Effects of professional experience on child maltreatment risk assessments: A comparison of students and qualified social workers

Fleming, Piers, Biggart, Laura ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1233-9787 and Beckett, Chris (2015) Effects of professional experience on child maltreatment risk assessments: A comparison of students and qualified social workers. British Journal of Social Work, 45 (8). pp. 2298-2316. ISSN 0045-3102

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Abstract

This study is a collaboration between social work and psychology academics, using a quasi-experimental technique to explore the effect of experience, along with moderating cognitive, emotive and demographic factors, on risk judgements by social workers, compared with judgements made by social work students. Participants (forty social workers from two authorities; 105 students from two universities) assessed vignettes of cases where child maltreatment was suspected or likely, and their evaluations were measured using four risk scales. Qualified social workers rated risks lower overall than did students and those with more experience rated risk lower than those with less experience. The largest variation in risk judgements between practitioners and students was for emotional aspects of risk, where student scores were significantly higher. For practising social workers, though, the perceived likelihood of being blamed was significantly positively correlated with risk judgements: the greater chance of blame, the higher the risk rating. No such correlation was found for students. This provides some experimental support for widely held concerns about the influence of the ‘blame culture’ on practice.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	risk,blame,psychology of risk,blame culture,social work judgement,risk assessments
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Social Work
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Cognition, Action and Perception Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Social Cognition Research Group Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Research on Children and Families
Related URLs:	http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/e...
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	27 Oct 2015 13:00
Last Modified:	13 Jun 2023 08:26
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/54850
DOI:	10.1093/bjsw/bcu090

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