coding & memoing
Year in which activity was undertaken 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
43 Parliament of Western Australia’s official report of parliamentary proceedings, which “is not a verbatim transcript [but] is a full report in the first person. The member’s words are used. However, obvious mistakes are corrected and redundancies and needless repetition removed...” (Parliament of Western Australia, 2009). Hansard is available online. 131
PRIMARY DATA SOURCES
In-depth, open-ended interviews Nine in-depth, open-ended interviews were conducted with a range of interviewees from across Australia. Seven interviews were conducted face- to-face and recorded on tape. One of these was a joint interview of a husband-and-wife team. One ‘interview’ was an email conversation occurring over a period of six months. One interview was conducted by telephone. Detailed contemporaneous notes were taken of this conversation. The email conversation and three other interviews were conducted in multiple sessions. Interviews were between 1.5 and 5 hours in duration.
Snowball sampling for difference was the technique used to identify a possible sample of people to interview. Designed to generate vivid, descriptive data, this sampling technique supports exploration of the research question from a wide range of interviewee perspectives (Bryman, 2008; Patton, 2002a:237). By asking each person interviewed to identify another possible interviewee who might think differently from themselves, the researcher sought to maximise the conceptual field in the data. Criteria for selection (or what characterised both a ‘good’ informant and a ‘good’ sample) were: i) diversity of experience; ii) ability to construct and elaborate a point of view on the roles and responsibilities of the State in relation to child and family wellbeing; and iii) that this construction would transcend a discussion of ‘child protection’ in so far as not being limited exclusively to ‘child protection’. Whilst interviewees’ anonymity was assured, the following matrix (Figure 3) provides an overview of known interviewee characteristics and establishes the diversity present amongst the interviewees. 132
Figure 3: Interviewee characteristics44
Gender Formal post- Roles — current and Areas of expertise secondary education previous 5 women 3 — theology 3 — Executive/ 4 — human rights 4 men 1 — none strategic level 4 — children’s 4 — law advocacy and review rights 2 — social work 3 — academia and/or 2 — mental health 1 — psychology teaching 1 — feminism 4 —overseas aid work 1— Indigenous (executive level and/or child welfare service provision) 5 — child welfare 7 — Non-government 2—international service provision, policy perspectives including senior management/executive level
Guided conversational style in-depth interviews encourage participants to explore freely matters of significance from their own experience, as they understood these to relate to the research topic. In-depth interviewing, theorised in Australia by Minichiello, Aroni, Timewell and Alexander (1995), is a subtle, unstructured, ethical and hermeneutical interview style which recognises the interview as a process whereby shared understandings of the human experience may be constructed in a critical environment to reveal ambivalence and ambiguity. Whilst it was essentially the participants’ positions, understandings and observations on the topic area which guided conversational, interactive, reflexive dialogues, an Interview Schedule, approved at proposal stage, indicated a range of questions for use as
44 As indicated by the fact that the totals in columns 2, 3 and 4 exceed the total number of interviewees, a number of interviewees had multiple qualifications, roles and/or areas of expertise. Interviewees included individuals who have formerly held executive/strategic– level positions as Review Board President - mental health; children’s, equal opportunity and community services Commissioners, Professor of Law; and Senior Legal Counsel – Child Protection. 133 prompts if required, providing the researcher with some direction if the conversation faltered. These included: • In what ways do you currently see the State as taking responsibility for the broad welfare of children? • What is the extent of the State’s obligations to children? • Do you see any evidence that the State is changing its position in relation to children and could you comment? • The following comments have been made by another participant, could you discuss? • Could you talk more about this? • Others have handled this question in this way… is there any value in this?
Potential interviewees were provided with a Letter of Invitation to Participate, and a University of Western Australia Committee of Human Rights Consent Form for Human Research Subjects, which respectively outlined the nature of the research, and provided a vehicle to consent to participate in an audio-taped, research interview. All interviewees signed consent forms prior to interview.
In order to engage with individuals located in very different policy and practice spaces, the research topic was restated on the letter of invitation.
Focus groups Focus groups are typically used to explore deeply the views of groups selected because of their common ground or homogeneity of experience and interest. As a data generation technique, focus groups stand in stark contrast to the diversity sampling of in-depth interviews used to generate a breadth of richly diverse data (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994b:229; Patton, 2002a:236). Ordinarily, focus groups are facilitator-led for 5–12 people at a time.
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The research question was explored opportunistically in 2004–2005, with groups set up around the dissemination and exploration of the findings of the Mandatory Reporting Report (Harries & Clare, 2002) and the Caring Well Protecting Well Report (Harries et al., 2004). The first of these reports found that the introduction of mandatory reporting of child abuse, as a protection strategy, was ineffective and inefficient in improving child safety and wellbeing, when implemented as a central part of a primarily forensic and punitive model of child protection. The second report proposed an integrated strategic framework for improving the safety and wellbeing of children and families in Western Australia. The Western Australian Ministerial Advisory Council on Child Protection (MACCP WA), which had commissioned both reports, elected to contribute to the debate on child safety and wellbeing in Western Australia.
The MACCP WA contracted the facilitation of regional, multidisciplinary focus groups to consider the findings of the reports, and possible directions for better meeting the needs of children and families in Western Australia. Despite being multidisciplinary, the experiences of focus group participants were homogeneous to the extent that all participants worked with significantly disadvantaged children and families in Western Australia.
Five focus groups were conducted in Western Australia, one each in Collie (South-West), Kalgoorlie (Goldfields), Geraldton (Murchison), Broome (Pilbara) and Perth. As all but one of the focus groups were much larger than the traditional 5–12 people preferred for this technique, facilitation aimed to enable self-led discussion of 5–8 person groups within the large groups which ranged in size from 15–50 participants.
Invitations went out to a wide range of government, non-government, Indigenous and non-Indigenous agencies working with children and families. One hundred and seventy (170), self-selected to participate because of an interest in contributing to discussion about the circumstances 135 of, and generating improved practices for, children and families. Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants came from a range of occupations including teaching, nursing, police, statutory welfare and non-government legal aid, medical services, community advocacy and representation ,and churches.
All of the focus groups were co-facilitated by me, and Professor Maria Harries of the Discipline of Social Work and Social Policy, University of Western Australia.
Discussion was facilitated around the following questions: • Is change to the way we do business with children and families in need desirable or possible? • What works and what should we carry forward? • What should be strengthened? • What should be changed? • What is the role of the State in the safety and wellbeing of children and families?
Four of the five focus groups were conducted with smaller groups of 5–8 people working within the larger group, around tables, with markers, butchers’ paper, post-it notes, highlighters, etc. to assist in the articulation of ideas. The following process was used to address each focus question in turn: 1. Round-table discussion of the question. 2. Using post-it notes, each individual identified up to five major points they wished to make in relation to the particular question under discussion. This was followed by a period of table-based discussion to share ideas. 3. One table at a time, participants came to the front of the room, each person placing each of their post-it notes on a primary chart, together with other similar points to indicate shared thinking, or separately to indicate a new theme. Before returning to their seat, a spokesperson 136
from each table briefly commented on the general views of their table. 4. When all of the participants had their post-it notes placed on the primary chart, there was opportunity for participants to indicate, by moving their post-it notes, a different relationship between their comments and those of others. 5. Facilitators then reflected back to the group on some of the emerging priority areas or themes. 6. General discussion. 7. Consolidation of priority areas/themes where discussion indicated this was appropriate. This process resulted in participants conducting the initial round of priority setting and theme identification.
A single focus group of 15 participants was held in Perth, with the facilitators recording major points on a white-board and immediately, with group input, undertaking secondary analysis into priority areas and themes. Reflection and discussion honed the record.
At the beginning of their respective sessions, all participants were advised of my research interest and desire to use as data the results arising from the final question. Again, when the research question on the role of the State was discussed, participants were advised of the nature of my research, and my desire to avail myself opportunistically of the chance to draw as data on the rich collective wisdom of the group. As was true throughout, the process for the final question did not identify the input of specific individuals, and participants were free to abstain from participating in any part of the discussion, with some participants choosing to have other conversations, or to obtain refreshments. The process as described above was one of group discussion, individual input with concurrent secondary analysis into priority areas or themes, followed by facilitator reflections and consolidation. 137
Case study The case studied in this research is the parliamentary debate of the Children and Community Development Bill 2003 (Western Australia, also referred to as the Children and Community Services Bill 2003), the purpose of which was, amongst other things, to: • confer functions in relation to the provision of social services, the provision of financial and other assistance, and other matters concerning the wellbeing of children, other individuals, families and communities; • make provisions about the protection and care of children, the employment of children, and child care services; (Western Australia, :1).
The First Reading of the Children and Community Development Bill 2003 occurred in the Parliament of Western Australia on 4 December 2003. At various times over the following five months the Bill was debated in the Legislative Assembly where an amendment was passed on 6 April 2004 to change the title to Children and Community Services Bill 2003. Under its new title, the First Reading of the Bill occurred in the Legislative Council on 4 May 2004. Further amendments were accepted in the Legislative Assembly on 23 September 2004, and the Children and Community Services Act 2004 was assented to on 20 October 2004.
In the Lower House, the Legislative Assembly, participants in the debate, by political party, were: 14 Australian Labor Party (ALP); 8 Liberal Party; 3 Independent; and 1 National Party. In the Upper House, the Legislative Council, participants in the debate, by political party, were: 6 ALP; 6 Liberal Party; 1 Independent; 1 National Party; and 2 Greens. Addendum 3 indicates, by party membership, the names of participants in the parliamentary debate.
In the ten months that the Bill was before Parliament, it was the subject of an extraordinary thirty-plus hours of debate in the Legislative Assembly, followed by further debate in the Legislative Council. In total, this provided in excess of 100,000 words of parliamentary debate in which 42 138 parliamentary members engaged specifically around the obligations and responsibilities of the State in relation to children, families and community.
For various reasons, case study is a widely used qualitative research approach. The study of a ‘case’ may employ one, or a variety of methods such as participant observation, interview and document analysis (Patton, 2002a:297–301). A case is an entity, defined as such for the purpose of studying it as a gestalt, the parts of which have logical, internal structure, pattern and relationship. The case as a whole may be simple or complex, isolated or nested, involving one or more person/s, group/s, event/s, organisation/s, reaction/s, etc. Where in-depth interviewing is a research method about investigating the breadth of a research question across the experience of individuals, and focus groups enable drilling down on the depth of a research question by focusing the thinking of a homogeneous group, a case study approach identifies complexity in the particular (Bryman, 2008:52–53).
The parliamentary debate provided clean data uninfluenced by the researcher, reflected the views and priorities of a range of participants — including expert Government and Opposition views — and broadly addressed not only the roles and responsibilities of the State in the wellbeing of children and families but also focused more narrowly on child protection. Inclusion of this case study provided additional rich data and detail in understanding how the roles and responsibilities of the State are conceived at the highest political level.
SECONDARY DATA SOURCES A variety of materials constitutes secondary data sources in this research. All have developed as part of the reflective process, and they include reports, papers, presentations and research journal notes.
During the life of this research, I was responsible for substantial original thinking, formally recorded in a number of reports, presentations and 139 discussions in which some of the developmental thinking arising from an hermeneutic and reflexive research process is transparent and made available as data. These texts are described in Addendum 2.
ANALYSIS OF THE DATA Analysis of qualitative data involves negotiating the final product in a process recognising a symbiotic relationship between data collection and analysis. Data analysis may identify alternative relevant questions for the researcher and the answers may result in reinterpretation of previous data and the framing of new questions (Riessman, 1993; Strauss, 1987; Wicker, 1989). As so eloquently put by Sells (1995): Data collection and analysis are intimately linked because the researcher may not know what questions to ask until initial interviews and field notes have been analysed and tentative conclusions formulated (Strauss, 1987). Findings from the data analysis of each interview or observation then provide the researcher with new questions (Sells et al., 1995:207).
The research process assists the development of a coherent understanding of the data through an ongoing hermeneutical analysis, a spiral, developmental approach to interpretation of the whole, through successive interpretation of the parts, and fluctuation between pre-understanding and understanding (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2002:58–67). One of the defining characteristics of an hermeneutical understanding is the embedded importance of historicity and language, which both enable and limit our understandings. It is this circularity that makes hermeneutical the constructionist approach to meaning (Schwandt, 1994).
In this research, content analysis was the technique of choice. Undertaken through the application of a variety of analytic strategies, the content analysis progressed in rigour from the intuitive to the systematic. The nature of the data developed in parallel with the analytic strategies in use. Initially, mind maps and notes documented early thinking around raw interview transcripts. Later, the computer-aided data analysis program NVivo 2, developed by Tom and Lyn Richards at Latrobe University, was used to support a grounded theory approach to coding, memoing and theme 140 identification in the analysis of primary data (Fraser, 2000; Kelle, 1998; Lee, 1995:19–20,158; Mangabeira, 1995; Richards, 2000; Weitzman & Miles, 1995:238–256).
NVivo uses a system closure technique in which the iterative processes as apparent in the evidential links of the researcher’s inquiry and synthesis, are maintained with, and become part of, the database (Weitzman & Miles, 1995). As the analytic strategies become more rigorous, the data displays and identified codes become data in their own right. This process follows what Creswell (1998:143) refers to as a data analysis spiral: This process I have described consists of moving from the reading and memoing loop, into the spiral, to the describing, classifying, and interpreting loop. In this loop, category information represents the heart of the qualitative data analysis. Here researchers describe in detail, develop themes or dimensions through some classification system, and provide interpretation in the light of their own view or views of the perspectives in the literature…Description becomes a good place to start in the qualitative study (after reading and managing data)…(Creswell, 1998:144).
In NVivo, the first level of interpretation is undertaken through coding at the node level. This translates as the application of concept labels to portions of text, where labelling is coding and nodes represent single/simple concepts. Re-analysis of the data and the nodes then leads to the identification of themes and patterns, and hierarchical categories (parent–child relationships) in the iteration of data analysis trees, theorising of relationships, and development of conceptual structure. NVivo is able to store these iterations of data analysis. Transparency of process in this research was also achieved through maintaining a research journal, working notes, diagrammatic representations, white-board notes, and (re)iteration of propositions arising from the analysis.
A grounded theory approach to the data analysis was employed to support the dialectical and hermeneutical methodology. Whilst it is noted that Strauss and Corbin (1994) caution against using this terminology in all except grounded theory-building research, the rigorous and well recognised approach to coding offered by grounded theory was embraced. 141
During the early interviews, I found it difficult to commence the process of formal and sustained content analysis using NVivo, and it was not until the parliamentary debate occurred, in the third year of data collection, that I allowed myself to relax into the data.
The focus group process was somewhat different because the data I received were very compact and essentially already coded to the level of themes and sub-themes. These themes and sub-themes eventually formed a triangulation of the codes, arising from NVivo use, and identified from the content analysis of the interviews and case study.
Finally, there was the parliamentary debate case study, retrieved from Hansard. Working quite fast and coding initially at the node level, it was at this stage that I undertook the bulk of the content analysis across all the primary data sources.
In qualitative research, the processes by which data are converted into findings are transformative, highly dependent on researcher understandings and point of view, and influenced but by no means dictated by a wide range of available guidelines. The capacity for creativity is both a strength and a flaw in qualitative research methods (Patton, 2002b). Coding and the identification of themes and sub-themes were informed by both the secondary data analysis undertaken in the focus groups and by the chronological study that formed a backdrop to the research.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS Analysis of the data identified 45 free node focus issues, from which emerged a coding schema of two major fields of interest conceptualised as embracing four and two themes, and a number of sub-themes, respectively.
A diagrammatic representation of the data analysis is presented below, in Figure 4. 142
The State as Parent:
Metamorphosis from ‘Wire Monkey’ Parent to Benefactor Child Protection Child Rights and Citizenship
- Major field of interest 1 - Major field of interest 2
Holding a child’s rights agenda Obligation to Sub-theme 2.1.1 Strategies for protect achieving child Rights for children in rights Theme 1.1 care Sub-theme 2.1.2
Theme 2.1
Legislation as a vehicle for rights Instability of the
concept of ‘child Sub-theme 2.1.2 protection’ Implementing
Agency in community child citizenship Theme 1.2 as a vehicle for rights
Sub-theme 2.2.1 Theme 2.2
Responsibilities cknowledge the responsibility an do something to ‘protect’ all arising from children obligation to Sub-theme 1.3.1 ‘protect’
Actively parent the children in Theme 1.3 State care
Sub-theme 1.3.2
Statutory intervention Strategies for Sub-theme 1.4.1 achieving ‘child protection’ Valuing parenting and parenthood Sub-theme 1.4.2 Theme 1.4 Family Support
Sub-theme 1.4.3
Figure 4: Summary of thematic analysis of the data 143
Colour coding and positioning indicates that whilst the two major fields of interest, Child Protection and Child rights and citizenship, are conceptually well differentiated as articulated in their associated themes, there is less distinction between these major fields of interest at the level of sub-themes. For me, this points conceptually to the possibility of a model of State obligation that, in embracing both agendas, lends itself to being fully theorized and richly developed within an ecological systemic model.
These findings are addressed in detail in the following chapters.
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Part 3
Persistent or Transformative Thinking about State Obligations to Children and Families: Findings
Part 3 presents the findings of the research in two chapters (chapters 7 and 8), mirroring the two major fields of interest identified in the data. Chapter 7, The Hoary Old Chestnut — The poorly differentiated push and pull of the child protection continuum, looks at the data from this research relating to the late 20th century tradition of child protection. Chapter 8, Child Rights or Citizenship — Opportunity to gain lost ground, explores the data addressing the broader context of child rights and citizenship. Sub-themes, also arising from the data, are discussed within each chapter, with prominence given to the various voices and points of view, conceptualisations, experiences and understandings of research participants, focus groups and parliamentary debate, and the contrariety these embrace.
Discussion in the relevant chapters locates the findings within the pertinent concepts and discourses in the chronological study of developing State obligations to children and families, and in additional scholarly literature explored specifically in response to the themes emerging in the data.
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Chapter 7: The Hoary Old Chestnut — The Poorly Differentiated Push and Pull of the Child Protection Continuum45
Introduction Within the context of the chronological study and the challenges to established discourse occurring right at the end of the 20th century, this chapter presents those data coded from the research data sets under the major field of interest of child protection.
Four themes emerged in the analysis of those data: • an obligation on the State to prioritise child protection • uncertainty in child protection terminology • responsibilities incurred by the State as a result of the perceived obligation to protect children, and • achieving child protection.
These, and their associated sub-themes, are discussed below following the graphical representation of this major field of interest.
45 For a discussion of the ‘child protection continuum’ see Diamond (2004), An Analysis of Child Protection, and Protecting Children, from Rights and Public Health Perspectives, presented at the International Symposium on Human Rights in Public Health: Research and Practice, hosted by the Key Centre for Women’s Health in Society, University of Melbourne, November 3–5. 148
The State as Parent: Metamorphosis from
‘Wire Monkey’ Parent to Benefactor
Child Protection
- Major field of interest 1
Obligation to protect
Theme 1.1
Instability of the
concept of ‘child protection’
Theme 1.2
cknowledge the responsibility an do something to ‘protect’ all Responsibilities children arising from Sub-theme 1.3.1 obligation to ‘protect’ Actively parent the children i State care Theme 1.3 Sub-theme 1.3.2
Statutory intervention Strategies for
achieving ‘child Sub-theme 1.4.1
protection’ Valuing parenting and parenthood Sub-theme 1.4.2
Theme 1.4 Family Support
Sub-theme 1.4.3
Figure 5: Child Protection — Major field of interest 1
The intent of the research was to explore the construction by research participants of the broad roles and responsibilities of the State (not the child 149 welfare department specifically) in relation to children and families. As outlined in the methodology, this was undertaken using a multi-method naturalistic enquiry involving interviews, focus groups and a parliamentary debate case study.
Despite the researcher’s efforts to obtain a broader view on State roles and responsibilities in relation to children and families, what emerges in the interview and focus group data is a strong theme around a State responsibility for child protection. Amply evident in the data, coded under this major field of interest, are the participants’ concerns and commentaries reflecting many of the wide-ranging debates in related contemporary child protection and welfare literature. For research participants, and in the parliamentary debate case study, these include the role of legislation in achieving child protection, definitions of child protection and associated concepts, the efficacy and impact of current child protection practice, the role of the State in child protection and, in recognition of its failings, possible beneficial modifications to the current system.
A decision to include the Western Australian parliamentary debate on the Children and Community Development Bill 2003 as a case study occurred in response to the intensity of the child protection theme arising in the focus group and interview data, and the chance the case study offered to explore the theme in greater depth. The Bill was the precursor to the now introduced Children and Community Services Act 2004 that replaced the Child Welfare Act 1947; legislation that had informed child welfare and protection practice in Western Australia for the previous 43 years.
An obligation on the State to prioritise child protection The work on ‘battered child syndrome’, by Kempe and others in the 1960s, saw the development of a paradigm shift in responding to children and families, from the earlier child rescue, to the current child protection, approach (Scott, 2006b; Tomison, 2001). Child protection, as a response to children and families experiencing adversity, is a particularly United States- 150 based paradigm, which has powerfully influenced Anglo–American practice in countries including Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia (Daniel, 2006; Lonne et al., 2008; Thorpe et al., 2007:53–54).
Current child protection discourse gives ontological legitimacy to the paradigm through the professional/scientific/objective language of medicine, social work and law; locating the problem of child maltreatment in individual families and with deviant parents, largely through a process of reframing understandings of children experiencing adversity in non-mainstream family configurations.
The apparent pressure in the literature, for States to place child protection, but not children, high on the political agenda46 is reflected in the data, in the priority given to child protection as a State responsibility: It is broader than child protection, I accept that. It is broader in the sense that it [the legislation] is there for the care of children, the welfare of children and the wellbeing of children, but the most important and significant part, the most dangerous part, is child protection (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 3 March 2004, p277b–283a (R.F. Johnson)).
Certainly, there is no nebulous community out there that protects him. The State protects him through the law, and so it should. However, it is not a community (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 4 March 2004, p412a–428a (E. Constable)).
In an environment of a burgeoning child protection culture, it has only been very recently that the child protection discourses have engaged with the challenges to this approach. These include growing evidence of systemic/structural factors influencing rates of child morbidity and adversity, the failure of the paradigm to reduce rates of child harm, the very poor outcomes occurring for children who experience out-of-home care as a direct result of child protection intervention, or the racist, classist and otherwise discriminatory nature of child protection practice (Lonne et al., 2008; Phipps, 1999; Scott, 2007; Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996; Stanley, Tomison,
46 European examples of the politicisation of ‘child abuse’ are also discussed in Thorpe’s paper Regulating late modern childrearing in Ireland (Thorpe, 1997b). 151
& Pocock, 2003; Thorpe, 1997a). An awareness of these problems in child protection practice is evident in the data: The State has never proved itself a great provider for the disadvantaged … Policy and practice is too much driven by political and quasi-political ends … [resulting in the] politicised nature of interventions which are devoid of good intentions (Record 16, opportunistic notes).
… some years ago now the focus of child welfare changed. The model changed, the idea was to support parents and not to seek to intervene, legally at least … I’m not sure the extent to which the new model has actually prevented the sorts of abuse it was designed to prevent, if it was actually designed to prevent that. Or whether it was just a refocusing to get away from the negative aspects of making children wards (Record 4, interview).
Children unfortunate enough to enter the foster system have found themselves abused by untrained foster parents. Even worse, the Families Department knew all about it and was so poorly resourced that it had to ignore the truth. In 2004, a society that cannot protect its most vulnerable citizens is not civilised (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 2 March 2004, p96b–121a (S. E. Walker)).
In regional Western Australia, similar views are expressed about how the system has responded to Indigenous children and families, the most vulnerable group in child protection in this country. A consolidated response from a focus group states in relation to child protection and child wellbeing: In respect of Indigenous peoples of Australia the State has failed dismally with a complete lack of infrastructure or funding systems; failing to assist on healing, and perpetrating intergenerational trauma (Record 9, focus group).
Uncertainty in child protection terminology The data from the case study of parliamentary debate make stark the consternation around definitions and uncertainty of shared language in the areas of child abuse and child protection. The used language is contested: One of the real problems with this legislation is the fact that abuse for all the categories has not been defined. Had the nature of physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse or sexual abuse been defined, we would not have the problem that we have now with the words “significant harm.” (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 30 March 2004, p1189b–1229a ; S.E. Walker)
Juxtaposed to this dubiety regarding the stability of the concepts is an expressed comfort in the language of child protection, and anxiety of wrestling alternative new ways of working. One of these alternatives is expressed in the more global framework of child wellbeing, introduced in Western Australia in Caring Well Protecting Well (Harries et al., 2004) and 152 also in the Children and Community Development Bill 2003 (2003a), and referred to in parliamentary debate: …Maybe that is part of the new phrase the minister and her department are using: the wellbeing of a child. For goodness sake; a child’s wellbeing can be described in many different ways. Wellbeing does not necessarily mean protection. Wellbeing can relate to whether a child is eating properly during the day, a child is clothed or a child is happy or sad. The main concern of the people of Western Australia is child protection. There are children in our society who are not being protected from predators (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 2 March 2004, p96b–121a (R. F. Johnson)).
Whilst reflected significantly in the data, the momentous consequences of definitional, conceptual and paradigmatic uncertainty appeared unrecognised by individual participants in parliamentary debate, and are largely ignored in the literature.
Within the literature coming out of the Anglo–American countries, there is a mainstream debate in which child protection is discussed as if it is a unifying concept, based on a universal understanding of what constitutes the adequate provision of wellbeing and safety for children. In turn, the concept of child protection is understood to be located within a similarly named paradigm, encompassing common understandings of child abuse, child maltreatment, and associated professional intervention. Further assumptions, implicit in the dialogue, are that there is an understanding of child protection and its associated conceptual relationships, shared in the multidisciplinary and multinational contexts of the participants.47
This position misrepresents the truth; denying considerable internal inconsistency in the child protection paradigm. Multiple definitions, multiple discourses, a growing challenge to child protection thinking, and an
47 For examples of alternatives to child protection, for discussion of assumptions of shared understandings, and for examples of assumed shared concepts, see amongst others, Tomison (2001), Diamond (2004), Parton and Masson (2002), International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (2004), Hill et al. (2002), Cooper et al. (2003), Freymond (2006) and Hetherington (1999). 153 international array of alternative paradigms for responding to children’s needs, are framed by quite different understandings of the health, wellbeing and safety of children (Berrick, 1997; Harries & Clare, 2002; Hill et al., 2002; Hutchinson, 1994; Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, 2001; Scott, 2004).48
Despite the plurality of possible responses to children whose needs are unmet, child protection is regarded as the definitive mainstream mechanism for intervention in the Anglo–American countries, albeit variously expressed within a variety of different policy and programmatic frameworks (Pawlick & Stroick, 2004; Phipps, 1999). As a response to a lack of child wellbeing and safety, child protection is a highly complex area of practice, research, debate and inquiry, bounded by a quite specific discourse and attitudes to the roles of individuals, the judiciary, the legislature and executive government.
State responsibilities arising from a child protection obligation The data indicate that research participants hold widely varying views on State obligations to children and families arising from perceived State responsibility for child protection. Examples of alternatives to the child protection approach are not well articulated.
48 The various paradigmatic approaches to ensuring the wellbeing of children include Anglo–American child protection (McMahon, 1998; O’Hara, 1998; Pawlick & Stroick, 2004; Tomison, 2004); Northern European and First World nation responses more obviously informed by public health, human rights, and access and equity discourses (Bering Pruzan, 1997; Kautto et al., 1999; Khoo et al., 2002; McMahon, 1998); emerging democracies emulating the Anglo–American model; and non-European and developing nations accessing largely undocumented, traditional, culturally based and locally derived frameworks for meeting children’s needs for safety and wellbeing (see Xiaoyuan Shang, 2002, for a brief description of a system in transition). 154
In this section, evidence of research participants’ views is presented on what responsibilities the State acquires as a direct result of the already identified, perceived primary obligation to protect children. These perceived responsibilities fall broadly into two sub-themes. The first responsibility is for the State to acknowledge, expressly and actively, an obligation to do something and promote the wellbeing and safety of all children. The second of these responsibility sub-themes is that the State intentionally provides for the well-rounded development of children in the care of the State.
ACKNOWLEDGE THE RESPONSIBILITY AND DO SOMETHING One research participant in particular articulates elegantly that the State’s responsibility arising from the obligation to prioritise child protection is to actively place children high on the political agenda, as a significant population sub-group, as individuals with rights and as vulnerable people for whom the State has a particular statutory responsibility. Focus groups reiterate these responsibilities. These data are interesting because, whilst they occur within a traditional child protection discourse and the similarly named major field of interest formulated in the analysis, they begin to stretch the boundaries of child protection and start linking with the second major field of interest identified from the data, that of child rights and citizenship: I have some concerns about how the State demonstrates its commitment to children. I think that children are beginning to be a spent political force, as they become fewer and fewer demographically. I think we have lost, as a community, a sense of responsibility for our children …The rhetoric has been about children being our future but the reality has been that there are a lot of other things that are going to be the future and I think…this is going to cause children to be less and less an issue on the agenda; except those children who are deemed by us to be problems. And kids become problems by impacting on the adult world (Record 2, interview).
A regional centre focus group identifies two responsibilities of the State, resulting from the responsibility to protect children, as being to provide: … a legislative framework for undertaking the task, and to provide protective and safe environments for the children in its care (Record 10, focus group).
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In the case study data, parliamentarians ignore the broad possibilities of the Children and Community Development [Services] Bill 200349 for promoting children’s general political importance, wellbeing, access and equity. The focus of perceived responsibility evident in the debate is much more narrowly on child protection and its direct relationship to out-of-home care provision.
Although acknowledging a responsibility for also ensuring safety in child care and employment environments, the case study data do not illustrate routine conceptualisation of the link between early years research (see inter alia McCain & Mustard, 1999; Sandor, 1994; Schorr, 1988; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000) and its relationship to childcare provision, with its possible implications for children’s global environmental experience, and any State responsibility for this: I am not sure whether I can find the relevant passage, but the document indicated that some children spend the first five years of their lives in the same child–care centre. That places a huge onus on us as a State Parliament. If a child is to be put into child care at the age of six weeks and is to remain there until he or she goes to school, the centre must be flexible; it must have a stimulating physical environment; it must have a good program; it must be homelike. All those things must be taken into consideration. This best practice document contains a very detailed outline of the importance of the physical environment and its relationship with the program that early childhood professionals will adopt. It emphasises the importance of the inside and outside play environment.… We must be sure of what we are doing when we place children in long day care, family day care, crèches and after-school care. I commend the Government for bringing in after- school regulations, which were long overdue. It was a concern of mine that a child could be taken from school to an after-school care place. (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 20 August 2004, p5352b–5370a; B. Scott).
‘INTENTIONAL PARENTING’ OF CHILDREN IN THE CARE OF THE STATE The provision of a good standard of care is perceived as a key responsibility in the research participants’ and case study experience of statutory child protection. Apparent in the data is the belief that a responsibility to ensure safe care is a serious and onerous one involving a more considered,
49 In the course of its passage through the Western Australian Parliament, the Children and Community Development Bill 2003 was renamed the Children and Community Services Bill 2003 156 individualised and active involvement or relationship between the child and the State, than has heretofore been apparent, or perhaps is possible: [You don’t see evidence of intentional parenting of children in State care] because you haven’t even had ‘parenting’ on the agenda for our kids who are corporately parented. …And for those children who didn’t have a family, or where the State saw itself as a service delivery organisation, rather than ‘the State as Parent’, we’ve got a generation of children who haven’t effectively been parented (Record 2, interview).
Inherent in the conceptualisation of the State being an intentional parent is the expectation that the State cares for the carers, thereby ensuring an environment supportive of good parenting. Of direct relevance to this thinking is research by Perry and others (Barfield, 2004; Perry, 1998; Perry, 2002; Perry, 2004) on the role of adequate resources in positioning humans, both individually and systemically, to concentrate on the development of positive relationships, including those of child–rearing.
Finally, the data speak to a perceived ongoing responsibility by the State for children in its care, extending into adulthood, in line with real-life parenting norms: … We know that children who need the care and protection of the State are at risk of not coping later on. It is the responsibility of the Minister and her department to minimise the possibility of these children not making it. They must give these kids the best possible chance of making it later on in life. It will be good for those kids and for all of us if we can do it. We must minimise the possibility of children who are in the care and protection of this State ending up failing in the education system, we must make sure that they do not end up homeless, we must make sure that they do not end up on drugs and we must make sure that they are given the best possible chance to lead productive and happy lives in the community as they get older and become adults. (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 2 March 2004, p96b–121a; E. Constable)
Achieving child protection It is obvious from the data that views on how to achieve the protection of children vary as widely as understandings of what the child protection terminology means, and the nature of the responsibilities of the State as they follow from an obligation to protect children.
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The data suggest three sub-themes within the theme of achieving child protection. These sub-themes are intervention strategies addressing what the previously identified responsibility to ‘do something’ might look like:
• legislating, and ensuring good administrative processes for statutory intervention, • valuing and supporting parents and parenthood • re-engaging with family support approaches to child welfare provision including the use of broad approaches and collaborative and flexible ways of working with a range of partners such as families, communities, philanthropic organisations and the corporate sector. The data are presented below for each of these sub-themes.
STATUTORY INTERVENTION The development of legislation and administrative processes for statutory intervention are recognised as State strategies for achieving child protection, albeit that there is disagreement about whether the current model for forensic intervention is generally either effective or fair: …How can credit be given to this Government for best practice in protecting children when this State has no regime for mandatory reporting of child abuse? (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 20 August 2004, p5352b–5370a (B. Scott)).
Yes, it is always a tension there [providing universal or residual services], because especially with parenthood…the State has historically been very reluctant to intervene in what is deemed to be a family’s own business. That kind of ambivalence about intervention has usually meant that any interventions that do occur are frequently very late and often after great damage has been done…The whole process of intervention and reunification actually ends up producing a worse result than if there hadn’t been any intervention at all. I think there’s a lot of ambivalence about intervention and the punitive aspects of it … you have to look at the consequences of the law and whether those consequences are therapeutic or anti-therapeutic. I think that by and large it is a response to the pernicious, and frequently bizarre, American judicial system, which produces all sorts of crazy results (Record 4, interview).
It seems that one of the things you are grappling with is the complex question of the role and limitations of law in achieving meaningful change. I come at this from a background of feminist theory, which has no simple answers but does point to the limitations of law as a change agent for women (and thus often for children in their care.) … As you point out, law can be a valuable tool in some circumstances. However it often fails to deliver what 158
feminists want. I guess one could make the same observations re race — e.g. we would not be without Mabo50 because it made a significant change, but also it did not deliver what Indigenous Australians wanted and need. You can probably develop the same arguments re children…The utility of law… as champion seems to me to be highly contextual (Record 7, email conversation).
VALUING AND SUPPORTING PARENTS AND PARENTHOOD That human young are born dependent, and remain incontestably so for at least the first couple of years, is an irrefutable biological imperative for parenting. In spite of this, both within this period of dependence and beyond, different religious and social groups, eras and cultures have, and have had, wide ranges of expectations of children of all ages, and varying capacities to support these expectations. There are, in addition, many different ways of providing for the parenting of children.
Historically, parenthood and kinship were managed in a range of ways for the purpose of sustainability and social stability, with a simple biological relationship never having been a necessary or exclusive requirement for being a parent, either legally or socially (Eekelaar, 1994:82–84; Meulders, 1993:ix).
Parenthood is a complex and highly significant social construction, influenced, amongst other things, by: time and place; gender and class; status; legal definitions, obligations and rights; and social and psychological relationships (Meulders, 1993:ix). Its purpose is child rearing: nurturing, socialising and embedding the child — giving them personhood — in family, kinship groups and in society. Family is the primary site, and parenting or child rearing the mechanism for socialisation of the young, the construction of self and identity, and the provision of a secure base from which to develop a wider network of relationships in society (Eekelaar, 1994:83–84).
50 A landmark case in which Mabo and others, Miriam people of Murray Island, mounted a constitutional challenge for traditional land rights in their islands off far-north Queensland (Lane, 1996:364). 159
Recognition of the importance of the parenting role, and the responsibility of the State to support parents, is evident in the data: One of the most important roles that anyone can play in the community is to be a parent. What I want to see in the legislation, putting aside the nice words, is a change of policy and direction by the department so that it will take real action to support families. Parents may go to the department and say that they have no job, no money and no roof over their heads and that they do not know what to do with their kids, and they become absolutely frustrated when they cannot get the support they need. Their children are not being neglected, physically abused or maltreated. However, there is no support for that family. If the parents then decide that they cannot cope any longer because their situation has become worse, there may very well be maltreatment. Would it not be better to provide the support mechanisms in the first instance to support the family? …The question I want to ask is: should the practices, procedures and policies of the department be changed so that, provided the child is protected, it has the opportunity of supporting the family, and should that come first and foremost? (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 2 March 2004, p96b–121a (C.L. Edwardes)).
Historical and temporal aspects of family experience, as they reflect those of wider society, serve to enable the transfer of property, wealth, cultural knowledge and social practices, including social control and organisation, across and between generations, and in so doing act as a permeable membrane between society and the individual (Edgar, 2000:20–21).
Various roles, which constitute the social construction of parenthood, are attributed different value weights at various points in the child’s life, in history and in distinct gender, cultural, social, economic and political groups (Eekelaar, 1994:82–84). The significance and support given to assorted roles and responsibilities of parenthood is a reflection of extant social organising principles. Even though general similarities are probable, there is likely to be wide variation at any one time, differentially favouring biological, social or legal constructions of parenthood (Eekelaar, 1994:84).
The data raised the issue that perhaps parenting is currently narrowly and conservatively conceived, and undervalued in Australian society. As a result, children are experiencing more problems than in the past, despite the wealth and development of Australia as a nation: 160
Professor Fiona Stanley is a Western Australian of good repute and is recognised nationally and internationally. She keeps reminding government and opposition members of the State of the children of Western Australia. Recently she raised issues regarding mental illness and other problems faced by children. In an interview for The West Australian last year she warned that we were at risk of producing a sick generation…A growing divide between rich and poor was creating a generation of children who were sicker than their parents…rates of obesity, asthma, diabetes and mental illness among children were rising dramatically…socioeconomic factors played an increasing role in determining a child’s prospects. Australia was seeing the emergence of disadvantaged communities. The problems partly were a result of a culture that had devalued parenthood (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 20 August 2004, p5352b–5370 (Barbara Scott)).
And I think what indigenous communities teach us is that it is not birth parents we are talking about, we’re actually talking extended families. And I think if you look at the stuff around blended families and step families and those sorts of things, then we need to learn really quickly who we’re talking about, and we’re not talking about just a legal definition of parent or a genetic definition, we’re actually talking about a social definition. There is so much you can learn from Indigenous communities (Record 2, interview).
Some of the concepts affecting modern Australian constructions of parenthood include: social and legal definitions of childhood and family; child maltreatment and parental responsibility; systems of government and their policy orientations; and contemporaneous psychological, sociological and social work practice and theory (a 20th century phenomenon). Multiple viewpoints in relation to any of these and other contexts for parenthood may co-exist and variously direct the experience of children in different countries, States, localities, institutions and families.
Constructions of, and judgements about, parenting are often most contested when the statutory systems and families come into conflict. It is also in this space that the State is most vacillatory about its role. The following data speak firstly to some circumstances with which parents who value their role are struggling, and secondly to the perceived role of the State in supporting them, or otherwise: … a baby … had been taken from intellectually disabled parents. It was thought that the baby might not develop normally. There was no evidence … [the parents] went ahead and had 11 more children all of whom were taken away from them. And the reason for it all; all those children and all that ‘mad’ behaviour … was their separation from their first child … They never had a 161
chance to prove what they could do or get that capacity (Record 5, interview)
There are lots of people in my circumstances [single parenthood], where they have just needed to have alternative care for their children because they didn’t have family support or they ended up succumbing to the pressures (Record 2, interview).
Parents who are unable to care for their child may enter into an agreement with the CEO to make a placement arrangement for the care of the child by the CEO. I want to emphasise that the parents, and not the CEO, retain legal parental responsibility for the child. An important restriction on this type of care arrangement is that it cannot be used if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the child is in need of protection. In such situations the CEO will need to make an application to the court for a protection order (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 4 December 2003, p14244b–14247a (S. M. McHale)).
I will go back to basic principles about the Bill and remind members that the Department for Community Development will intervene in a family or in a child’s life if it has a concern about a child’s wellbeing. That is the first principle I want people to understand. That is found in clauses 31 and 32. We have a very low threshold for engaging with a child or family, and that is because we want to ensure that the department focuses at the level that the member for Kingsley mentioned in her second reading contribution; that is, around early intervention, support for families and so on (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 4 March 2004, p412a–428a (S. M. McHale)).
One of the focus groups raised this issues when they identified the “boundaries between forensic responses and family support” (Record 14, focus group) as warranting more innovative practices, aimed at better supporting families in difficulty to achieve successful outcomes for them and their children. The point being made by the focus group was that, by and large, children do better growing up in their own families — even dysfunctional ones.
RE-EMERGENCE OF FAMILY SUPPORT APPROACHES This section focuses on the third and final sub-theme addressing strategies for achieving the protection of children. Family support marks one end of the intervention continuum encompassed by child protection discourse. Despite family support’s roots in the pre-child-protection era, the data and child protection practice in Anglo–American countries locate this sub-theme firmly within a child protection context. This position is not without tension. 162
Focus groups, the majority of which were located in rural/regional Western Australia, emphasised the importance of child and family support as constituting flagship practice in achieving successful outcomes for families and children in ‘child protection’.
Participants acknowledged the value of “interagency interventions” (Record 14, focus group) where “children need to be on everyone’s agenda” (Record 14, focus group) and professionals “provide a clear framework across agencies which ensures the child’s perspective is addressed” (Record 10, focus group). “Forming partnerships with non government, others and government agencies” (Record 21, focus group) in which “informal networks and agencies provide consistent long term empowering support” (Record 19, focus group) in employment, housing and family support centres, were identified as critical to successful regional practice. So too was “deliver[ing] down to the local areas and allow[ing practice] to be adapted to suit the environment — through community capacity building” (Record 10, focus group).
“Personalising services, face-to-face initially e.g. sexual assault referral centres, phone access for some people” (Record 18, focus group) was seen as making services relevant and accessible to families. Focus group participants generally agreed that separating the functions of protecting children, and supporting family and community (Record 14, focus group) is not a model for successful intervention and that the two were essential parts of child protection: Owing to the complex nature of child abuse and problems within families, effective child protection and prevention of child abuse can be achieved only if professionals and agencies work in partnership. The Bill promotes a collaborative approach between the Department for Community Development and other agencies in the provision of social services and provides for interagency cooperation, particularly in relation to the protection and care of children and the provision of financial or other assistance. Effective collaboration and cooperation have been consistently highlighted in child death inquiries as being of critical importance to the prevention of such deaths. The Bill also includes a provision that facilitates 163
the exchange of information relevant to the wellbeing of children (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 4 December 2003, p14244b–14247a (S. M. McHale)).
It is the Government’s view that this Bill should contain a variety of modern, flexible mechanisms to respond to the many different situations when a child’s wellbeing is at risk. In particular the Bill provides for the police and department officers to move a child to a safe place when the child is not under the immediate supervision of a parent or adult and there is a risk to the child’s wellbeing because of the nature of the child’s location, the child’s behaviour or vulnerability at that location or any other circumstance. The provision also applies to a child who is an absentee student (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 4 December 2003, p14244b–14247a (S. M. McHale)).
Alternative dispute-resolution mechanisms mentioned in both the interviews and case study data are regarded as flexible tools in family support work. Whilst valued for their potential in enabling representation, participation, and the negotiation of new positions with families and children, problems were also identified concerning safety, equity and the expression of child rights: This is a very important principle … that a child participate. If I had my druthers, I would prefer that child protection issues be taken out of the Children’s Court. I would rather separate child protection matters from criminal matters with which the Children’s Court deals. If I had my druthers I would have child protection issues decided by a panel with the same authority and capacity to enforce decisions that the parliamentary secretary quite correctly pointed out is necessary. However, I would prefer that the panel look at all the principles that are now contained in the Bill, including the interests of the child. I would like to see a provision in the Bill giving an opportunity for the panel to consider each case of the Department for Community Development and the parents and the interests of the child by direct participation of the child. However, because the child may be below the age of abstract competence, there should be before the panel in the child’s place an advocate to argue the interests of the child (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 24 August 2004, p5418c–5442a (Derrick Tomlinson)).
If a child is incapable of appearing before the panel, by age, intellect or development, who will act for the child? The parliamentary secretary has already drawn attention to a later clause in the Bill which empowers the court to direct that a legal representative be appointed to represent the child. However, the legal representative would argue points of law. Considering all the principles that we have now accepted, I ask the parliamentary secretary who will act for the child? (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 24 August 2004, p5418c–5442a (Derrick Tomlinson)).
A flexible mechanism for alternative dispute resolution is provided for through pre-hearing conferences, and the court will have the power to seek independent expert reports to assist with decision making. Procedural court matters, including provisions about interim orders, are also described more clearly in the Bill to address some of the many inadequacies of the current 164
Child Welfare Act. The court will not be able to make a protection order for a child without considering a proposal or report from the CEO outlining the proposed arrangements for the wellbeing of the child. These are all new features; they are not found in the current legislation (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 4 December 2003, p14244b– 14247a (S. M. McHale)).
[Family] mediation raises issues about private ordering. If people agree in a private and confidential setting about what is to happen to children after their parents separate, then how are those children (who are almost always not present in the mediation) to be protected? If mediation is to be used where there are disputes between State agencies, parents and children who are in the care of the State — how should it best be developed and the interests of vulnerable people protected … also … the grave concerns that arise around mediation of disputes involving violence against women—and of course there is often a link between violence to women and to children in the same family (Record 7, email conversation).
Finally, the case study provides data on community development as a child protection and family support strategy. These data arise from attempts in the framing of the Bill subtlety to change child protection practice in Western Australia through the introduction of alternatives to forensic intervention in families, in the Children and Community Development Bill 2003. In particular, the new language introduced concepts of child rights and participation, and community development as mechanisms for increasing the wellbeing and safety of children in Western Australia. The following data indicate how contentious this effort proved to be, with discussion at the conceptual level failing to indicate understanding or engagement with the complexity of a changing child protection discourse: … the insertion of “community development” into the title of the Bill was again an attempt to reflect the broader focus the department is trying to adopt in its key work on child protection. We need to consider how we strengthen families and ultimately strengthen neighbourhoods to support families to increase their self-reliance (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 3 March 2004, p277b–283a (S. M. McHale)).
I am not at all wedded to having protection as part of the title, for this reason: the concept of child protection involves a judicial sort of statutory intervention mode, and what we are genuinely trying to do in the way that we are working with children and families is to strengthen families so that the consideration stays with the families. Albeit they may live in imperfect circumstances and very often among inadequate standards, the underlying principle is that it is often better to leave the child with its family and to support the family rather than take the child away from the family and all the consequential problems (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 3 March 2004, p277b–283a (S. M. McHale)).
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… Good community is central to the wellbeing of children. Some of the studies I have looked at make it quite clear that children need to live in caring communities, in which a sense of community is recognised by the participants. Children need to live in communities in which people care for one another, keep an eye out for other people’s children and have a sense of safety. All these things go into the pot for making a better community. It is a fairly compelling argument that if better communities can be created, risks to children and all participants of that community in a more global sense will be diminished (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 20 August 2004, p5352b–5370a (Ljiljanna Ravlich)).
There is no better object than to promote the wellbeing of children. That is being done. Every one of us should ensure that the wellbeing of children is promoted. If we do that, and ensure that the wellbeing of children is at a good level, we will not face some of the social ills we currently confront (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 4 March 2004, p412a–428a (S. M. McHale)).
I do not understand why the word “communities” is included, because this Bill is not about communities. If the minister can define what she means by a community, I would be very happy to learn that. A community can be defined in many different ways. There are also communities within communities; for example, a community may contain a fundamentalist religious group. That group’s view of the wellbeing of children might be quite different from that of other people in the community. How do we promote the wellbeing of a community? How do we acknowledge that the primary role of a community is safeguarding and promoting the wellbeing of children? I am not sure whether that is the primary role of a community. It may be only one role of a community; it is not the primary role of a community (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 4 March 2004, p412a–428a (E. Constable)).
Child protection is a community concern. A body of research tells us that communities are strengthened — recognising definitional issues about what is a community - through social capital and facilities. In this way, we can have a positive impact on the capacity of families to provide greater protection for their children (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 4 March 2004, p412a–428a (S. M. McHale)).
I will read into Hansard some of Hon Roger McClay’s address to that summit because the Government of the day must be reminded that we need to value our children. Hon Roger McClay said — It was an Australian who, in 1999 said “Our children are like signposts to the future of our society; they tell us what we are becoming. But they are also our most precious resource for shaping the future, so we had better make sure we are nurturing them and support them to the limit of our capacity” (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 20 August 2004, p5352b–5370a (Barbara Scott)).
… All of the experiences a child has in this time [0–6 years] contribute to the kind of people they will eventually become. Services that provide care and education for children carry enormous responsibilities to make a positive contribution to each child’s development ((Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 20 August 2004, p5352b–5370a (Barbara Scott)).
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The data of the case study clearly indicate that parliamentary debate remained stuck in dealing superficially rather than substantively with new possibilities for embedding in legislation rights to non-forensic intervention and family support, including whole-of-government responses to the creation of environments and circumstances promoting child wellbeing and safety. The Bill failed to challenge existing understandings of child protection.
In all, chapter 7 explores the data from focus groups, interviews, and the parliamentary debate case study that are coded to the four themes that emerged from the analysis of those data: • an obligation on the State to prioritise child protection • uncertainty in child protection terminology • responsibilities incurred by the State as a result of the perceived obligation to protect children, and • achieving child protection.
Broadly speaking, the findings are that whilst participants held widely varying view about the responsibilities incurred by the State as a result of child protection obligations, and there existed confusion in child protection terminology, there was nevertheless a widely held view that child protection intervention is the definitive intervention for achieving child safety and wellbeing.
The following chapter considers the data, around the themes of rights and citizenship, offering a challenge to the dominant view favouring Anglo- American child protection.
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Chapter 8: Child Rights and Citizenship — Opportunity to Gain Lost Ground
Introduction Within the context of similarly named discourses in the scholarly literature at the end of the 20th century, this chapter explores those data from the research, coded under the major field of interest of child rights and citizenship.
In the same way that Anglo–American literature on the welfare of children places in the foreground child protection, rather than children, so does the weight of the data. The data on child rights and citizenship, from this research, are much less robust than the data on child protection. Less data were coded to this major field of interest and participants displayed less clarity and certainty in the ideological and ontological content of their comments, and for the most part, there was an absence of rights and citizenship as participant-named constructs.
Two themes emerged in the analysis of those data: • achieving child rights, and • implementing child citizenship.
These, and their associated sub-themes, are discussed below following the graphical representation of this major field of interest. 168
The State as Parent:
Metamorphosis from ‘Wire Monkey’ Parent to Benefactor
Child Rights and Citizenship
-Major field of interest 2
Holding a child’s rights agenda Strategies for
Sub-theme 2.1.1 achieving child rights
Rights for children in State care
Sub-theme 2.1.2 Theme 2.1
Legislation as a vehicle for rights
Sub-theme 2.1.3
Implementing gency in community as vehicle for rights child citizenship
Sub-theme 2.2.1 Theme 2.2
Figure 6: Child rights and citizenship — Major field of interest 2
The subject areas of rights and citizenship are bounded by related and intersecting discourses. This data analysis is not intended as a philosophical treatise on either of these specialist areas, but is a simpler exploration of the possibilities of these as foundations for building a broad child wellbeing agenda, particularly in Australia.
Achieving child rights It is apparent from the data that whilst there appears to be agreement on the importance of child rights, there is some disagreement about the degree to 169 which child rights are already realised in Australia, and, therefore, the relevance of an active contemporary child rights agenda. The contested nature of the debate, across child rights and citizenship, is evident in the data: I don’t think, in Australia, to be honest [there has ever been a ‘summertime’ for children’s issues]. I think, partly because as children came onto the agenda, the boomer generation being born, as the United Nations Charter [UNCROC] came on, and I think we have always had a very ambivalent relationship with the Charter in Australia. So that was the 1960s–70s, and I think the 1970s–80s has been about a growing sense of individual responsibility rather than community … we have headed down the track of individualism, and economic rationalism has added to that. We have got into lots of potential for blame and responsibility sitting with families.… So on the one hand we’ve had family policies, but on the other hand those family policies have allowed us the luxury, at a social policy level, to actually take children out of the [political/public] agenda. So children only had a voice in the context of family (Record 2, interview).
The data suggest three sub-themes within the theme of achieving child rights. These sub-themes address three strategies for promoting child rights in our community: • State responsibility to progress and champion the child right’s agenda • a rights agenda for children in State care • legislation as a vehicle for child rights.
The data are presented below for each of these sub-themes.
STATE RESPONSIBILITY TO A CHILD RIGHTS AGENDA Although the State taking responsibility for child rights is not sufficient for assuring those rights, it is necessary. This level of State commitment is required for the provision of appropriate constitutional, legislative and executive level policy frameworks, essential to a sustainable child rights agenda, and provides avenues for individuals or classes of individuals to demand those rights and to prosecute perceived breaches. Legislation assists in stabilising the rights agenda and helps in isolating it from the vagaries of policy alone.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is the primary legal reference document for child rights in Australia, both as a ratified treaty and 170 as a declared instrument under the Commonwealth Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986. Australia ratified UNCROC on 17 December 1990, with it entering into force in this country on 16 January 1991 (Cohen, 1995; Saulle, 1995: Preface).
The ratification of the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child by Australia, and now all of the rest of the world except the USA, was the culmination of about eight decades of progressive achievements by the international community. It provides a benchmark for child rights and for all subsequent international instruments (Saulle, 1995). Despite Australia’s lead role in the drafting of UNCROC, and the wide-ranging public input, Australia has yet to pass enabling legislation (Jones, 1998).
Legislation, policy, and practice guidelines in Australia increasingly either refer to UNCROC as a benchmark document, or have embedded principles from UNCROC51. This is despite the fact that Australia has done little else to promote child rights either in the constitution or in legislation. In the data, it is apparent that amongst individuals with policy, legislative and academic expertise there is an expectation that the State should be responsible for the implementation of a broad child rights and wellbeing agenda.
One research participant, with a rich government policy/law background, was clear on Australian governments’ obligations to acknowledge the importance of a child rights-based agenda, and to take responsibility for activating this through legislation and policy that enabled UNCROC and further developed and translated the intentions for the local context. This research participant was clear that without the legislative and policy imprimatur of a government-led child rights agenda, implementation
51 For examples see Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 (Commonwealth of Australia), Children and Community Services Act 2004 (Western Australia), Commissioner for Children and Young People Act 2006 (Western Australia), 171 remains highly contested: the battlefield of professional opinion (Record 6, telephone interview).
It was this participant’s view that Australian governments should embrace the responsibilities articulated in UNCROC with Children’s Commissioners appointed in every State and Territory, and at the federal level. One of their powers should be the veto on legislation and policy that did not adequately reflect the intention of UNCROC (Record 6, telephone interview).
Whilst Australia has now achieved the appointment of Children’s Commissioners in all States and Territories, there is no evidence that their appointments have advanced a child rights agenda in any substantive way, and an Australian Government Children’s Commissioner is still a dream.
Elsewhere in the data, there is agreement that the State has responsibility to adopt a child rights agenda and an obligation to ensure that an adequate benchmark or minimum standard is both articulated and met: Well the principle, it seems to me well put, is if the child has a ‘right’, if only a right to be kept safe, then it doesn’t matter if you are not sure who is responsible for administering it; whether it is this Minister or that Minister or some close relative, it is the obligation of the State to make sure that that right is claimed. Somebody has to do it! (Record 5, interview).
Participants were not hopeful that, in a climate of competing agendas, the public and the government will make the necessary commitments to the parmountcy of a child rights agenda: What do I think are the roles and tasks of the State with regard to children? I have never thought about how to express this succinctly before. I suppose it amounts to the sorts of things that are expressed in the CROC [UNCROC]. Provision of basic human rights and freedoms, protection from harm — including the harm caused by poverty and violence — provision of appropriate substitute care if relevant adults cannot care for the child. Of course statements like this beg so many moral and ideological questions that they hardly seem worth making. The reality, I believe, is that although most citizens would like the State to do these jobs (and other tasks of the welfare State) … they are not prepared to allocate proper funding to institutions like State child welfare departments and the Family Court. Care for children, by parents (usually mothers) and substitute care by the State is not accorded the status and importance it deserves (Record 7, email conversation).
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Child rights is not on the agenda at all. At federal level there is some stuff such as support for families, but the terminology of child rights would not be appropriate. The terminology of child rights and justice have been virtually removed from the lexicon. This is a great tragedy — a retreat from where we had come from.… At a State level there is greater acknowledgement of child rights, although they are very conservative. The peak in interest was probably about a decade ago when legislation with child’s best interests, including some of the principles started to appear (Record 6, telephone interview).
[Following the Tampa crisis52] I think that kids rights are just about off the agenda at this time (Record 2, interview).
Respect sits at the centre of rights and social justice, and many campaigners are disrespectful and devalue young people in the present. Part of this is a refusal to promote young people and their wellbeing. For example, the way we run child protection — a dysfunctional system which wouldn’t be allowed in health or roads [which is permitted] because children are not respected. Vulnerable children are not recognised as citizens in the day. The irony is there is some good legislation but in its implementation it fails. The recipients are regarded as less worthy (Record 6, telephone conversation).
…all the bright ideas and hopes that we had nearly twenty years ago, and all the effort that went into addressing this stuff which was something about the status of children generally … has not only gone nowhere, it has gone bloody backwards (Record 5; interview).
Recent findings from the UNICEF review of child wellbeing in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries indicate that this scepticism is well founded, as the research established that children were so far off the political agenda in Australia that insufficient data were collected to ascertain their state of wellbeing (UNICEF, 2007:4).
The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) was established under the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986. This Act established HREOC functions and specific responsibilities in relation to a number of human rights instruments, including the Australian
52 An international humanitarian incident occurred on 26 August 2001 when the captain of the Norwegian vessel the MS Tampa picked up 438 Afghan refugees from a sinking ship in the Indian Ocean, and in line with international maritime agreements made for the nearest landfall; the Australian Dependency of Christmas Island. The Australian Government breached international treaty obligations by denying the Tampa permission to dock, and instead boarded the vessel, transferred the asylum seekers to an Australian warship and, by way of interim destinations, transported them to Nauru in the Pacific Ocean. 173
Bill of Rights (ABR), UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child (UNDRC) and United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC). Unfortunately, failure to pass the ABR, or implementing legislation for UNCROC, despite the Federal Government obligation in relation to the latter instrument arising from being a State Party, has meant there are few rights to children from the signing of UNDRC or UNCROC, or from the establishment of HREOC (Carney, 1990; Rayner, 1996). Despite these circumstances, the Commission valiantly champions human rights, including those of children, but functions in a political wilderness.
An additional two-fold problem with UNCROC arises from the problematic of the conceptualisation of the universal child53, in which representation of the world’s children with images of children experiencing famine, HIV AIDS, and the marginalisation of an under a dollar-a-day existence, are juxtaposed with images of much more sanitised Western childhoods. Having been hijacked as the epitome of child rights by the Third-World destitute on the one hand, and the Western child protection agenda on the other, the mainstream, and some developed countries such as Australia and the United States of America, are able to argue that UNCROC is not applicable to their/our children. This particular stance is evident in the data: The legislation [Children and Community Services Bill] states the principles that guide child care and protection. Those principles are strongly guided by the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was a controversial initiative when it was adopted by the Australian Government, not by the Commonwealth Parliament. It was controversial. There are those who still say that some aspects of the Convention on the Rights of the Child are irrelevant to Australia. I hope so. I hope it is not necessary for us to say that, at birth, every child will have a name, every child will be registered and every child will have acknowledged parents. I hope it is unnecessary, and I hope it continues to be unnecessary, to say that in Australia. Regrettably, in some parts of the world it is necessary for that to be said and done, because it has not been done. I hope it is unnecessary in Australia, and in Western Australia in particular, to say that every child has a right to 12 years of education without cost. Recently, I was in East Timor, and I only wish that every child in
53 Conceptualisation of the universal child has been assisted through the United Nations human rights system as it relates to children (visit www.un.org/en/rights/index.shtml for an introduction) and also through the export of a Western concept of childhood to the developing world, and associated colonisation of the discourse (James & Prout, 1997:4). 174
East Timor had a right to not only education, but also a school to attend, a teacher to teach, books to read, radios to listen to and musical instruments to play. The situation in East Timor demonstrates that it is necessary for that to be said elsewhere. Although I know that some aspects of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child are seemingly inapplicable in Australia, and certainly Western Australia, I hope that continues in future (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 20 August 2004, p5352b–5370a (Derrick Tomlinson)).
This context of international commitments, mediated by domestic historical perspectives, child rights initiatives and the status of explicit family policy, forms the background for child rights in every country. Nevertheless, each child’s access to child rights is also very dependent upon the parenting styles existing within their various families (nuclear, extended, step, blended, foster), and the rights culture of the immediate communities in which they live.
In reality, families have the capacity to promote or attenuate child rights regardless of the existing international, domestic and local child rights environments. Treaties, conventions and legislation do not, in and of themselves, ensure child rights (Coady, 1996; Marks, 1998). The assurance of child rights is mediated through individuals, with parents and family members being significant mechanisms for socialisation and therefore amongst the primary conduits for child rights delivery (Hodgson, 1994).
What a child rights focused constitutional and legislative context does add to this system is the framework for conceptualising the State’s role as a social agent in the lives of children, the environment for developing explicit family policy, and avenues of redress when child rights are breached (Atwool, 1999).
In Australia as elsewhere, the latter half of the 20th century was characterised by an evolving awareness, rhetoric and debate about child rights and the whole of communities’ and governments’ obligations arising from these rights. This evolving agenda remains largely situated with individuals and organisations, in specific interest areas of justice, human rights, medicine 175 and welfare, with an ongoing lack of comprehensive interest and debate at the political level. Alasdair Nicholson (1996; 2007; 2008), Former Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia and Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne; John Tobin (2008; 2009), lawyer and academic; and Moira Rayner (2000; 2002) lawyer and human rights activist, are some examples of Australian champions in this area.
STATE AS PARENT AND A RIGHTS AGENDA FOR CHILDREN IN CARE Although the data from the interviews, focus groups and case study addressing this issue directly are a little more limited than the data coded to other themes and sub-themes in this research, the chronology on State intervention in families obviously indicates that children coming into care are a major consequence of the child protection focus in child and family welfare work, and should be an important area of State responsibility.
I have decided therefore, to contextualise the data on which I report, by providing additional material from the research and practice literature that highlights the importance of this issue.
Regardless of how States configure their family policies, and which theories inform understandings of how these policies impact on the size of the in-care population, States by and large intervene on behalf of children whose rights are unacceptably breached, either by parents or as a result of parental failure to provide and/or protect.
What States often fail to do, however, is intervene when child rights are unacceptably breached by the State or the system (for an example of such a failure see Williams, 2007:6–14). In order to understand the mechanisms by which State intervention either promotes or derogates the rights of children coming into care, one needs to interrogate the system at a number of different levels. Useful questions for exploring this complex issue would include: 176
• Do children in care experience substantially better outcomes than they would have experienced had they not come into care? • Do children in care have their needs met? • Does the legislation under which children come into care, result in the children of particular population groups being over-represented in the care system? (discrimination) • Is there a Bill of Rights for children in care, and is this prosecuted in the breach? • Is there a Commissioner for Children with the responsibility and resources to promote the rights of the child and to scrutinise the circumstances of children in care? • Are the resources invested in providing alternative care for children equally available to prevent unnecessary placement and to maintain families? • Do children in State care receive at least as good a service from all government departments, as children in the general population; and where their status is of critical importance, is this taken into consideration to ensure additional targeted intervention where necessary? • Is the State care system able to ensure good quality socialisation and well-attached relationships for children in the care system?
It is in the disputed answers to the above, that the crux of the State’s problem becomes apparent — is bringing a child into care a promotion, or a violation of child rights, and does the care environment support the ongoing assurance of those rights? Some of the above questions are addressed by the data.
Family policy is used in the advanced industrialised nations, to benefit children generally (Forsenn, 1999; Kamerman, 1999; Rodger, 1995). Yet, when the State has to intervene on behalf of individual children, it becomes apparent that the State is not sufficiently fine a tool to ensure the quality of 177 ongoing protection and care at the individual level. The State may be adequate as a tool for policing child rights, but the evidence on child rights promotion and provision is equivocal.
Although the rights of children in care have ‘in principle’ supports from the State, what happens in fact is that this population of children experiences difficulties in accessing and ensuring their individual rights and these difficulties intensify over time. Furthermore, with the passing of time, the number of adults likely to champion each child’s cause dwindles, parental and other family contact falls away, and the child’s family restructures in the child’s absence and so effectively ceases to exist (Berrick, 1997): I’m the second last child. I have four sisters. All my sisters have got different fathers and I’ve got a different father to my sister’s [sic]. The father on my birth certificate is not my real father. I was told that about three years ago and it was a real shock to my system … I don’t know who my real father is … I don’t know anything about my mother and her background. I haven’t spoken to her for at least six years. My Grandma just died, 1 met her only once (Michael Talbot in Owen, 1996:18).
In general, in Australia, where a Children’s Court finds it necessary for protective intervention to place the child in the care of the State, the relevant welfare departments’ legislations and regulations have almost nothing to say on how this will occur, or to what ends. By and large, where child rights are recognised and protected, this is a result of local practice rather than either executive will or legislative mandate (Carney, 1990). Only Queensland enshrines a right to an adequate service as part of its welfare legislation, having passed a Bill of Rights for Children in Care 1999, although both Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory extend general rights through the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 and Human Rights Act 2004, respectively.
Both practice wisdom and the evidence confirm that State processes rarely champion the rights of the child through such strategies as developmentally relevant timeframes, freedom of expression, and involvement in the decision 178 making. Instead, systemic and administrative processes and timeframes are favoured, leaving children, parents and carers to cope as best they can: Pervasive and just as disturbing is the readiness of caseworkers, under pressure to clear their caseloads, to put children in the first available placement rather than one that the child deserves or that would best serve his or her needs. The system, in its desperate shortage of resources, is geared to the fastest rather than the best disposition of cases. The placement system is not even built on compromises, but on urgency and minimal standards of care. Children often have little voice in where they go, and when they speak up, they are usually ignored (Toth, 1997:22).
In Australia, the individual States and Territories have responsibility for the guardianship of children requiring care and protection beyond the capacity of their parents. This responsibility is enshrined in States-specific legislation. Whilst a number of different government departments, both federal and State, might be regarded as providing services which are extensions of parental responsibilities (i.e. health, education, income support), the specific responsibility of child guardianship falls to departments of child and family welfare. The data reflect the evidence of numerous inquiries that the State generally accepts legal responsibility, but this may not translate into a good quality service for vulnerable children: The most particular expression of the State as parent concept, perhaps, is in the child welfare legislation. How the State protects, how the State looks after, and whether it really cares.… While the State legally accepts responsibility, it is dispassionate, it doesn’t have any warmth, or sense of being a parent. Only has been compelled to provide services.… There is always a high level of disregard in State authorities, but the State is clearly sliding towards being an abuser — an abusive system, particularly for children who are coming into care. There is a complete abandonment of responsibility for over-15-year olds, and children suffering multiple placements.… Many have positive experiences, but for a significant number the experience is abusive. Officers have moved from ‘relationships’ to ‘service’. Relationships with parent, carer and worker, that’s what children want. This is likely in the non-government and unlikely in the government. There are practice and resource constraints which have led to episodic, crisis-based approaches. This compounds the guilt of children for their own circumstances and breakdowns — impacts significantly on the out-of-home care system (Record 6, telephone conversation).
[The State in which I operate] celebrates excellence, but not for the vulnerable (Record 6, telephone conversation).
In Western Australia the mandated department is the Department for Child Protection, which at June 30 2009 was solely responsible for 3,195 children for whom the Chief Executive Officer had parental responsibility 179
(Department for Child Protection, 2009:12), at least 266054 of whom were under the guardianship of the Director-General (Department for Child Protection, 2009:25). Across Australia, in 2007–08, 34,279 children were under care and protection orders (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2009:65).
In 2001, the then Director-General of the Western Australian Department for Community Development55 said of the responsibility of the State to children in care that it should be characterised by relationships of empowerment, accountability, openness, respect, empathy and honesty. As far as the quality of the services was concerned, she was absolutely clear about the standard that was required and said that the Department’s interventions should be nothing less than we would expect if we were that child, or the child concerned was one of our own children56, and that anything less was not good enough.
Although the Director-General put it more forcefully than most, the expectation that State care should provide children with a better quality of care than the home from which they were removed is reflected in the data, in which there is a clearly evidenced belief that children in care have a right to good quality relationships and a sense of belonging in a family: And years and years ago, when I was first at [a non-government agency], I remember having this debate and the topic was about spirituality; saying that it was a legitimate part of growing up to explore the questions about ‘Who am I?’; not “What am I?”, or ‘What do I do?’, but “Who am I?, which for me was one of those fundamental questions that you need to do [as a parent, with your child], and the complexity of trying to do that as a representative of the State … because for most children brought up in a family that’s done within the context of whatever or however that family would answer that
54 This figure is derived from Table 17 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2009:65), with the sum of the number of children on protection orders until 18, and those on protection orders time limited. Although guardianship is not a concept used in the Children and Community Services Act 2004, it is used in this text as shorthand for children who are both under orders and for whom the Chief Executive Officer has parental responsibility. 55 Now Department for Child Protection. 56 Recorded in opportunistic researcher notes in late 2001. 180
question. In most families that then becomes freer and freer and the kids then make their own choices, but for kids in State care what’s the framework. They end up with no framework because no one can agree with it, so they end up in adolescence, all over the place. And that has always been a real struggle for me, in terms of giving kids a framework whereby they can start asking those questions, because they are a legitimate part of where they go (Record 2, interview).
This clear view of State obligations to children in care contrasts with doubts that such responsibilities are something which the State can undertake to deliver, as delivery firstly requires ‘caring’, and secondly it is dependent on trusting relationships — both attributes being human, and dependent on specific individuals, rather than being organisational in nature: But I’m thinking that at least the State [enabled] the parenting of the child which is good. So let me illustrate. A foster child I know, came into care after a very nasty breakdown. The things that the State did was to allow her to remain in her school, in fact not just allow but facilitate, so she remained in her existing school albeit at some additional expense to the State, and that was important. The new foster care family were proactive in terms of looking for possible solutions to her long-term accommodation needs. The people around those carers listened to them instead of saying that it wasn’t their job, which is often the response that they get, and the carers were prepared to be the engine-room rather than be in control, and I think that helped. The potential carers persisted rather than take ‘No’, because when they approached the Department in the first instance they got the bureaucratic response that they were too old, that they had too many children, too this, too that. I’m not sure whether it was a good decision or whether it was just by default, but somehow this child ended up in this place, and they have been able to maintain the one case manager through six years of foster care.… I think this is evidence of the case manager’s commitment to this placement because she has found ways, even when people have wanted to move the case management of the file, she has found ways very proactively to hold onto that case. Now there have been some messy bits and pieces, but in terms of the State working towards a good outcome, this kid could have been in all sorts of strife by now. She’s fourteen going on fifteen and there are no signs of that happening (Record 2, interview).
Around the world, economically disadvantaged population groups suffer reduced status and restriction of rights, compared to the governing mainstream. The rights of children from economically disadvantaged population groups are often violated and where these children are identifiable as being ethnically, culturally and/or religiously different from the mainstream they suffer escalated rights infringements because of discriminatory legislation, policy and practice. In addition, these children are more likely to come to the notice of child welfare authorities because of their visibility and associated over-surveillance (National Center on Child 181
Abuse and Neglect, 1996). In care, these children stay longer and experience a greater number of placement breakdowns, with the attendant risks of lost social and emotional relationships and reduced services. In addition, they are likely to become alienated from their cultural identity (Albers, Reilly, & Rittner, 1993; Atwool, 1999; Bullock, Little, & Millhan, 1994; Commission for Racial Equality, 1976; Gibson, 1993; Hegar, 1988; Rowe, Caine, Hundleby, & Keane, 1984; Working Party on Multiculturalism and Social Work, 1986).
In Australia, the most disadvantaged group is Australian Aboriginals whose human rights have been found to have been repeatedly infringed on an extreme and continuing basis (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997; Manguri & Western Australian Council for Social Services, 1994; Nicholson, 1996; Ruth, 1990). Australian Aboriginal children are currently seven times as likely to be under care and protection orders as other children (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2009:67), and experience poorer outcomes, including longer stays (Dodson, 1999; Johnstone, 2000:40).
The vast majority of children who experience out-of-home care placements remain for fewer than three months. However, whether or not they remain for longer periods, children in care, as a group, come from underprivileged populations whose rights are already curtailed by poverty and poor access to good quality resources in such services as education, employment, health services and housing. The research suggests that the care experience can additionally erode child rights and that it is currently beyond the capacity of the State’s intervention to address this problem: In most cases, the foster care system proves to be as poor a parent to these orphans of the living as the biological parents. That is not to say that children in jeopardy should be kept with their biological family at all costs. It is only to point out the extent of foster care’s failure. If we are going to entrust children to the State, in order to reform the welfare cycle we must be willing to make the system capable of providing reasonable care. Right now, it can barely feed and clothe the children (Toth, 1997:23).
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Another group of very seriously disadvantaged children coming into care in Australia are refugee minors, both accompanied and unaccompanied, and the Australian-born children of refugees seeking asylum. State care for refugee minors has also been found to repeatedly contravene child rights. Infringement has occurred through long periods of incarceration, inadequate educational opportunities, poor medical care and inadequate financial, social and emotional support (Castieau, 2000; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1998; Williams, 2007:6–14). Research participants recognised child detention as an intervention with significant negative consequences for children, and as a breach of rights about which there is insufficient State or public interest: I keep hearing about children in detention, and they shouldn’t [be there]. It was a Canadian model to which we aspired way back. I don’t know when it changed. Two things: One! Canadians always have 90 days for that decision — that’s it. Two! They are never in detention, they are always in community. Canadians are very open-minded about that, but here because of our general phobic attitude, there is no choice (Record 8, interview).
So specifically in relation to children I think that’s a very specific moral, and legal issue which arises because of legal processes. In particular, it arises because of delays occasioned by legal processes. So you have very young people [refugees and unaccompanied minors] in these inhospitable places, for years, on occasion. So I think that’s certainly an area where government as a whole needs to be focusing (Record 4, interview).
The data from the case study identified a Commissioner for Children as being an Office that could be used to promote the rights of all children to healthy environments across five domains of wellbeing: One of the primary functions of the commissioner for children will be to help build an environment that will sustain our children’s healthy growth and development. The five critical environments are the family environment, the social environment, the spiritual environment, the learning environment and the physical environment (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 20 August 2004, p5352b–5370a (Barbara Scott)).
Although not true at the time of the parliamentary debate case study, all Australian States now have Commissioners for Children, or their equivalent, with the Western Australian Commissioner being appointed December 2007. This reflects a trend in Western industrialised nations, which commenced with the first Commissioner for Children being appointed in Norway, in 183
1981, for the purpose of protecting and promoting child rights. Many others, including British Columbia, Wales and England, and all of the Australian States have followed suit, largely in the late 1990s to early 2000s.
Children’s Commissioners have a wide range of mandates and power, from ensuring the implementation of UNCROC and related legislation for the purpose of protecting and promoting the rights of all children, through to largely unenforceable oversight of the circumstances of children in care.
Strategies such as the appointments of Commissioner for Children, and the promulgation of rights legislation and Charters of Rights, are not fail-safe mechanisms for ensuring child rights (see for example Atwool, 1999; Brouwer, 2009). International treaties, constitutional mandates, legislation, policy, and formal procedures, are toothless without the commitment of whole-of-government, systems, organisations and individuals.
Whilst rights can, and do, exist in the absence of law, breaches may not be prosecuted in the law’s absence. In addition to providing the mechanisms to uphold rights, legislation and policy have lead roles in directing social change and promoting social consensus (Coady, 1996; Forsenn, 1999). These assist in creating the social culture of child rights, and valuing children. The data are clear that a social and political culture which values children as active participants in the future of the community, and how they wish to live their lives, is critical to a successful rights agenda: The way we look at children is vital [how are children perceived/valued in our society].… Children are a community investment [their wellbeing is important to everyone’s current and future wellbeing] (Record 20, focus group).
At this point I will just say that my experiences have given me an interest in protecting the vulnerable and a concern with the difficult balance between that aim and allowing people the freedom to define for themselves how they wish to live. I am very interested in identity issues case study case study — gender, race, sexuality, class etc. Social attitudes to all of these things have resulted in the State (via the courts or child welfare agencies) removing children from carers in circumstances which I (in common with many people) now believe to be indefensible. In scrutinising the very difficult issue of what is in the best interests of the child it is impossible to avoid ideological and political issues. Some people pretend to avoid them — 184
generally those whose liberal views most coincide with prevailing social norms and whose ideological orientation is therefore least visible. But in the end ideology and politics is present and orientates approaches to the issues you raise (Record 7, email conversation).
Finally, there was concern about the blunt and inflexible nature of the law, as a mechanism for intervention in people’s lives. In its application, particularly on behalf of children, adjudicators would do well to consider how best to achieve equity. If equality before the law requires that every child is treated as a universal child there is a risk that court decisions will affect every child differently, and that many of the decisions will be inappropriate. If on the other hand, every child is to be treated as an individual, the legislature, the judiciary and State agencies will need to develop a heretofore-elusive sensitivity (Abela & Borg, 1998; Sheehan, 2003): We leave children’s homes and foster care homes knowing how to fill out forms and how to buy the cheapest clothes without looking cheap, but there’s this thing we don’t know. We don’t know how not always to protect ourselves. So there’s a big hollowness. Some kids fill it up with drugs, or with food, or with religion, but some of us never fill it up. It’s just sort of cold and restless. I didn’t really notice it until my boyfriend kept on telling me that I was sort of distant and cold. You see, I think I learned a lot of things and I’ve worked hard, but I’ve never learned how to give love I never received and, to be honest, I don’t really understand. And I’m what they call a success (Nancy who didn’t want to be identified because of the stigma Toth, 1997:312).
The data supported individual representation of children in care applications as one strategy for better ensuring that the rights of the child were upheld, and that the blunt instrument of the law was forced to adopt greater compassion for the child as a person rather than as an object: In the best interests of the child, when it can be demonstrated that there is a risk of harm, then there is a right to intervene. We then set up an adversarial procedure in the courts and put a legalistic procedure in place, in which we say the rights of the parents and the rights of the child will be respected. However, eventually it comes down to a legal decision. Are we really translating the principle into practice? No; we are translating the principle into the procedure that has operated since 1947, and that has not been changed.… We have an adversarial court — the department versus the parent — in which the child is the object of contention and the claim, on the part of the department, that the child is in imminent danger of harm from sexual, physical, emotional or psychological abuse. That is the charge being made. The parents are defending the charge but the object is the child. Who represents the child? When is the child given the opportunity to be heard? If the child is incapable of understanding, who then represents the interests of the child? … there should be a third representative who is the representative of the interests of the child. That person should be the advocate for the child … it is another instance in which the authors of the Bill have started with a set 185
of commendable and laudable intentions as statements of principle but, in the translation, lose sight of the principle. I do not want to say that is because someone instructed them that this was to be done with the least cost. That is probably nonsense. The laudable intention is not translated into practice (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 20 August 2004, p5352b–5370a (Derrick Tomlinson)).
LEGISLATION AS A VEHICLE FOR CHILD RIGHTS The Australian Constitution mandates the federal system of government57 and governments’ roles in children’s matters. This in turn necessitates locating discussion of local children’s issues at both State and federal levels, thereby assisting Australian governments to evade related responsibilities through a process of each passing responsibility to the other.
Despite their status, there is continuing evidence of Australian federal governments’ failures to meet in full their obligations under UNCROC (Rayner, 1996). In particular, active support of UNCROC has been lacking, and there have been attempts to thwart its application. Australia has never passed enabling legislation, as required by the Constitution in order for the Convention to become law. There is no scrutiny of Australian domestic legislation to ensure its compliance with the Convention, and where States and Territories either deliberately or unintentionally flout Australia’s obligations, the Federal Government is reticent to intervene (Breen, 1999; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997, 2000; Nicholson, 1996; Rayner, 1996; Teoh & Turnell, 1999). In addition, the Federal Government has failed to scrutinise its own legislation, policy and behaviour to ensure it is not in breach of its obligations under the Convention.
Given the above, it is hardly surprising that children are largely invisible in the Australian State and Federal governments’ business, and that neither the States nor the Commonwealth have as a general rule pursued fulsome human rights agendas (Innes, 2008). Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory are notable exceptions, with human rights legislation that covers civil and political rights and extend to children all the rights conferred by the
57 See Addendum 1 — A brief description 186 respective Acts. Otherwise, there are few laws in Australia positively supporting human dignity for children. Existing child rights are neither comprehensive nor definitive.
In the individual Australian States and Territories, protective rights exist largely through the authority of Children’s Courts, and the mandate of associated welfare legislation. This area of concern tends to be separated into welfare and justice. Child welfare matters relate to offences against children by parents and carers (excluding the State), and child justice matters relate to criminal activity by children. The age of criminal responsibility for children varies across the Australian States from 8–10 years, with the possibility of serious charges being heard in adult courts. Depending on the particular State, sanctions against children may occur with or without the recording of a criminal conviction (Carney, 1990).
With eight States and Territories developing welfare and justice legislation based on diverse ideological and political viewpoints, there is little consistency. Some of the legislation is also unquestionably in breach of Australia’s obligations under UNCROC (Nicholson, 1996; Rayner, 1996). Breaches of care by the State are rarely prosecuted, and are likely to be understood in terms of failure to meet a duty of care, as opposed to behaviour constituting child abuse or a violation of child rights. Where children in Australia do have rights to resources such as free medical care, financial support and accommodation, these rights are not inalienable, but are subject to legislative and policy manipulation (Carney, 1990).
The data indicate some understanding of the complex issues that surround legislation as a tool for change: If you had a piece of legislation which was predicated not just on the desirability of keeping the child in the family unit, but on the right of the child to a family environment with love and understanding, where they can achieve their full potential as human beings, which is what the preamble to the Convention says, you would have a slightly different emphasis on services you were planning for children (Record 5, interview).
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There was recognition of the fact that rights legislation may be a necessity, but that it is insufficient to achieve the desired outcomes, and even that it may be misapplied, or usurped by competing agendas, which may leave people — including children — vulnerable to unforseen and highly negative consequences: Even with a charter of rights in its legislation, a children’s commission and mandatory reporting, Queensland ended up with its crime and corruption report (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 6 April 2004, p1745b–1793a (S. M. McHale)).
There is a lot … of beating of drums about increased rights in legislation, without any understanding, it seems to me, of the context, and my thought, as has been demonstrated in America, is that you can make the legislation as human rights focused as you like and it will essentially be ignored because … the Courts and lawyers and everyone else involved will seek to ensure that that person is treated. So you are almost doing it in the face of so called human rights stuff. So the dramatic changes in the laws in the US have, in some respects, not very dramatic consequences, in that some people are still within the system. But at another level they have had huge consequences because what’s happened is that we’ve trans-institutionalised mentally ill people out of hospitals and straight into prison (Record 4, interview).
The New South Wales child protection legislation in 1998 may say this is rights based, but in and of itself it is insufficient and practice needs to follow … whereas disabilities is more honoured in the breach than in its compliance (Record 6, telephone interview).
[It’s] not just legislation, but context. I think that your whole area is fascinating because I tire of hearing what I would call meaningless rhetoric from well-meaning but sadly misinformed, or at least apparently misinformed groups who are saying “Human rights, human rights, we need more human rights!!!”, without the context.… As the idea of rights has become more pronounced, there seems to be a kind of corollary, that the more the law is there to protect those rights, ergo, the law provides the answers. Which I think anyone other than lawyers would surely disagree with … and yet it is still advocated strongly, e.g. let’s plug in more human rights into the legislation. Now all my reading and my experience tells me that that’s crap. That if you reduce it just to the legal issues … you are not going to get the right answer, because no piece of legislation can deal with the complexity, and the context that’s around in society. So overall I’m thinking that somehow or other we seem to have adopted increasingly simplistic notions of society (Record 4, interview).
Building a rights culture was seen as being important to the success of a child rights agenda: [Uptake of UNCROC principles in the UK] was a cultural thing because implementation of it was discretionary. It was very much dependent on how well the solicitors were trained, how free the senior social workers felt to do things, the level of resources to build a case. And that to me seemed to be the key to it, it seemed very much to be a professional culture which did or didn’t exist in pockets, and in training. Now when I went back to [the UK] … I 188
found that the idea of ‘the rights of the child’, while as unpopular in pockets as it is in…Western Australia, is also very well accepted in professional circles. They have been trained to talk about children having rights, they have actually used the structure of the UN Convention of the rights of the child, in training and development, they have been using that as a model for participation and stuff like that. It was only really starting in the ‘80s…but over the last 10–12 years it has become very much prevalent. So that you can find that participation was actually becoming a performance measure in Government programs. Consultation was actually defined and there were lots of people working at it. So there you are, it’s culture, it’s training, and it’s many years of using that language without apologising … and I don’t see it [the professional uptake of human right language for children] anywhere in Australia (Record 5, interview).
Implementing child citizenship The Western democratic welfare State and associated citizenship philosophy had its heyday in the decade following the end of WWII, a period characterised by rising employment, productivity and living standards in Western Europe (Singer, 2000). The British sociologist, T.S Marshall, provided the structure for social citizenship as a historical development of civil rights in the 18th century, of political rights in the 19th century, and of the working-class struggle for social security, which provided a social framework for greater cohesion.
By the end of the 1960s, with the wide acceptance of capitalism, restructuring was introduced to cope with declining growth and profits, and rising costs (Singer, 2000:694), and by the 1980s capital was in direct opposition to labour on worker unionism, conditions and rights, and in regard to the deregulation and privatisation of public assets.
Rising living standards of the immediate post-war period were replaced by growing unemployment and an increasing divide between the citizenship experience of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. The powers of the State were radically altering, globalisation resulted in the relaxation or removal of trade and currency controls, responsibility was being individualised, and market participation was being touted as a realistic alternative to the welfare safety net.
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These events were accompanied by a swing to the right across the political spectrum, and the development of welfare reform agendas, firstly from the ‘New Right’ and then from the Left, in the form of ‘New Labour’ and the ‘Third Way’ (Singer, 2000). These positions have emphasised individual responsibility and obligation as key aspects of citizenship rights, a stance which is problematic because of the way in which that has led to exclusion from citizenship rights of individuals deemed dilatory in their duties, and imposes conditions on rights access (Lister, 2005:489).
Excluding people from citizenship rights access, Lister (op. cit.) argues, is inherently at odds with Marshallian principles of citizenship, and contraindicated by evidence of the negative consequences of exclusion for individuals, communities and the State. Despite the conceptualisation of citizenship as being universal, the experience in Anglo–American countries is differentiated and discriminatory (Bryson, 2000; Davis, 2007).
Isin et al. (2009) suggest that the task for the early part of this century is to relocate the social in citizenship, as an integrating concept for three previously largely separate aspects of the citizenship debate. These are the traditional Marshallian social rights and responsibilities of citizenship that have been under attack with the decline of the welfare State at the close of the last century; the building of social cohesion; and developing concepts of the social. The ascendency of child rights and children’s developing importance as actors in their world would support their rights as claimants to the new social citizenship.
Although child and young person citizenship is developed in discussion, policy and legislation in Scandinavian social democratic States, the concept is largely germinal and more contested in other Western democracies (Beauvais, McKay, & Seddon, 2001) including Australia (Funder, 1996). Interestingly, the ascendency of children and young person’s citizenship in Canada is assisted in part, Chen (2009:163) would argue, by State sponsored 190 ageism, aimed at optimising the population for such factors as health risks, neurological performance, adaptability and reproduction.
Children’s experience is currently subject to competing trends towards both difference and commonality. To some extent globalisation is creating a commonality in the experience of childhood, and this sits increasingly outside the entities of State and Nation, albeit not necessarily beyond their influence.58 Simultaneously, children are experiencing a separation from the common experience of others as they are micro-managed into child-specific environments and locations, reducing opportunities to participate in the rich social milieu, as multi-generational activities and environments become increasingly scarce (Smith, 2000).
Child citizenship needs to respond to the need for children to be actors and agents in all their environments, and there is evidence that they are “increasingly constituted as citizens in their own right and as independent bearers of rights” (Chen, 2009).
Illustrative of the tensions in developing a concept of child and young person citizenship is that as children have achieved an unprecedented visibility in the 20th century, and despite their prominence fostered in policy and practice by an increasingly ideologically child-centred society, there is a growing problematic with the concept of childhood (James & Prout, 1997:1). The ideology cannot accommodate the conduct of children who fail to behave like the idealised innocent child, is unable to accommodate progressive transition into adulthood and cannot reconcile the inexact fit between age and development (Goddard, 1999; Urbas, 2000). Unfortunately,
58 Not addressed, but worth noting, is the yet to be conceptualised ‘citizenship’ which follows from Beck’s question: “How might we conceptualize a world and a set of global dynamics in which the problematic consequences of radicalized modernization effectively eliminate the cornerstones and logics of action — certain historically produced fundamental distinctions and basic institutions — of its nation-state order” (Beck, 2005:xi). 191 the resolution of the tensions is often to the disadvantage of the child or young person: Some progress has been made but a real problem exists with teenagers. Law and order debates are classic examples of the betrayal of young people. We say we value children but as a nation we want less of them later, and now there are child-free zones. Excellence in rights is traded against equity. Campaigners are often negative about young people, as is the media (Record 6, telephone interview).
Historically, in Australia, the paradox of the experience of State intervention for men and women is that where men have largely been the subject of citizenship, the citizenship experience of women and children was mediated by male, wage earning heads-of-households. In addition, women and children have been subject to an invasion of the privacy of the family at the micro-management level, enduring the impact of a welfare and child protection intervention from the State (Bryson, 2000: 43–54). Increasing equality achieved in the citizenship experience of men and women from the 1970s onwards was undermined during the term of the Howard national government59, and there is some indication that the current government is persisting in what Neumann (2009) suggests is a shift away from an inalienable rights agenda, to a privileges agenda that is more open to government manipulation.
Avoiding a systemic and holistic approach to the alleviation of disadvantage, Australian governments have instead focused on managing the family as the site of both the problem and the solution. As a consequence of this stance, the State has failed to engage in any debate as to the broad implications of the lack of access and entitlement, or their citizenship experience, in constructing the conditions in which so many women, children and Indigenous people find themselves (Bryson, 2000:43).
59 The conservative Howard government, 1996–2007, was a coalition between the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Country Party. 192
CHILD AGENCY IN THE COMMUNITY Possibly in line with the historical tensions in having citizenship equality across gender and ethnicity, there is a concern apparent in the data, that Australia may not be able to negotiate both family rights and child rights simultaneously; that child agency will have the effect of diminishing parents’ authority: Great mischief may be done if we try to include children’s rights in the Constitution. The constant polarisation between parents and children means child rights may be lost, whereas specific rights-base legislation can be got through. States can adopt the obligations of UNCROC and legislation localises relevance (Record 6, telephone interview).
One issue that arose during the radio debate this morning is the rights of the child. This issue has been debated in many different forums and in many different ways. People have different views on the rights of the child. We support the right of a child to be protected and brought up in a safe and caring environment. However, the debate on the rights of the child is disenfranchising parents…. I am not sure that in the debate on the rights of the child we have got the principles right. Parents feel disenfranchised. Teachers feel that they lack the ability to exercise any discipline within school (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 2 March 2004, p96b–121a (C.L. Edwardes)).
An opposing view recognised that for many children it was the hard work of their parents which had enabled the children’s rights and personal agency: I think that the one area in which you see families fighting for children, is in the area of disabilities. And so you actually see some very active self-help groups in the disabilities field. And those groups are often made up of articulate, motivated family members who are about fighting for the rights of their children. I think that the disabilities culture in Western Australia … has argued that you need to stand in the shoes of the children. And so there has been some capacity for the families and for the children to at least have a say, whereas I think that in the children’s welfare area it has been much more difficult [for families to be able to fight for their children and their children’s rights]. And I believe that you can only find a few examples where people have proactively worked for a children’s voice. Those examples would be some of the stuff happening in the Family Court, particularly in some of the mediation and counselling services and the growing capacity to try and give children a voice and probably, I think, in some of the Indigenous Family Conferencing work, particularly coming out of New Zealand. And you can see just a few examples of that in WA. But I think that particularly in regard to child protection I think that we have, on the whole disempowered children (Record 2, interview).
An overarching theme identified in the analysis of the data is that child rights and citizenship have significant implications for child wellbeing, and that a compassionate and benevolent State will be cognisant of their value in establishing overarching ecologies for the wellbeing of children and 193 families, and of the consequence of their absence. Many research participants expressed frustration that informed debate was not generally encouraged and that where opportunities to express opinions were sought, the agenda was often preconceived, narrow and wrong. The following are a relevant collection of dot points made by focus groups from around the State: • We need informed debate. • There is naiveté around what works and what is likely to work. • Poor ongoing dialogue [across the community, about matters affecting children and families] • We are having the wrong discussion.
Research participants were clear that child citizenship, providing children with equity and access in their own right, is desirable. Child agency provides evidence of active child citizenship and of a community that values children: I suppose I see the roles and tasks of the State re families as providing appropriate supports to the adults who care for children. This ranges across many possible supports from maternity leave to substitute care. The great diversity of families should be recognised. Substitute care of all types is important. Leadership in tolerance and respect for diversity from government would be good — but I do not often see it (Record 7, telephone).
Yes, [you would have to have children evident in ‘health’ and children evident in income] and you would have to have the thoughts of children in your planning, and in your housing policy and in your employment conditions. In all these things (Record 5, interview).
Well, instead of seeing it as a woman’s right [to maternity leave] it should be the right of the child. Should Dads have leave as well? Well yes, that is a different thing too. We should have family-friendly work policies. Not because of all the reasons that have been considered trivial in the past but because we actually think it is important to have kids … and that again strikes me as a failure of the semantics of the debate and of our message of the philosophy. If you do persist in portraying this [access to parental leave] as a right of parents [rather than as a right of the child], then it will be resented by non-parents, instead of [being seen] as an obligation of the State. And that, I think is probably where the difference in Scandinavia’s attitude towards children has historically been, that children are very much the community’s responsibility (Record 5, interview).
… the government is driving the individual agenda in some ways but it is also reflecting the individualistic nature of our society and increasing attention on individual rights as opposed to community rights or collective rights (Record 4, interview).
… civil society, sowing the seed, nurturing when the soil is broken and its hard as a rock; all these things are the government’s job, but in cooperation, in partnership with NGOs, civil society, vis-à-vis the sector too, because the sector wants to be part of it and they usually contribute their resources, their 194
technical know-how. This is an ideal situation but we don’t have that because everybody is busy trying to be recognised, wanting to know who is more powerful, and all this; wasting all these resources. So when you ask that question, a very innocent, simple question became very complicated, and very difficult; because there’s no such thing as a simple answer (Record 8, interview).
The data, on the child rights and citizenship major field of interest, can at best be described as tentative and emergent. Although this major field of interest is apparent in the data, so too is the fact that it is quite overwhelmed by the focus on child protection in the interviews, the focus groups and the parliamentary debate case study. Whilst this initially surprised the researcher, the data are entirely consistent with the historical, cultural, political, and practice environments evident in Australia today and confirm how difficult it is to formulate and articulate frameworks and models outside the normative Australia discourse. This is obvious even for people with expertise, which in other circumstances might lead them to challenge common wisdom.
Of note, was the number of times that the idea of community was mentioned in the discussion about both of the major fields of interests, but was never developed to the level where it might have been coded to sub-theme level. This will be explored further in chapter 9.
Summary of findings
The question addressed by the research is how individuals working at the strategic level in Australian public policy, legislation and scholarship, are currently conceptualising obligations and responsibilities of the State concerning child and family wellbeing in this country. The title of this Part asks the additional question of whether the findings provide evidence of persistent or transformative thinking on this topic.
There is very clear evidence of the thinking around child protection, as a State obligation, being much better developed and easier to access conceptually than thinking about any other obligations and responsibilities. 195
This evidence was captured in the child protection data, identified as the first of two major fields of interest.
In addition, despite the evidence presented in Chapter 3, of child protection strategies failing to increase levels of protection or reduce levels of harm for children, the data are largely around persisting with the current model. Whilst this is truer of data from political leadership than from other research participants who may be more driven by the issues in the real world, challenges to the current child protection focus are not well represented in the data.
Clearly, there do need to be strategies for responding to children at a high risk of serious harm because of parents/carers intentional harming behaviour or serious lack of capacity, who therefore require removal from carers. The concern in this thesis arises however, from the domination of the child protection discourse, as a primary framework for responding to families’ and children’s need, even given the lack of evidence that this contemporary Anglo–American model is an effective and/or efficient strategy in overcoming the levels of distress or harm experienced by children (Harries & Clare, 2002; Kofi Annan (United Nations Secretary- General), 2001; Melton, Thompson, & Small, 2002a; Scott, 2002b, 2004). The task for researchers and practitioners is to think laterally, developing informed responses to the needs of children for safer and more nurturing environments, as opposed to protecting entrenched positions generated by dogma.
The findings of this research reflect evidence elsewhere in the academic and scholarly practice literature of difficulties in ‘thinking outside the square’ — of conceiving of new ways of working in adopting approaches that prioritise a children’s agenda and wellbeing, and are unconstrained by existing models and frameworks, and by the influence of the residual approach to child protection. 196
The challenge to child protection as a primary obligation and responsibility of the State for children’s and families’ wellbeing comes from the data identified as the second major field of interest. In these data covering matters of child rights and citizenship, there are clearly emergent ideas for progressing a children’s and families’ agenda in Australia that is much more responsive to need, and thus more systemically located, than are currently available legislative and public policy options.
Of particular concern to research participants, in relation to the major field of interest around child rights and citizenship, is the wellbeing of children in State care. It was clearly apparent in the data that research participants were of the view that when the State does not hold an active position on the rights of children and the associated State’s obligations, children in State care are doubly disadvantaged — their parents are unable to support their rights as a matter of course, and neither does the State to any significant extent.
The data from the research participants and case study do not provide evidence of persistent and transformative strategic level thinking about current conceptualisations of obligations and responsibilities of the State concerning child and family wellbeing in this country. What the data provide are evidence of a system in the emerging stages of transition. The modern traditional thinking is prioritised; and the new is emergent.
There is just an inkling of frustration, however, at being tethered to a dated and unsatisfactory system. The following quote captures the angst that, despite wrestling with the difficulties, we have made no progress in finding better, more effective ways of providing for the wellbeing and safety of children: I am at a loss to know what to recommend about this Bill. It is to be lauded and applauded for at least attempting to make progress away from legislation that is old and inadequate; laws that do not reflect contemporary values. It should be applauded for that but condemned for its failure. The principles are not transferred into practice. It simply continues the old processes that we have condemned as inappropriate to modern values and 197
practices; it continues those old values and practices. It is a bit like the curate’s egg — good in parts. Do we pass the legislation because of its good parts and hope that the bad parts will be amended in time or do we say that it is not the role of this Parliament to make second-best legislation and that it is the role of this Parliament to make laws for the good order and government of Western Australia? Regrettably, we do not have time to do that (Western Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 20 August 2004, p5352b–5370a (Derrick Tomlinson)).
Further reflecting the difficulty in thinking differently is the fact that even as research participants found the current system wanting, for the most part they persisted with the language and structures of the current system. This is unsurprising as we are culturally bound by the language and concepts of our time, and even when these are not ideal, it is very difficult to think in new and previously unconstructed territory — to conceive of the unimaginable.
However, as we move towards the end of the first decade of the new century, there is a groundswell of promising confrontations with the modern practice of child protection, and it is here that the persistent and transformative thinking is likely to occur. These challenges arise not only in the social democracies, which have traditionally pursued family intervention, but also in the neo-liberal Anglo–American bloc where there is a backlash against the iatrogenic effect of punitive, child protection practice, albeit constrained by a dearth of alternative options. Both the old and the new, emerging positions are evident in the data.
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Part 4
Maturation of the Beneficent State: Ethical Joint Investment in the Child-rearing Project by States, Communities and Families
This part is essentially about the implications arising from the findings of the research, as contextualised by some ideas current in scholarly debate that may point to a way forward.
The metaphor of metamorphosis is reflected in this part in two ways — firstly as the location of mature consolidation in the research journey, and secondly as the place where a more mature and beneficent State is conceived and proposed.
Chapter 9 argues that what I have called the child-rearing project, and the distal systemic environments that influence its success or failure, now exceeds parents’ capacity and requires a relocated joint investment by the State and other ‘sovereignty regimes’ (Agnew, 2005), not for managing families, but on behalf of families to manage the macro and the mega aspects of the child-rearing project that are located beyond their purview. This is necessary because, as Zubrick (2008:119) clearly states “Child outcomes are increasingly subject to influences well beyond the family”.
An Interlude follows Chapter 9, mirroring a similar bookend at the commencement of the thesis that invites readers to consider once again the experiences of children, in determining the obligations and responsibilities of the State.
Chapter 10 provides concluding comments about future thinking.
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Chapter 9: New Paradigm Thinking — Ethical Joint Investment in the Child-rearing Project
This chapter provides firstly a brief overview of the findings of the thesis, as these relate to both the data, described in chapters 7 and 8, and the chronological study of the historical–developmental context of the State’s apparent responsibilities and obligations to children and families, undertaken in chapters 2 and 3.
This is followed, in two sections, by developmental work for new paradigm thinking that responds to the findings of the thesis. These two sections are: Wicked problems and the power of the State and community, and Ethics, human rights and population health as frameworks for informing a new paradigm of jointly invested child rearing.
Introduction — overview of findings and what this might mean for moving forward In looking at the question of how the responsibilities and obligations of the State were conceptualised by individuals working at the strategic level of policy, legislation and academia, this thesis firstly explored the historical contract between the State and individuals, and in so doing described the concern with citizenship and wellbeing, including the citizenship and wellbeing of children, that emerged in the mid-1900s.
A more detailed overview was presented of two interrelated late-20th century discourses, those of child protection, and risk identification and management. These discourses, and the practice they have produced, both drive and evidence a fundamentally altered social contract between the State and citizens. In the altered contract, the basic needs of people have been depoliticised and responsibility has been individualised for the consequences of processes, relationships, technologies, decisions and interactions in multiple systems quite distal from the spheres of influence of children, individuals, families and communities. 202
The negative consequences of the separate and conflated approaches of risk management and child protection are far reaching, affecting both the vulnerable and the seemingly invulnerable through: • a withdrawal of the State from maintaining the environments and systems more distal from families, for the purpose of optimising environments for successful child rearing • increasingly worrying health indicators for children and young people and intergenerational wellbeing, including rising alcohol and other drug use, increasing incidence of mental health problems, and chronic health problems such as diabetes and obesity • growing populations of vulnerability and increasing disparity across such domains and income, access and opportunity • more resources being poured into trauma services, including emergency rooms and child protection, at the expense of broad based population and public supports for universal wellbeing • a decline in universal and secondary service capacity • increasing responsibility to individuals, families and communities who/which lack skills and resources and other capacities, to prevent and /or address harm and build wellbeing • increasing trend for Government to disinvest in the social, and adopt overregulation as a strategy for retaining control in an environment of increasing social problems for families and children • increasing reports of child abuse and neglect and reduced capacity to ameliorate conditions and remediate harm, or to intervene early or provide adequate ongoing support • children in care receiving a basic service from a system which is under pressure, crisis driven, lacks support capacity in and from universal and secondary service systems, and in which the professional staff have been deskilled.
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Responsibility has devolved to individuals for resolving structural problems far beyond their control — lack of jobs, poor education systems, economic downturn, manufactured poverty, inadequate and insufficient housing stock, spatial exclusion, deteriorating neighbourhood utilities (Webb, 2006:62). In a complicated algorithm, this has resulted in greater failure, and a growing perception that responsibility for the failure should accrue to the individual.
These, and the findings from the research participants and parliamentary debate case study, indicate: a stressed and failing system; a genuine interest by individuals at the strategic level in improving results for children and families; very little understanding of why child protection may not be an optimal family intervention strategy; no awareness of the role of risk management in the changing relationship between the State and its citizens; and little vision for what innovative change might look like or how it might be achieved — with so much work having been done to overcome the enormous problems of child abuse and neglect and the systemic difficulties arising from the child protection paradigm, outcomes for families and children have, if anything, become worse over the last thirty years.
Reassuringly, despite the lack of new, evolutionary outlier-thinking60, the data create the conceptual location for innovation that is required to overcome the inertia of the Red Queen effect61 and find new ways of
60 In evolutionary terms, it is the outliers, or wily maverick insurgents, that infiltrate the herd under the radar of the dominant male that add a healthy degree of diversity to the gene pool and promote adaptive change and development in populations; thereby preventing inbreeding and increasing weakness. 61 This concept is also captured in the notion of the Red Queen effect, first proposed by the evolutionary biologist Leigh van Valen (1935– ), drawing on the observation by the Red Queen, in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, that a lot of running was required to remain stationary, or ‘hold ones position’ (van Valen, 1973). Translated, the Red Queen effect provides a metaphor for the modern human experience of having to remain open to change and development, even to retain existing positions (Heylighen, 1993; Kauffmann, 1995). 204 responding to conditions which may look comparable, but which are constantly evolving and critically dissimilar. In addition, there are possibilities in the data for thinking differently and leveraging systems-level approaches that offer the possibility of success in the current complex environment and opportunities to create joint taking of responsibility for the child-rearing project.
The new paradigm thinking is informed by the ‘breathing space’ in the data, where conceptually and diagrammatically the two major fields of interest begin to approach one another:
The State as Parent: Metamorphosis from ‘Wire Monkey’ Parent to Benefactor
State, community and family ethical jointly invested child rearing
Child Protection Child Rights and Citizenship
- Major field of interest 1 - Major field of interest 2
olding a child’s rights agend cknowledge the responsibili and do something to ‘protec Sub-theme 2.1.1 all children Actively parent the children i Sub-theme 1.3.1
State care Rights for children in State Sub-theme 1.3.2 care Valuing parenting and parenthood Sub-theme 2.1.2 Statutory intervention Sub-theme 1.4.2
Legislation as a vehicle for Sub-theme 1.4.1 Family Support rights
Sub-theme 1.4.3 Sub-theme 2.1.3
Figure 7: The location for theorising a new paradigm Agency in community as a vehicle for rights
Sub-theme 2.2.1 205
Wicked problems and the power of the State and community In the dying moments of the 20th century, and the birth of the 21st, there is a collision of issues. New possibilities have emerged from the data, and in the ‘breathing space’, there is a conflation of the agendas of child protection and human rights. The metamorphosis of a new framework is being sought to assist in understanding and responding to the needs of children, their: safety; protection; wellbeing; need to be situated in families accessing surpluses sufficient to overcome adversity; and right that they and their families are part of active, social citizenship in community. Located as it is, at the intersection of State, community, families and their multiple spheres of influence, this is a truly wicked problem!
A WICKED PROBLEM The concept of a wicked problem was first described by Rittel and Webber (1973) when in relation to social policy they made the observation that: The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, because of the nature of these problems. They are “wicked” problems, whereas science has developed to deal with “tame” problems. Policy problems cannot be definitively described. Moreover, in a pluralistic society there is nothing like the undisputable public good, there is not definition of equity, policies that respond to social problems cannot be meaningfully correct or false, and it makes no sense to talk about “optimal solutions” to social problems.… Even worse there are no “solutions” in the sense of definitive and objective answers (p155).
Although Rittel and Webber (ibid.) provided ten criteria for a wicked problem, Ritchey (2005–2008) summarised wicked problems as being: … those complex, ever changing societal and organisational planning problems that you haven’t been able to treat with much success, because you haven’t been able to define them properly. They are messy, devious, and reactive [emphasis in original], i.e. they fight back when you try to “resolve” them (p1).
Approaching a solution to a wicked problem requires creative, collaborative, systemic thinking, from a diverse range of stakeholders, who are prepared to approach the problem obliquely, in the knowledge that when they find a good enough solution, they will better understand the problem, which is then likely to have changed (Allen Consulting Group, 206
2008:ix–x,9–16; Australian Public Service Commission, 2007; Hunter, 2007; Basadur, 2007; Conklin, 2006). Furthermore, VanPatter argues that: “operating beyond the polarization of difference is what we need more of today and … integrative thinking cannot be reached through polarization” (Basadur, Conklin, & VanPatter, 2007:26).
The approach described above is antithetical to the slice and dice techniques that occur currently in addressing the wicked problem of assisting families to raise children successfully in environments of disadvantage, social exclusion, and high vulnerability. Currently, problem simplification, risk management and assessment, project management, and solution-focused approaches to problem solving, combine with over- regulation — and the system is in crisis.
Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological theory provides the theoretical context for State involvement in the lives of children and families, and points to the integrative task with which the State is thereby charged. In addition, the findings confirm a perceived obligation on the State to do something, not only, but also, for children in care who suffer the double vulnerability of broad exclusion and disadvantage experienced by their families of origin — and often their ‘families of destination’ — and a lack of ‘care’ by the State acting as parent. Related to the obligations of the State, is the concept of citizenship in the data, and the importance of child citizenship as a vehicle for child rights and agency.
Globalisation was acknowledged as introducing spaces, places and players quite distal from the influence of families and children, but with the possibility of seriously affecting wellbeing at the local, community and family levels. The notion of community threaded through the data as having a future role in child and family wellbeing, although what this might look like was absent in the thinking. These data begin to inform a picture of who the stakeholders might be in a new and alternative way forward: children and 207 families, community, State, and other sovereignty regimes beyond the State, which have not dissimilar levels of influence.
Raising children in the 21st century is too big a project for parents and community alone. It is undertaken in a broader context than ever before; one over which parents and communities have little direct and immediate influence. Furthermore, because of the larger systemic context in which we live, the penalties for the system for failure to raise healthy, well-adapted children are wide-ranging, complex and enduring; as in relative terms are the penalties for parents. The multiple stakeholders and the complexity of their relationships indicate the legitimacy of interests-claims in the child- rearing project from parents, systems, the State, and others.
THE STATE The State must have an interest in enhancing parents’ capacities to undertake those aspects of the child-rearing project which they do best, and which the State cannot perform. At the same time, the State must acknowledge its broad systemic responsibilities arising directly from Statehood and industrial development. The responsibility of the State is to act as facilitator and joint investor, for community and parents, in negotiating those facets of the child-rearing project that, whilst they fall within the most distal macro- and mega-strata of children’s bio-ecological systems, are captured within the everyday proximal relationships of States. In this way the State, through the fulfilment of its functions, will enable parenthood, and thereby fulfil its obligations to children and families and become the first line of defence in ensuring child rights (Eekelaar & Šarcevic, 1993:424–425).
BEYOND THE STATE Given the findings, and the expectation of State as enabler, a post-modern shift from risk, regulation and neo-liberalism, may indicate an alternative pathway for States in an environment in which there is a likelihood of their increasing marginalisation as other sovereignty regimes become more critical at the mega levels of children’s bio-ecological systems. It is time to 208 consider whether an end-stage problem and treatment focus, with a highly individualised frame of reference, as opposed to a highly contextualised problem prevention focus, framed within a collective action and responsibility model, is affecting capacity to think in transformative ways about the problems currently being faced, which whilst they may mirror those of past eras, are contextually quite different.
Over the centuries, the consequence for families of the development of the State has been greater prescription and growing control of the child-rearing project by the State. Within this environment, a contradiction of process has emerged in the neo-liberal States. As the context for the child-rearing project has grown beyond the control and experience of families and community, so the State, through its now highly developed administrative and legal processes, imposes greater responsibility on those same families and communities for the consequences of systemic characteristics beyond their control, whilst failing to understand its role in this singularly important futures-project.
Beck asserts that there is now good evidence of a global public reflexivity in relation to rights threats, which points to growing supra-ordinate relationship ties amongst individuals that go beyond the limits of group membership: culture, ethnicity, community or State. This global civil society is emerging as a countervailing force to State power (Beck, 2005:6–7).
Human rights and democracy are not threatened, Beck contends, but are relocated in institutions other than the State (ibid. 45–46), whilst the State’s role is becoming increasingly flexible and dependent on context and relationship.
The above reconfirms the assertion of this thesis that children are the responsibility firstly of families and community — who through the conduit of relationship have primary responsibility for ensuring children’s active 209 citizenship and access to rights — but are also the responsibility of all sovereignty regimes, whether or not they are State-based, which have the obligation to ensure equity, justice and access in active citizenship for youth, parents and their children. Whilst this obligation is located beyond any traditional contract between State and citizens, it is informed, inter alia, by common cause and human rights. The significance and emerging nature of new relationships is characterised by the exemplar of climate change which in 2006 saw a major shift in perceptions of responsibility for issues on the mega-systemic agenda and rallying to the cause by States, corporate business and other sovereign regimes, as the relationship between climate change and a complicated array of multiple stakeholders was understood.
One of the issues here is: given the challenges to the State, what should be of concern in developing a new paradigm for better supporting children and families? Beck maintains that we are indeed beyond the State as paternalistic provider and custodian of the ‘human project’, with the corollary of this being that power will transfer to the people and the State will be recast as enabler. The question then is whether resources will follow.
Pilger (2002) has a rather less complimentary view on the moral behaviour of States or of the future, and describes globalisation as a process in which States have rejected social obligations in favour of transferring resources to security, and that this has resulted in an insidious loss of democratic freedoms and attrition in rights and citizenship agendas .
CITIZENSHIP Current citizenship philosophy is founded on the evolutionary theorising of Marshall (1950 [1973], 1972 [1981], 1973, 1981, see all in White & Donoghue, 2003). His work, echoing that of earlier modern thinkers, chronicled the historical developmental growth of citizenship from civic rights, through political rights to the more recent emergence of social rights, as defining active citizenship and the post-war Western European liberal democratic welfare State (Jayasuriya, 1996; Lister, 2005; Patulny, 2005; Tomlinson, 1996). 210
This history resulted in a founding ideology, in post-war citizenship, of individual rights expressed through equal opportunity and access (Lister, 2005:474), the principle that required redistributive involvement of the State and theoretically links citizenship development to the rise of the post-war welfare State.
Theorising the citizenship discourse includes concomitant development and examination of areas such as civil society, social inclusion, the welfare State, Western liberal democracy, social capital and human rights. Each of these specialised fields is subject to construction through increasingly detailed and defining terminology, as are the various discourses on citizenship exclusion particularly because of gender, ethnicity, culture, age and disability. The findings in this thesis identify the importance of citizenship as a vehicle for State recognition of child rights, and the promotion of child agency in community.
The arguments for State involvement in the child-rearing project are those of delivering social citizenship for children, and survival and self-interest for the State. It is about all children not just our children (Keating & Hertzman, 1999c), and long-term wellbeing advantage for all.
Any discussion about citizenship is occurring now, however, within other discussions about the role of the State, the location of community and the meaning of citizenship in a global age. Beck argues that in the global age, “human rights now override international law” (Beck, 2005:66) which is another way of saying that global citizenship rights exceed national sovereignty powers, previously held to be recognised in international law. This has the consequence that mechanisms beyond the State may be required to uphold at least some rights.
COMMUNITY Rose argues that people have been bemoaning the loss of community for more than a hundred years, but that in every era, the community for which 211 the people grieve is a different community (Rose, 1999b:135). Community is an infinitely changeable and adaptive institution of relational networks, and there are indications that for many, the community of the present is not geographically stable but is located in the social or sociological, or even in service provision.
It is an exciting time for community, a time of reinterpretation and deconstruction of the role of the State in the context of burgeoning globalisation and internationalisation. The more traditional argument is that democracy is dependent on nation-States, but a post-modernist view is that democracy rests in the social, with community and civil society, and in the values system. Power seems to have shifted to community.
Communitarianism holds that community action is dependent on established community order, or relationship first. This necessitates some stability in community, where Beck argues that modern community ties, unrestricted by geography, are very flexible and often quite issue oriented (2005:40–41). Baumann discusses how communitarianism and the way it promotes stability offers greater safety for those who become anxious about change: Sociologically speaking, communitarianism is an all-too-expectable reaction to the accelerating ‘liquefaction’ of modern life, a reaction first and foremost to the one aspect of life felt perhaps as the most vexing and annoying among its numerous painful consequences — the deepening imbalance between individual freedom and security. Supplies of security shrink fast while the volume of individual responsibilities (assigned if not exercised in practice) grows on a scale unprecedented.… A most salient aspect of the vanishing act performed by old securities is the new fragility of human bonds. The brittleness and the transience of bonds may be an unavoidable price for individuals’ right to pursue their individual goals, and yet it cannot but be, simultaneously, a most formidable obstacle to pursue them. This is also a paradox — one rooted deeply in the nature of life under liquid modernity. Not for the first time paradoxical situations provoke and inspire paradoxical answers. In the light of the paradoxical nature of liquid-modern “individualization” the contradictory nature of the communitarian response to the paradox should not amaze.… What the born-again communitarian responds to is the most genuine and poignant issue of the pendulum shifting radically — from the security pole to the dyad of sine qua non human values. For this reason the communitarian gospel can count on a large audience in-waiting…. (Baumann, 2000:170–171)
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Thinking about the wicked problem of this thesis, and some of the frameworks that will be discussed in the next section, it will be worthwhile tracking in the future whether highly flexible and unstable community, or more certain communitarianism offer differential outcomes for family and child wellbeing.
Frameworks for informing a new paradigm of jointly invested child rearing The data point to a number of possible frameworks for informing a new paradigm of jointly invested child rearing: ethics, human rights and public and population health. Each of these will be explored briefly as a possible building block in a new paradigm of jointly invested child rearing.
ETHICS Whilst the logic for including human rights, population health and public health frameworks in any new thinking about the wicked problem of how families are supported in successfully raising their children is largely self- evident from the findings, the purpose of an ethics framework may be less obvious.
As already discussed, the problems facing families and children are complex and immense. The evidence from bio-ecological theory, and current outcomes is that all families and children would benefit from assistance from the State, other sovereignty regimes and community, in optimising conditions for successful child rearing across the whole of children’s multi-systemic environments. Furthermore, the scholarly advice in relation to such an addition, and the findings of this thesis, are that there is a general expectation that the State will, rather than focusing on residual harm, commit to a strategy aimed at achieving the greatest good for children and families and invest in improving children’s wellbeing and participation. This cluster of imperatives resonates with contemporary virtue ethics discourse.
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Where historically, politically laden deontological ethics support the application of assumed, universally accepted first principles — such as the Ten Commandments or traditional professional codes of conduct — and teleological ethics aim to achieve the best results for the most people given the circumstances — but do not easily accommodate competing demands — contemporary virtue ethics more readily address the ethical dilemmas of a post-modern decision making environment: complex, multi-stakeholder interdependencies; competing ethical claims and significant power differentials (Harries et al., 2006; McBeath & Webb, 2002; Webb & McBeath, 1989).
Contemporary virtue ethics draw on the power of well informed, knowledgeable, competent, skilled practitioners of good moral character, to bring their private values into play in the public domain, for the common cause of growing wellbeing in community (Callahan, 2000:216–213). Working holistically towards a unified, logical position, practitioners operationalising this ethical framework: make transparent the context of their decision making, catalogue key aspects of the demand-environment, and are able to describe the outcome they are pursuing (Harries et al., 2006; Webb, 2006:219–227; Webb & McBeath, 1989). In this way, they reconcile the inherent tension in striving for “beneficence, justice and respect for persons” (Thompson, 2000, cited in Harries, 2006:44).
Working in a virtue ethics framework, practitioners accept their role as moral agents in the wellbeing of individuals, families and community, who, as part of the obligations that arise, are self-regulating and engage in the hermeneutic of self-examination and reflection. The organisational and political consequences of adopting a virtue ethics framework potentially include: greater practitioner self-reliance, reduced dependence on managerialism and checklist proceduralisation, greater stakeholder acceptance of decisions, and greater capacity to work with complexity and competing demands across systems that influence the lives of children and 214 families in community (Harries et al., 2006; Webb, 2006:219–227; Webb & McBeath, 1989).
Specifically in relation to the appeal of child protection as a primary strategy for intervening in families, virtue ethics theory may provide the location for a debate about the morality, intentions and outcomes of ranking harm ahead of wellbeing as a focus for concern. It would appear that currently there is far greater debate and concern generated by the unfortunate deaths of a relatively small number of children as a consequence of intentional parental harm, than is generated by the endemic hopelessness and iatrogenic effects of chronic, inter-generational poverty, inequality, injustice and social exclusion. The problem in simplifying and formularising child protection discourse in the creation of a global moral category which blames parents and reduces intervention to residual responses, is that other constructions of children in distress are marginalised, as are perceptions of the relevance of a wide range of more effective possible multi-systemic responses at the level of executive government, in government and non-government agencies, in the community and in families (personal conversation with Professor David Thorpe, late 2008; Neuberger, 2005:123–192).
Webb is certainly of the view that ethics will be the conceptual foundation to real change, which could conceivably be led by social workers — the human service professionals who have a fundamentally values-based outlook, a strong commitment to overcoming individual problems and a history of using community and cooperation as levers for change. He suggests that along with other traditional service providers in health and education, social work will return to a public service mentality capable of resisting neo- liberalism, providing the impetus for a re-energised public provision and renewing the discourse on citizenship entitlement and public good (Webb, 2006:200). Promoting ethics in public service provision may be particularly important given Regan and Thorpe’s suggestion that “social work activity is little else other than a moral activity” (Regan & Thorpe, 2005), and virtue 215 ethics could potentially provide the self-regulating framework within which to do this.
Webb moots that the profession may need to develop a new social work paradigm located in the respective social, political and cultural contexts of the risk society, neo-liberalism and reflexive modernity (Webb, 2006:4). It is likely that it is in this shared theoretical and discursive space, that social work might take the lead in deconstructing child protection and modelling an alternative paradigm for child rearing for wellbeing and safety. Perhaps it is here that social work will realign itself with its “essentially mediating role between those who were actually or potentially excluded and the mainstream of society” (Parton, 1998:11). However, for social workers to make the paradigm shift, they would need to take up Webb and Parton’s challenge to re-establish a relationship with ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity; rekindle investment in theorised practice; appreciate the “virtue … of the … contradictory finding” (Webb, 2006:125) and abandon over-simplification, facile empiricism and the untheorised, eclectic, ‘whatever works’ approaches of risk society social work practice in neo- liberal politics (Parton, 1998; Webb, 2006:124).
CHILD AND HUMAN RIGHTS Child rights will not be discussed at length here, having been previously addressed within chapters 7 and 8, and Addendum 4. Some analysis is warranted, however, of how human rights and child rights differ, and how these approaches might integrate with public and population health and ethics frameworks to inform the new paradigm thinking anticipated by this chapter.
Human rights discourse preceded child rights discourse by over half a century, and although the former does not exclude children, both the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child (UNDRC) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC), in response to an emerging view that children’s specific vulnerabilities, and the growing 216 perception of their status as citizens and persons in the own right, developed a more specialist and finely tuned approach to ensuring their rights.
Reference points for normative standards establishing the international child/human rights framework are described by documents including, but not limited to, United Nations International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), United Nations International Convention on Economic, Social and Civil Rights (ICESCR), United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UNUDHR) and United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC). These and other international conventions, covenants and treaties, codify moral and legal obligations between various stakeholders, and are upheld as having temporal stability and wide political and cultural transferability — in other word, that they are universal.
Woodhead (1997) cautions against the promulgation of an assumed normative framework for child development and children’s needs. He argues that whilst child rights may provide a more culturally sensitive, multi- pathway approach to successful intervention in the lives of children, they also run the risk of exporting inappropriate normative assumptions (ibid., p79), implying the need for ethical sensitivity rather than either simple teleological or deontological approaches to the application of rights instruments (Harries et al., 2006).
Thorpe too contends that rights covenants are West-centric, informed by global moral constructions — human rights being one — and underpinned by organising texts “which reflect wider struggles around relationships and ruling,” (Thorpe, 1997b), which in human rights are about power, ethnicity, religion, gender, class and political party membership. By way of example, one might argue that the truth of Thorpe’s (ibid.) argument is quite obvious in the ongoing application by successive Australian governments of human 217 and child rights principles to refugee and asylum seeker claims, including those of minors, and the iniquitous consequences suffered.
In an attempt to render a fairer and more widely applicable child rights discourse, UNICEF articulated a new human rights approach (UNICEF, 1998). This human rights approach shares much with the also nascent population health and this new paradigm thinking recognises the value of holistic, multidisciplinary and systemic perspectives. Vulnerable and marginalised populations could benefit from practice informed by the integration of public health, human rights and new child welfare perspectives (Kneebone & Allotey, 2003: 3, 7, 11).
With particular regard to extremes of child harm, one might expect that given that child rights provisions include the necessities of life, and protection from discrimination and harm amongst the obligations of States Parties under UNCROC, that the child protection discourse already sits firmly within a rights framework. Unfortunately, not only are human rights largely absent in mainstream child protection discourse but child protection practice accommodates neither child rights nor the more recent UNICEF human rights approach (op. cit.). Australian child protection practitioners do not champion broader concerns regarding the manner in which the State, in meeting its various human rights treaties obligations, does or does not provide for the protection and wellbeing of the children concerned (Newman, 2001–2002; Sidoti, 2001–2002). If, however, child rights were located within a virtue ethics framework, and contained in a paradigm including public and population health, a much more responsive, positive, thoughtful and unified response could be brought to bear in relation to all children including those who come to the attention of the State, or into State care.
PUBLIC HEALTH Public health discourse shares a population approach to wellbeing with preventative medicine and broad child welfare. This approach is informed 218 by the fundamental understanding that a large number of people exposed to a small risk may generate more cases than a small number of people exposed to a high risk (Rose, 1995:24). Paradigms sharing this basic tenet reflect an understanding that strategies that exclusively target high-risk individuals address neither the majority of incidents nor the underlying causes. Preventative and early interventions are favoured for reducing risk and promoting wellbeing across the population.
Robust, ongoing discussions in the broad child welfare literature, reflecting the post-1940s preventative public health discourse, pre-date the narrowed child protection discourse of the 1960s onwards. Although these public health dialogues reappear with vigour from the mid-1980s under the heading of ‘early intervention’, they continue to be largely associated with child welfare, rather than child protection (see for example McCain & Mustard, 1999; Schorr, 1988). This is despite the fact that public health style, preventative approaches to child welfare are well researched and their efficacy well documented, which is quite different from child protection practice where the efficacy of post hoc treatment intervention is largely unsubstantiated (Berrick, 1997; Lord Williams of Mostyn QC (Chair), 1997; Melton & Thompson, 2002b; US Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1995).
Although the United States has been more persistent in maintaining a barrier between forensic, investigative child protection process and child welfare practice, in United States led-debates there is now growing pressure for recognition of family support as a necessary adjunct to investigation in effective child protection practice (Melton et al., 2002a; Waldfogel, 1998a). Nonetheless, the family support discussion is still located within the child protection discourse, identifying the parent as being primarily responsible for the protective task.
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In Australia, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand child protection practice has traditionally embraced greater crossover between forensic and supportive interventions, including public health strategies (Callahan, 2000; Cameron & Freymond, 2006; Connolly, 2007; Connolly & Ward, 2008; Connolly, Wells, & Field, 2007; Parton, 1997, 2006; Tomison, 2002).Moreover, in Australia at least, there has been increasing pressure to adopt a more overtly public health approach (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2003:251; Scott, 1995, 1997, 2002a, 2004; Tomison, 2004), and some recent moves in that direction at a national level (Allen Consulting Group, 2008; Council of Australian Governments (COAG), 2009a, 2009b, 2009c).
However, the adoption of public health language within child protection discourse is very confusing. The paradigmatic foundations of the two perspectives are juxtaposed and there is little formal acknowledgement of the poor philosophical, practice, values and conceptual agreement between the public health and child protection paradigms.
A public health approach to child protection in Australia is on the agenda now in a way that it was not, at the commencement of this thesis (Daniel, 2006; Scott, 2002a, 2002b, 2006b; Stanley et al., 2002; Thomas, 2008). Whilst this aligns closely with the topic of this thesis, and there is an ‘embeddedness’ about a public health approach which parallels the way we provide for all people, the fact that the focus is still child protection rather than child wellbeing confirms that the response is still conceived of for the residual group. It may be argued that a paradigm shift requires greater integration than can be achieved through the repositioning of child protection within the public health framework.
POPULATION HEALTH Population health, already described in Chapter 3, emerged in the late 20th century. The discourse is currently largely located within a progressive political dialogue and a primarily epidemiological research paradigm 220
(Keating & Hertzman, 1999b; Raphael, 2000), although there is overlap in the use of the terms public health and population health (Peterson & Lupton, 2000:1–6). Unlike public health, which aims to deliver broad preventative health strategies and universal access across the populace, population health is more epidemiologically orientated.
In linking and analysing broad complex data sets, including measures of population resources, affordability, employment, housing, community stress, health, crime and safety and participation, population health is able to describe the wellbeing of entire communities and nations (Raphael, 2000), and the structural factors that influence those outcomes.
Population health is the tool for acknowledging and developing understandings of the complex interrelationships of multiple sub-systems in determining the wellbeing of populations groups. Here, social problems may begin to be understood structurally, and the linkages and pathways to such outcomes as social exclusion, and child abuse and neglect, better mapped and understood (Keating & Hertzman, 1999b; Sanson, 2002; Stanley, 2001; Stanley et al., 2002).
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Interlude: Children in the Foreground — media constructions of children’s circumstance
This thesis commenced with an Interlude, the only place in the thesis presenting children’s views of how a responsible State should behave in relation to them and their interests.
Here, at the end of the thesis, a bracketing interlude again invites the reader to ponder the proposal that the quality of children’s experiences of wellbeing and safety is a measure of the success or otherwise of structural decisions made by the State, as an expression of State obligations to children and families.
Stories of children’s experiences of how the State cares, this time as constructed and told by the media, form the backdrop to concluding comments, and act as a reminder of the need to locate our future thinking in the experiences and needs of children. As is true of the children’s voices bracketing the beginning of the thesis, so too the media voice is clear that the experiences of children indicate that the needs of many are not well met:
PLAYGROUND GAMES TOO GREAT A RISK FOR SCHOOL Bassendean Primary School has banned students from playing rugby or football during lunch-breaks and from taking part in old-fashioned playground games because of fears over student safety … Parents protest at rugby ban (Gibson, 2003)
MEDICATION FOR CHILDREN Schoolchildren are being prescribed a cocktail of untested mood-altering and behaviour-controlling drugs, according to the first national survey of children’s prescriptions. Child drugs: Mood medicines use for children follows United States trend. (Hewitt, 2002)
HOMELESS FAMILIES About 15,000 people are homeless in WA, according to Mission Australia.
Mission Australia manager, Anne Russell-Brown … said “the stereotype of a homeless person being a middle-aged man sleeping on a park bench was outdated.
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Increasingly, the homeless are families who are living in their car, a caravan or with relatives because they can’t afford housing costs and can only find part-time work.” Families core of problem (Gauntlett, 2002b)
GRANDPARENTS RAISING GRANDCHILDREN The number of elderly people caring for grandchildren is rising but social services are ill-equipped to deal with the trend, according to the State grandparent carer support network. Child burden for the elderly (Gauntlett, 2002a)
CHILDREN IN DETENTION Children are being molested and raped inside Australian detention centres, according to Independent Council for Refugee Advocacy president Marion Le.
… She said the centres were not places in which children could be safe. Sex attacks on young refugees, says activist (Cowan, 2000)
MOTHER’S CARE NOT SUBSTANTIAL The Federal Government has refused a mother’s application to stay in WA to care for her 10-month-old son, saying the care a mother provides for her child is not “substantial”. Shock ruling on immigration: Mums don’t count (Dargan, 1999)
STATE CARE By the time she was 10, the Children’s Court had labelled Dee Roberts an uncontrollable child. Three years later her adoptive father and stepmother, unwilling or unable to cope with her, applied to the Tasmanian Department for Community and Health Services to take her into care for a week. But when Roberts was ready to go home, her bags packed, her parents failed to collect her. Her social worker couldn’t help; he left a note on his desk saying he was on holiday.
For Roberts, 26, these events marked the beginning of a cycle of rejection that shunted her between 97 foster carers over three years after she became a ward of the State at 13. Some placements lasted one night. Childhood lost (Walker, 2001)
EDUCATING THE CHILDREN Every Monday night in February and March I attended an evening class at a local high school. The first evening I walked into the school I recoiled in shock. Corridors were covered in graffiti, the toilets filthy, carpets spotted with stains, metal locker doors hung off their hinges and ancient, dog-eared textbooks were piled in corners. Currently required to spend no more that nine minutes cleaning a classroom, government school cleaners are engaged in action in part because private contractors want to reduce this to six minutes.
A couple of kilometres west is the primary school where both our boys have thrived under remarkable teachers. Like many State schools, its facilities don’t match its ethos of achievement. Its 19th century classrooms are too confined for large classes of 21st century-sized kids, its grounds way too small for the 500 to 600 children who burst from its doors at breaks.
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Pressure of class sizes, increasing resort to composite classes and greater strains on teachers have resulted in a less than ideal learning environment. With insufficient specialist staff available, teachers at the school say they can find themselves in the position of having to integrate children with autism and other learning difficulties without adequate support. The needs of children left at school from 7.30am until 6pm are a major concern for one teacher. “It’s basically an in loco parentis situation, but nobody wants the responsibility,” she says.
Add the issues of long-running pay disputes, ever-increasing demands on teachers to deal with social issues, insufficient training in new technologies, diminishing counselling services, falling standards required to enter teacher training, and the embattled image of public education and the result is a staffroom where morale is so low that, I’m told, outside school gates some teachers rarely reveal their profession… The bottom line (Hope, 2000)
YOUTH SUICIDE Medical treatment of suicidal young people has improved little over the past four years, with many receiving no psychiatric assessment after being taken to a hospital emergency department, a report by WA Auditor-General Des Pearson has found. Young ‘lack psychiatric treatment’ (Gibson, 2005)
MOTHER SUICIDES A Busselton man yesterday gave a heart-breaking account of how his family’s life was tragically ruined when his severely depressed wife was found hanging from a tree just days after being discharged from a Perth hospital.
Brett Hilton told the Coroner’s Court in Busselton that he believed the mother of three children would still be alive today if the mental health system had not failed to give her the treatment she desperately needed. Father tells of hanging tragedy (Jerrard, 2005)
CHILD HEALTH DELAYS Long waiting times to see medical specialists have left children’s mental health care in crisis, doctors claim…
“Children are doomed from the start because they can’t get the services and they are always going to be behind,” she said… Alarm at child health delays (Butler, 2003)
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Chapter 10: Conclusion and Future Thinking for an Ethical Joint Investment in Responsible Child Rearing by Families, Community and the State
The primary purpose in undertaking the research was to explore understandings of the State’s obligations and responsibilities in creating and maintaining the environment necessary to the successful raising of children who are healthy and well. In addition, I sought to locate these expert understandings within the context of the related historical and contemporary discourses, as a strategy for capturing those too as part of the data hermeneutic.
My research journey has been fantastic: of considerable duration, challenging, and at the leading edge of debate driven by tensions between the strategic direction of State provision and the needs of families for executive input to what I have termed the child-rearing project.
I have worked in the area of what has been traditionally referred to as child welfare, for over three decades and embarked on this research because of a deep frustration with the depoliticisation of poverty and disadvantage, and an associated absence of children’s and families’ general wellbeing from political, policy and practice agendas. As it transpired, however, the research has occurred during a period of some considerable controversy, albeit largely confined to scholarly centres and specialist areas of enquiry adjoining the research topic.
The question addressed by the research is: Contextualised by related historical and contemporary discourses, how are obligations and responsibilities of the State concerning child and family wellbeing, currently conceptualised in Australia by individuals working at the strategic level in public policy, legislation and scholarship?
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Throughout the research, the language of ‘the State as parent’ is used as a working shorthand for the perspective or expectation that the State does have an enduring responsibility in ensuring a systemic environment good enough to promote and sustain the wellbeing of children and families.
The research was conducted using a multi-method, naturalistic inquiry, as this research design enabled rich qualitative data to be collected from a number of quite dissimilar sources. Nine in-depth, open-ended, conversational style, guided interviews were conducted with individuals identified through a snowball sampling technique, as having expertise in, and diverse opinions about, the role of the State as parent.
Five focus groups were conducted in diverse locations across Western Australia, capturing the views of 170 self-selected participants from government and community sector agencies that provided a broad range of services to children and families.
The Western Australian parliamentary debate of the Children and Community Development Bill 2003 provided the case study in this research. The Bill was before parliament for a period of ten months, during which time 42 members of parliament engaged in more than 30 hours of debate, specifically around the obligations and responsibilities of the State in relation to children, families and community. The parliamentary debate documented in Hansard, generated in excess of 100 000 words.
Critical concerns emerging from the research of the Anglo–American approach in general and Australian child wellbeing practice in particular, are: • the constriction in the application of child rights that has occurred from the universalist vision of the 1980s to the Third World and individual breach models of the new century 227
• a sustained and growing crisis in the child welfare industry, and failure by governments to respond to the obvious need for strategies to address the effects on children and families, of poverty, social exclusion and disadvantage • the growing disrespect for, belittlement, and derogation of expertise, which increasingly prevents knowledgeable, educated and informed concerns developing any momentum in wider social debate.
Three key messages are obvious from the data and other evidence: • social and environmental vulnerability are State problems; population level problems require, inter alia, population level responses with State leadership and investment • the time for children’s citizenship has arrived, including a mature children’s rights agenda, afforded to children as a class, rather than as individuals, and including adequate remedial rights • parents and families are the primary champions of child rights and wellbeing, and as such they require support and an ethical joint investment from the State in realising these: o the child-rearing project is beyond the capacity of parents alone; exacerbated by States’ focus on over-regulation at the micro-level and abrogation of State responsibility to adequately manage systemic environments more distal from the family o the litmus test of ethical joint investment in the child-rearing project, by the State, community and family, will be that families are nested in healthy and responsive systems, evident and enabled at the community level, that address disadvantage and vulnerability, and promote and support culturally sound child- rearing practices o children and families are not passive recipients but active citizens in a community of reciprocity and relationship, and o child harm will be a residual problem, warranting a restrained, specialist response rather than a primary response 228
• even though to date the State has proven itself singularly unable to parent, by either assisting parents/carers to parent, or creating macro- and mega-environments for success in undertaking the above, the State also improves the chances of success for the most vulnerable — those children who come to the State’s notice or who ultimately enter State care.
This thesis is very much of its time, with debates at the leading edge of child protection practice being a clear mark of the welfare scholars’ Zeitgeist of the early years of the new century.
A fortuitous alignment of key events and ideas, and the topic and timescale of the research, have assisted in the development of a rich tapestry of data, analysis and commentary, supporting a thesis likely to have significant influence. The immensely exciting research journey has straddled such momentous events and circumstances as: • growing awareness of the impact of globalisation on individuals and families, and the importance of the mega-system at the individual level (for an example see the management and impact of climate change) • the financial crisis of 2007–2010 and a renewed criticism of neo- liberal, market-driven policy, and the abrogation of State responsibility for the socially and economically vulnerable, and • a growing use of regulatory frameworks by government, as a strategy for arms-length responsibility taking, and a substitute for State joint investment in social wellbeing and the inter-generational health of children, families and the nation.
During the life of the research, some extremely exciting new ideas have emerged in scholarship, research and practice, to inspire recent work in this area, particularly as it informs high-level politics and social and family policy. These have included: 229
• the identification of wicked social problems, sitting as they do in complex multi-systemic environments, requiring innovative, multi-disciplinary, multi-systemic responses • the growing criticism of the Anglo–American child protection paradigm and its punitive, residual, overly regulatory and micro- management approach to population level problems, any control of which is actually becoming more and more distal from the family and the individual, and • work towards a new paradigm for child protection, possibly embracing public health approaches and human rights principles.
The thesis is unique in its lens on the connections between these and other issues, and their relationships with the formulation and realisation of State responsibilities for the wellbeing and safety of children and families. It proposes a real paradigm shift, in which the language and associated response of child protection become minor parts in an ethical, responsible child-rearing strategy, thereby responding to criticism of the current approach that is to be found in both the literature and research participant feedback.
In Australia, some shift in thinking has recently occurred concerning State responsibilities for children and families. Nevertheless, the National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children (Council of Australian Governments (COAG), 2009c) remains linked to the language and concepts of child protection, is largely realised through State departments with a primary responsibility for child protection, and is not about a universal citizenship and rights agenda.
Research participants, academics and practitioners offer perspectives on systems elements that could usefully be developed to progress an ethical joint investment between families, community and the State, in responsible child rearing. In particular: 230
• The State needs to acknowledge its responsibilities and obligations to children and families, and commit to leading a response, particularly at those bio-ecological systemic levels most proximal to its business, such as at the mega-, macro- and meso-systemic levels. The State should respond to aspects and levels of need that exist, particularly in families suffering poverty and disadvantage. The response should support existing levels of knowledge, interest and capacity in the systemic levels distal from government and not be overly regulatory. • Led by government, Australia needs to clearly articulate and develop the ways in which parenting is valued by all levels of government, community, and the not-for-profit and corporate sectors. • Family policy development requires leadership, including the assessment of all government legislation, policies and business, for its impact on family wellbeing and successful child rearing. • Australia should progress a child human rights and citizenship agenda, giving children an active voice in all aspects of daily life. The agenda should include children’s class rights, some of which should be remedial in focus. • Legislation must provide the initial vehicle for the citizenship and rights agenda, be activated in policy and practice, and include effective strategies for upholding those rights. • Statutory child protection is vital for a very small percentage of children, who, because of the criminal intent or severe incapacity of their parents, are seriously harmed or at risk of serious harm. Wherever possible, family/parenting problems should be addressed in mainstream service delivery, in both the public and private sectors, driven by self-referral and client-identified need. Child protection should become a relatively rare, specialist response, reflecting the level of serious harm in the community. • Children in State care should have additional legislatively enshrined rights, that are legally enforceable and aim to remediate their additional needs and disadvantage whilst in care and for an extended 231
period following care. This strategy acknowledges the State’s special parental relationship with these children.
What is evident at the conclusion of the research is that vulnerable and disadvantaged children and families are being increasingly excluded from an effective early intervention and service delivery responsive to client- identified need. They are instead subject to end-stage surveillance and intervention in timeframes dictated by others.
Australia, and other Anglo–American countries, have avoided the development of holistic family policies, and instead have used child protection as the primary family strategy. Unfortunately, because of the visceral response generated by understandings of child abuse, attempts to reform family policy have retained an unhelpful linguistic and conceptual link to child protection and are thus unable to escape the crushing influence of that model.
In the absence of a noteworthy preparedness to reconceptualise how best to promote whole-of-childhood wellbeing and safety, and re-engage the State in an agenda that is well beyond the influence of parents, families and communities, these stakeholders are destined to become increasingly unable to meet optimally the multi-systemic needs of their children. As is unquestionably evident in the research, this will be especially true for families suffering acute disadvantage, but the better off too will suffer the consequences62 of increasing disparity across population indicators of wellbeing.
62 For example, the negative impact on the community generally of increases in crime, health costs and growing numbers of people who are socially disaffected and unable to contribute optimally to the economic wellbeing of them and the community. 232
To assist in making a paradigm shift and informing the multi-stakeholder, deliberative future thinking that is indicated in tackling wicked problems, the following observations are tabled.
It is beyond time to respond to the wicked problem of families and children failing in the attempts to cope with vulnerability and adversity far beyond their capacity. The findings from this research point in the direction of negotiated solutions that are values based, humanistic, reciprocal and multi- systemic — in other words, that embody and embrace making common cause, and a move away from over-regulation, risk aversion, cost-shifting to families, punishment, blame, exclusion and individualised responsibility.
Government failures to wrestle with the structural, continue amongst the States that favour the child protection approach, with Australia’s National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children (COAG, 2009b) being a recent example of a State continuing to focus primarily on individual families as change agents for structural concerns. Paradoxically, when the government gaze is diverted to the individual, as occurred recently in relation to the relatively few remaining Forgotten Australians63 — and Neuberger is scathing about the conspicuous compassion for the individual at the expense of suffering of the many (2005:190–191) — the State expressed concerns about the very matters raised in this thesis (Senate Community Affairs References Committee, 2004).
At the beginning of the new century, we are in the unique and lucky position of experiencing a post-welfare convergence of ideas. Bio-ecological theory provides a system for integrating thinking, and a theoretical and discursive foundation for conceptualising why the State’s involvement is necessary in
63 A term coined for Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children, and were the subject of a Senate Inquiry (Senate Community Affairs References Committee, 2004). As a result of the media attention, a national apology that was a long time in coming, and books on related matters by Hill (2008) and Penglais (2005), the term is quite well recognised. 233 negotiating a child-rearing project that exceeds the capacity of all individuals. Modern State, community and globalisation may provide systems for integrating and sharing responsibility across the distal elements of a multi-systemic approach. Public health and human rights provide frameworks for delivery. Virtue ethics theory provides the scaffold for grounding the delivery of these in intensely reflexive and knowledgeable shared dialogues that will hold the complexity and concern for making common cause (Callahan, 2000:216–213). Population health provides acknowledgement of the role of the structural issues in the wellbeing of populations, and through data analysis, will be able to bring the findings to all levels of policy and practice development.
It warrants mention that, sitting as this problem does within the cultural context of a well-established risk society paradigm, it may be very difficult to bring about the abandonment of the child protection approach at this stage. For this reason the current concern with risk management, so evident in the chronology in Chapter 3, requires special consideration — how might the energy invested in risk management be positively harnessed so as not to derail any paradigm shift. The answer may be in the growth of values, citizenship, rights and social inclusion — civil society characterised by a culture of common cause that neutralises the unrelenting dichotomy of State and family, State and community, and State and parent; thereby empowering each part of the system to optimise their joint investment for the shared benefit of all.
This thesis sits in a fragile post-modern or possibly reflexive-modern space (Beck, 2009:231). The very State, to which the thesis looks as enabler, is subject to relentless reinterpretation, driven at one level by globalisation and internationalisation and at the other, by horror stories of what is happening to individuals who have previously relied on the State for security (Beck, 2005, 2006). In what Baumann (2000) refers to as liquefying modernity, the increasing withdrawal of the State from the wellbeing of the 234 people, accompanied by over-regulation, risk management and devolvement of responsibility to the individual, are being challenged. Paradoxically, previous orders are re-emerging — changed — as strategies for re-establishing relational bonds that are so necessary to the human experience of wellbeing. The thesis confronts the post-modernist preoccupation with the deconstruction of State responsibility, with its possible (re)emergence as a new, modern, ethical, shared responsibility. The concerns of this thesis are truly contemporary, with the thinking unfolding as we speak — now the question is: How to market the children’s agenda too, as being essential, and will the State step up as a fierce paladin?
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Addenda
Addendum 1 — A brief description of the Australian federal system
Australia, like Canada and the United States of America, but not South Africa, New Zealand or the United Kingdom, is an example of a modern federation State. Federation means demarcation and refers to the separation of powers and the authority of the two parallel systems, which is the essence of federation (Lane, 1991). In a federation, both the State and Commonwealth are constrained by the federal constitution and constitutional law. The States are further constrained by respective States’ constitutions and associated laws.
Demarcation between federal and State authority occurs in one of two ways. In the first case, as in Canada, the federal government has general power, with the States having specific authority in certain areas. The reverse is true of Australia and the United States of America, on whose constitution Australia modelled her own. In these countries, the States have general powers to legislate concerning the peace, health and wellbeing of the people, whilst residual specific authority is vested in the Commonwealth, with instances in which that power may be exercised being enumerated (Lane, 1991:7–9). Section 51 of the Australian Constitution enumerates powers of the Australian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth may legislate on non-enumerated matters only where they form a secondary and non-significant part of an enumerated matter.
Further separation of authority occurs through the apportionment of power across the three arms of government: the executive, the legislature and the judicature. The constitution formally establishes this separation, the reality of which is flexible. Contextualising Australian federal and State laws are the 278 two constitutional levels — historic roots in the Westminster system and, more recently, international law and convention.
In Australia, executive power of the Commonwealth is formally vested in the Queen and exercisable through the Governor-General (S61 Ch 11). However, the prime minister and his cabinet effectively form the executive authority of the Australian government (Lane, 1991:7–8). Federal legislative powers fall into three categories depending upon the extent to which they imbricate State powers: 1) concurrent powers voluntarily shared by the Commonwealth with the States; 2) powers held exclusively by the Commonwealth; and 3) independent powers where both the Commonwealth and the State have independent rights to legislate (Lane, 1991:11). Commonwealth judicial power is vested in the High Court of Australia, which is the principal court of appeal for all State, Federal and Territorial courts, and through it, made available to other courts (Lane, 1991:7–8, 14).
The Australian Government has the constitutional mandate under S51 (xxi and xxii) to legislate on matters of marriage, divorce and the children of a marriage (Lane, 1991).
Section 51 (xxix) empowers the Commonwealth to legislate with regard to external affairs: to make treaties, which is the development of international law, and to execute treaties, which is the development of related internal law. The authority to develop domestic law in line with international treaties is described by Lane (1991:136) as being a powerful constitutional and political mandate which has been ‘refurbished’ in so far as it was little used prior to the early 1980s and has been rediscovered firstly in the 1982 Koowarta case and then in 1983 in the Tasmanian Dam case64. Both
64 For a detailed discussion of Koowarta v. Bjelke-Petersen; Queensland v. Commonwealth (Racial Discrimination Act) (1982) 153 C.L.R. 168 and, Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v. Ah Hin Teoh (1995) 183 C.L.R. 273 see Lane (1996). 279
Tasmanian Dam and Koowarta confirmed the right of the Commonwealth to prosecute cases previously felt to be outside its jurisdiction, given that Australia has signed and ratified an international convention or treaty or the matter pertains to overseas relations, affairs and issues of international concern. Similarly, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act, which is not an enumerated or identified subject for concern in the Commonwealth Constitution, is within the authority of the Commonwealth by virtue of various international human rights declarations and conventions. Other matters similarly arising in Commonwealth law include the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and the Racial Discrimination Act 1965 (Lane, 1991:37).
Government’s executive arm accepts consequent obligations by entering into international treaties or conventions. In Australia, the legislature realises these obligations by enacting an enforcing Section 51 (xxix) law for application through the judiciary. Ipso facto, such laws are valid because of a pedigree established in Australian legal judgements (Lane, 1991:49), albeit that the law must be within the context of recognised limitations (judicial review, constitutional prohibitions).
In a process quite different from Australia’s, international executive obligations in the United States are automatically executed. It was reticence on the part of the executive, to have the obligations of UNCROC automatically influence domestic law, which resulted in the United States being the only legally constituted government to refrain from ratifying UNCROC. 280 281
Addendum 2 — Reflexive activities within the research
Reflexive activities particularly relevant to shaping the final conceptualisation of concerns about constructions of State obligations to children and families were as follows:
In 2000, I co-presented at the 7th Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference (Diamond & Ash, 2000). The presentation was in two parts. The first, authored by myself, theorised the role and responsibility of the State in the life of children in care, and the second, authored by Sue Ash, provided an illustrative constructed case study. Anticipating that the presentation would generate keen discussion, I was disappointed by the turnout of five and the consensus that the concept of ‘the State as parent’ was very old fashioned and had no currency in contemporary thinking. By 2003 however, Layton’s review of child protection in South Australia (Layton, 2003:11.6) used “The State as Parent” as a major subheading, and a quote from the Diamond and Ash paper (op. cit.), for the purpose of exploring State responsibilities for children in care. In addition, the concept of ‘the State as Parent’ informed the title and a chapter heading for an Australian Capital Territory Commissioner’s report on child protection (Vardon, 2004). Clearly, this result arose directly from Ash’s move to the Australian Capital Territory, and her involvement in setting up and supporting Vardon’s (ibid.) review of child protection management and children in care.
Whilst the Diamond and Ash (2000) paper was about statutory child welfare responsibilities of the State, and this was reflected in both of the reports which picked up on the concept of ‘the State as parent’ (Layton, 2003; Vardon, 2004), it was fascinating to see the ethical direction of this thesis, which is now broader than statutory obligations alone, mirrored in executive level thinking.
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In 2002, I was a member of a large research team, led by Maria Harries and Mike Clare65, which was responsible for production of the Mandatory Reporting Report (Harries & Clare, 2002) for the Western Australian Ministerial Advisory Council for Child Protection. This report described and challenged a United States-led punitive child protection paradigm in which mandatory reporting of child abuse to statutory authorities was a pivotal strategy. The report highlighted, for me and for others in Western Australia, what was and remains another rapidly developing area of international research and critical analysis around the development of alternative paradigms to child protection (Cooper et al., 1995; Cooper et al., 2003; Hill et al., 2002; Lonne et al., 2008; Melton et al., 2002a; Scott, 2002a, 2002b; Tomison, 2004; Waldfogel, 1998a).
At the 2003 Interdisciplinary Writings in Social Sciences Postgraduate Conference at the Australian National University in Canberra, I presented a paper, Creating Spaces in Government — a qualitative research journey in progress (Diamond, 2003), and received quite a different response to that in Sydney in 2000 (op. cit.). In this presentation, I developed the thesis of the Sydney 2000 paper, of the State taking a greater role in ensuring capacity to parent all children, and met with an excited response from postgraduate social science researchers, for whom some of the themes of bio-ecological systems frameworks, gender, human rights, public health and real sharing of responsibility for the wellbeing of families and children, reflected their own professional learnings and research findings.
A chance to present the thinking arising from the Mandatory Reporting Report (Harries & Clare, 2002) at the BASPCAN Conference in York, UK, in July 2003, confirmed that the Western Australian conceptualisation of alternative paradigms to ‘child protection’ was exciting and part of a new
65 Associate Professor Mike Clare, Head of Discipline, Social Work and Social Policy, University of Western Australian (UWA); Associate Professor Dr Maria Harries (AM) Social Work and Social Policy, UWA 283 vanguard of research (Harries & Diamond, 2003). Presenting in York confirmed again, how the issues arising in ‘child protection’ rub up against the perimeters of this thesis and are in tension with its macro-systemic lens.
In September 2003, I participated in a virtual discussion on Mandatory Reporting66 (International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, 2003) hosted by ISPCAN. Professor Gary Melton wrote a preliminary commentary, and a panel of experts in the field67 interposed as the debate developed over a period of three days. Melton later published a summary commentary (Melton, 2005).
Looking back, I realise that it is in the virtual discussion that I first articulated an idea that: Mandatory Reporting of child abuse does happen in some non-anglo– american (sic) intervention models where the intervention focus is ‘support and assistance for child and family wellbeing and safety’ (with a residual emphasis on criminal responsibility), as opposed to ‘child protection’. The two response paradigms require quite different conceptualisation of the problems experienced by families and children. Child and family wellbeing, informing more universalist social programs and public health models, responds to structural inequality and Keating’s and Hertzman’s (Keating & Hertzman, 1999c) modernity paradox. Child protection keeps responsibility for children at arms length from the State and the community, and individualises the difficulties which so many families (and whole communities) experience today, at some time in the raising of their children (International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, 2003),
and
In communities which adopt support and assistance for ‘child wellbeing and safety’ rather than ‘child protection’ … it appears that ethical considerations are not around reporting, confidentiality, and child rescue, but focus more on civil society, child as citizen, community responsibility for children, State responsibility for the community and individual responsibility to community and others (International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, 2003).
66 Member-only access. 67 Professors Gary Melton, Jaap Doek, M. Shama Kasim and Joan Van Niekerk 284
My contribution to the virtual discussion began to flag findings of this thesis and articulated the possibility that a concept of Statehood, which is systemically responsive to the needs of children and families may be paradigmatically incompatible with a ‘child protection’ model of intervention.
For a period of about 18 months in 2003–04, I job-shared the position of principal policy officer, Legislation Unit, in the Western Australian child welfare department68. As part of a team, I was responsible initially for shaping the content of new child welfare legislation, and subsequently for the Children and Community Bill 2003,69 developing ministerial briefings, explanatory notes and parliamentary advice to the then Minister.
My input to the Bill, to the debates within the legislative team, with the departmental executive, with the parliamentary draftsperson and with the Minister, was heavily influenced by my thinking for this thesis. Some of this thinking became highly visible in the Bill: the term ‘welfare’ was replaced by ‘wellbeing’; the Bill’s direction shifted substantially from one in which ‘child protection’ was prominent, to one in which recognition was given to children, in families, in communities, all of whom may require a wide variety of supportive or protective interventions on some occasions.
Wherever possible, State obligations were specified rather than implied. ‘Best interests of the child’ were a paramount consideration and these were influenced by a parenthetical sub-clause that contextualised this concept in
68 Currently Department for Child Protection (DCP) 69 The Children and Community Bill 2003 was introduced to the Western Australian Parliament in November 2004. In an amendment in passage through the Legislative Assembly, the Bill became the Children and Community Services Bill 2003, subsequently passed as the Children and Community Services Act 2004. The Bill modernised three outdated pieces of legislation administered by DCP, replacing Child Welfare Act 1947, Welfare and Assistance Act 1961, Community Services Act 1972. 285 the real life experience of the individual child. Guiding principles that must be observed in the administration of the Bill drew heavily on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, thereby in some respects legislating its application.
The Bill and the resultant Children and Community Services Act 2004, were very much products of the Department for Community Development. From the point of view of this thesis however, I was a participant observer not only in the development of the Bill, but as a Ministerial advisor in the parliamentary debate, which is data in this research and discussed in more detail in chapters 7 and 8.
The constraints of the legislation team, departmental agendas, Ministerial intent, Government policy, drafting protocols, and the fact that some concepts were simply outside other people’s conceptual logic, were very frustrating. For me, this highlighted how locating children at the macro- systemic level is so much more than ‘a children’s department’, or more specifically a department responsible for statutory ‘child protection’.
In 2004, a small consortium of which I was a member produced Caring Well — Protecting Well: Investing in systemic responses to protect children in WA; Report for the Ministerial Advisory Council on Child Protection Western Australia (Harries et al., 2004). In brief, the purpose of the report was to “describe the coordinated, long-term social, political economic and professional investments which we need to make for the wellbeing and safety of our children now and into the future …” As with the development of the Children and Community Services Act 2004, the report was the product of collaborative thinking of the consortium, and informed by literature review and analysis, extensive consultation with stakeholders and the input of independent consultants. The findings of the report formed part of reflexive thinking for this thesis. The National Association for the Prevention 286 of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN) Australia adopted the report as a foundation to its 2007 strategic agenda.
The shift in thinking, to a ‘child wellbeing’ framework, clearly locates State obligations to children and families within a context that includes, but is not exclusively about, the prosecution of crimes against children, including significant harm. Such a framework highlights the importance at the individual level of systemic responses to the wellbeing of children and families.
At the 2004 International Symposium on Human Rights in Public Health: Research and Practice, hosted by the University of Melbourne, Key Centre for Women’s Health in Society, I presented a paper, An Analysis of Child Protection, and Protecting Children, from Rights and Public Health Perspectives (Diamond, 2004), in a forum addressing the sub-theme of Child Health and Human Rights70. My thesis was that: Child protection discourse has not engaged with the growing evidence of systemic/structural factors influencing rates of child ill-health, the failure of the [child protection] paradigm to reduce rates of child maltreatment, the very poor outcomes occurring for children who experience out-of-home care as a direct result of child protection intervention, or the discriminatory nature of child protection practice … lessons to be learnt from human rights, public health and population health, in the development of a new paradigm for the promotion of wellbeing of all children and the protecting of the especially vulnerable (Diamond, 2004).
Conceptualisation of this presentation squarely proposed an alternative to the ‘child protection’ paradigm, framed within human rights and public/population health discourse. Although this thinking was new for the other three presenters in the ‘Child Health and Human Rights’ sub-theme, it met with keen debate and interest as a way of moving forward on the
70 The forum on the sub-theme of Child Health in Human Rights included three other presenters: Professor Kim Mulholland, Director of the Centre for International Child Health, University Melbourne (international child rights); Dr John Tobin, Senior Fellow, Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne (child rights); Dr Derrick Silove, Professor of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales (child detainee and child refugee mental health). 287 alternative unhelpful colonisation, with forensic ‘child protection’, of emerging democracies and developing nations. 288
Addendum 3 — By party and House, members of parliament involved in the debates of the Children and Community Development Bill 2003 (also known as the Children and Community Services Bill 2003)
Legislative Assembly
AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY Mr P.W. Andrews; Mr R.C. Kucera; Mr N.R. Marlborough; Mrs M.H. Roberts; Mr J.J.M. Bowler; Mr F.M. Logan; Mrs C.A. Martin; Mr D.A. Templeman; Mr A.J. Dean; Ms A.J. MacTiernan; Mr M.P. Murray; Mr P.B. Watson; Mr J.B. D’Orazio; Mr J.A. McGinty; Mr A.P. O’Gorman; Mr M.P. Whitely; Dr J.M. Edwards; Mr M. McGowan; Mr J.R. Quigley; Ms M.M. Quirk (Teller); Mr J.N. Hyde; Ms S.M. McHale; Ms J.A. Radisich; Mr C. Brown; Mr J.C. Kobelke; Mr A.D. McRae; Mr E.S. Ripper; Mr A.J. Carpenter; Dr G.I. Gallop; Mr S.R. Hill; Mr D. Guise
LIBERAL PARTY Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan; Ms K. Hodson-Thomas; Mr P.D. Omodei; Ms S.E. Walker; Mr C.J. Barnett; Mr J.H.D. Day; Mr M.F. Board; Mr A. Marshall; Mrs C.L. Edwardes; Mr R.F. Johnson; Mr R.N. Sweetman; Mr J.L. Bradshaw (Teller); Mr J.P.D. Edwards; Mr W.J. McNee; Mr M.J. Birney
NATIONAL PARTY Mr M.G. House; Mr T.K. Waldron; Mr B. Grylls; Mr R. Ainsworth; Mr M. Trenorden
INDEPENDENT Mr P.G. Pendal; Dr J.M. Woollard; Dr E. Constable
INDEPENDENT LIBERALS Mr B. Masters; Mr L. Graham
289
Legislative Council
AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY Ms L Ravlich Mr T. Stephens
LIBERAL PARTY Ms B. Scott Mr S. O’Brien Mr D. Tomlinson Mr N. Moore
NATIONAL PARTY Mr P. Embry
GREENS Ms. G Watson
INDEPENDENT Ms D. Margetts
291
Addendum 4 — Brief background to the international law on child rights
Child rights, in international law, are an area of great complexity. Child rights are impacted not only by universal and regional instruments on human rights, both general and specific such as political, religious, economic, civil and gender rights, but also by international instruments relating to children generally and to children in specific legal circumstances, such as adoption and abduction. Authorship of these instruments is diverse, including the United Nations General Assembly, the Hague Conference on Private International Law, the European Economic Council, the Organization of American States, the Commission International de l’Etat Civil, and numerous specialist United Nations agencies such as the International Labour Organization and the World Health Organization (Saulle, 1995).
The period of development of UNCROC, which marked the shift in international interest in child rights from in principle agreement, to the negotiation of international law, commenced in November 1979 with a proposal and original text from the Polish government. Serious international interest was shown from 1983 onwards. On 20 November 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted UNCROC with more signatories at its signing ceremony than at the signing of any previous United Nations treaty (Cohen, 1995).
Whilst UNCROC is based on the principles laid out in both the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1959 Declaration on the Rights of the Child, UNCROC developed the principles in two highly significant ways. Firstly, whereas the Declaration on the Rights of the Child is a set of universal principles, the 1989 Convention is legally binding on member States. Secondly, whilst children are not excluded from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNCROC specifically extends to children special protection 292 because of their status, and as individuals separate from their parents, with rights to develop and express themselves actively as individuals (Cohen, 1995; Saulle, 1995: Preface). Not only did the identification of separate and individual rights for children cause considerable debate during the developmental phase of UNCROC, but also it changed forever the previous status of children as passive recipients of care and protection (Cohen, 1995).
Ratified by sufficient member States, and notwithstanding early political disinterest, UNCROC came into force in a record six months following the signing ceremony. By mid-1998, there were 191 States Parties to the convention; more States Parties than to any other United Nations human rights instrument, and close to universal ratification (Cohen, 1995). Only two member nations failed to sign the treaty. These were the United States of America and Somalia71 — the latter not having governmental capacity to sign treaties (Kilbourne, 1998). Somalia eventually signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 200272, leaving the US as the lone abstainer.
International treaties that have followed meet the principles articulated in UNCROC, which has resulted in an emerging child rights specialty in jurisprudence (Cohen, 1995). It is in its legislative application by States Parties, however, that UNCROC has made, and continues to make, a difference: this is the obligation accepted by States Parties (Lane, 1991).
Obligations arising from international commitments are mediated by mechanisms specific to individual countries, before being expressed in
71 Somalia is an African nation on the Horn of Africa, adjacent to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. 72 See www.un.org/ga/children/somaliaE.htm for a statement by His Excellency Ahmed Abdi Hashi, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Somalia to the United Nations, before the 57th Special Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations on Children, 10 May 2002. 293 domestic jurisprudence, which is also informed by domestic legislation, common law decisions, policy and practice and the historical and contemporary constructions of family policy in the particular nation or State.
In Australia, constitutionally mandated enabling legislation, endorsed in the legislature, and, more recently, common law decisions, are the avenues for activating treaty ratification. In Australia, as in many other countries, international treaties, declarations and conventions inform child rights.
This arrangement is similar to that in the United Kingdom, albeit that common law has a much longer and richer history in that country, bringing with it the capacity for the judiciary to apply treaty obligations directly into domestic jurisprudence.
In the USA, however, the application of international obligations in domestic law is automatic upon executive ratification, without review of the legislature (Breen, 1999), and one of the reasons why the executive in that country has failed to ratify UNCROC.