Ten Strategic challenges in child welfare services: a comparative study of Australia, England and Sweden
-
Gabrielle Meagher
Abstract
This chapter examines the strategic challenges facing child welfare systems in Australia, England and Sweden. It notes that this chapter is both important and topical, given the child protection problems faced in 2008/09, especially in England. It states that the strategic challenges faced in different child welfare systems are very much a function of the way that policy, and regulatory and organisational systems intersect, so that the problems of England lead to different patterns of problems compared with those in Australia and Sweden. It opines that the Swedish case offers a significant contrast; it is almost unimaginable in the context of child protection in England to imagine a system where accountability is to clients rather than to the state, and where decentralisation is the organisational solution of choice.
Abstract
This chapter examines the strategic challenges facing child welfare systems in Australia, England and Sweden. It notes that this chapter is both important and topical, given the child protection problems faced in 2008/09, especially in England. It states that the strategic challenges faced in different child welfare systems are very much a function of the way that policy, and regulatory and organisational systems intersect, so that the problems of England lead to different patterns of problems compared with those in Australia and Sweden. It opines that the Swedish case offers a significant contrast; it is almost unimaginable in the context of child protection in England to imagine a system where accountability is to clients rather than to the state, and where decentralisation is the organisational solution of choice.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of tables and figures v
- List of contributors vii
- Overview 1
-
Tackling Beveridge’s ‘five evils’, 60 years on
- Freedom from want: 60 years on 11
- Slaying idleness without killing care: a challenge for the British welfare state 29
- Tackling ignorance, promoting social mobility: education policy 1948 and 2008 49
- Beveridge’s giant of disease: from negative to positive welfare? 67
- Tackling squalor? Housing’s contribution to the welfare state 87
- The Poor Law Commission of 1905–09: a view from a century on 109
-
Contemporary childcare policy
- Intercountry adoption in Europe 1998–2007: patterns, trends and issues 133
- Family income as a protective factor for child outcomes 167
- Managing shared residence in Britain and France: questioning a default ‘primary carer’ model 197
- Strategic challenges in child welfare services: a comparative study of Australia, England and Sweden 215
-
Rescaling social policy
- Governance at a distance? The turn to the local in UK social policy 245
- Spatial rescaling, devolution and the future of social welfare 267
- Rescaling emergent social policies in South East Europe 283
- Index 307
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of tables and figures v
- List of contributors vii
- Overview 1
-
Tackling Beveridge’s ‘five evils’, 60 years on
- Freedom from want: 60 years on 11
- Slaying idleness without killing care: a challenge for the British welfare state 29
- Tackling ignorance, promoting social mobility: education policy 1948 and 2008 49
- Beveridge’s giant of disease: from negative to positive welfare? 67
- Tackling squalor? Housing’s contribution to the welfare state 87
- The Poor Law Commission of 1905–09: a view from a century on 109
-
Contemporary childcare policy
- Intercountry adoption in Europe 1998–2007: patterns, trends and issues 133
- Family income as a protective factor for child outcomes 167
- Managing shared residence in Britain and France: questioning a default ‘primary carer’ model 197
- Strategic challenges in child welfare services: a comparative study of Australia, England and Sweden 215
-
Rescaling social policy
- Governance at a distance? The turn to the local in UK social policy 245
- Spatial rescaling, devolution and the future of social welfare 267
- Rescaling emergent social policies in South East Europe 283
- Index 307
