Ireland's Opportunity to Learn from England's Difficulties? Auditing Uncertainty in Child Protection

Abstract

This article draws from the authors’ experiences of research in England on aspects of New Labour’s reforms in the field of child protection to counsel caution against standardisation processes currently underway in the Republic of Ireland. It is argued that such processes are deeply problematic when dealing with the complexity of child protection work. Alternatives to standardisation are offered drawing from the literature on systems design. Such alternatives are likely to build confidence and trust in services.

Keywords

• child protection
• standardisation
• system design