Working toward reunification in New South Wales: Professional perspectives on navigating complex systems

Abstract

Achieving timely “permanency” for children after statutory child removal has become a key policy driver internationally. In New South Wales, child protection reforms include prioritising reunification; introducing time frames for resolution of legal proceedings; and outsourcing a substantial proportion of casework to the non-government sector. In assessing the viability of reunification, courts place responsibility for behaviour change on parents and obscure the role of systems in supporting these changes. Professionals, as actors within a complex system, have an insider perspective on factors that influence reunification. A qualitative study was undertaken to elicit the perspectives of professionals working with parents involved in care proceedings. A total of 29 caseworkers and lawyers took part in focus groups. Complexity theory was used as an interpretive framework, and thematic analysis was completed. Themes about barriers to reunification exposed the unintended consequences of change in a complex adaptive system. Far from making reunification more achievable by streamlining the legal process, changes introduced impediments in the form of role, goal and process confusion and low levels of professional confidence in their capacity to help parents and achieve predictable legal outcomes. These results strengthen calls for a different approach to confront system-induced barriers. Embedding interagency collaboration, challenging risk narratives about parents and offering them dedicated services are areas that demand urgent attention in order to ensure no child, whose safety and best interests could be met by reunification, remains in care.