If We Look at Child Protection Reform through the Lens of Systems Science, What do we See?

Abstract

Abstract The challenge of improving the functioning of child protection systems is a complex one shared by many governments internationally. In Australia alone, there have been dozens of public inquiries and reform efforts in this vitally important domain over the past four decades. The English system has also undergone numerous reforms, including that led by Munro a decade ago. Despite these efforts, systemic pathologies persist. This article views the challenges of child protection reform through the lens of the long-established transdisciplinary systems science of cybernetics. This article argues that reform efforts are often founded on an epistemological and ontological error. Despite pervasive recourse to use of the term ‘child protection system’, and reference to the need for ‘systemic’ change, reform efforts, to varying degrees, fail to operate from a basis in the established tenets of systems science. A critique is offered and some fundamental ‘rules’ that should inform such reform efforts are distilled. It is argued that to achieve positive and enduring change, these systems must be ‘built’ from the front line. It is also argued that the political context in which reform efforts take place is perhaps more of a hindering factor than is the complexity of the systems themselves.