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13 Service Technologies and the Conditions of Work in Child Welfare Brenda D. Smith Child welfare services, like many human services, face substantial challenges as staff struggle to effectively meet client needs. To improve service quality and outcomes, child welfare services commonly institute program innovations and organizational shifts. Staff are regularly trained and retrained. Yet child welfare practice in everyday settings rarely reflects the innovative methods that administrators prescribe and caseworkers aim to provide (Rycraft, 1999; Smith & Donovan, 2003). Despite the considerable resources and effort devoted to improving child welfare services, improvements seem fleeting or unattainable. Why do so much effort and such good intentions result in services that so often disappoint? A partial explanation relates to the organizational and contextual conditions of child welfare and how they influence practice. This chapter seeks to illustrate some of the specific ways in which organizational conditions and environmental pressures can influence child welfare practice. It illustrates the dilemmas that caseworkers face when attempts to maintain legitimacy and relevance by conforming practice to external demands prevent them from practicing the client-centered, strengths-based approaches in which they are trained, and which child welfare agencies are increasingly adopting. After presenting an overview of the service technologies of child welfare practice, the chapter uses caseworkers' observations and descriptions to illustrate several ways in which organizational contexts can influence child welfare practice. In particular, the chapter focuses on pressures created by certain accountability mechanisms: reporting requirements, court expectations, and the risk of being held personally responsible for a mistake or child injury. The chapter describes the dilemmas that such pressures create for caseworkers and illustrates how, paradoxically, accountability mechanisms instituted to improve practice can subvert service technologies and hinder caseworkers' implementation of best practices. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how certain aspects of child welfare organizational contexts must be addressed to more fully promote the implementation of highly regarded, innovative, or evidence-based practices in routine child welfare settings. Technologies of Child Welfare Practice Hasenfeld (1983) defines human service technologies as procedures that are “legitimated and sanctioned” by an organization and “aimed at changing the physical, psychological, social, or cultural attributes of people” (p. 110). Hasenfeld underscores the importance of human interaction in human services technologies and argues that technologies in human services organizations are distinct from those in other types of organizations because, in their application to people, they involve moral valuation and must address many uncertainties. In concrete terms, human services technologies include practices and tools such as intake forms, treatment plans, and casework and all that it entails, including collaboration with other service providers. Human services technologies might also include approaches to practice such as “strengths-based” (Saleebey, 1997) or “solution-focused” (Berg & Kelly, 2000) forms of interaction. In their implementation, human services technologies include both what service providers do and how they do it. Much of the technology implementation in human services settings can be conveyed through the term practice (see Hasenfeld, 1983). As with human services generally, the technologies of child welfare services similarly include the forms, communication techniques, and practices used in investigation, casework, and service referrals. When child maltreatment is alleged, child welfare technologies also include interactions with courts and court personnel, including judges who have significant power in decisions about matters such as child custody. As with human services generally, the technologies of child welfare services are wide ranging and difficult to observe and measure (Glisson, 1992, chap. 9; Hasenfeld, 1983). Whereas outcome indicators such as placement rates, rereport rates, length of case openings, length of foster care stays, foster care moves, and adoptions have become part of child welfare services reporting, the technologies or practices behind the outcomes remain largely hidden. Interactions with clients, for example, are often in private. Whereas service plans, an important child welfare technology, are quite visible, the processes through which they are formed are not. Also, while the components of service plans are often quite similar from one client to the next (e.g., a parent must complete parenting classes and go to drug treatment)—the similarity reflecting a consequence of environmental pressures addressed below—the means by which components might be promoted, communicated, embraced, delivered, or completed is variable and often involves other organizations with their own largely hidden technologies (Sandfort, 1999; Smith & Donovan, 2003). In addition to being hard to observe and measure, child welfare technologies are not based on evidence to the extent that we might believe or prefer (Chaffin & Friedrich, 2004; Kessler, Gira, & Poertner, 2005). Even if the frontline staff implement technologies and practices as intended, many of the “best practices” taught to child welfare staff have not been demonstrated to be effective. Whereas evidence-based services are encouraged and making some headway in some of the service systems to which child welfare clients are referred, such as mental health and substance abuse, there are few evidence-based interventions specifically for child welfare and little evidence base for the majority of everyday child welfare work (Chaffin & Friedrich, 2004). Finally, it is important to distinguish the technologies selected or adopted by a child welfare organization from the technologies actually implemented by frontline staff. Whereas an organizational leader may choose certain practices and even institute policy requiring that staff use certain practices, frontline staff, in interactions with clients or other activities, may actually use such practices to varying degrees (see Brodkin, 2008; Smith & Mogro-Wilson, 2007). Fixsen, Naoom, Blase, Friedman, and Wallace (2005), in a review of literature on implementation, warn of the “fallacy of programmatic change” or the mistaken belief that frontline staff behavior will conform to organizational expectations (p. 6, citing Beer, Eisenstat, & Spector, 1990). Thus, in being hard to observe and measure, lacking evidence, being subject to frontline discretion, and often deviating in implementation from that prescribed by organizational policy adoption, child welfare technologies, such as human services technologies generally, constitute “soft” technologies, which are highly subject to the influence of organizational and environmental conditions (Glisson, 1992, chap. 9; Lipsky, 1980). Innovative Practices Commonly Adopted by Child Welfare Administrators Child welfare jurisdictions around the country continually make efforts to improve practice by adopting practices and specific programs that fit with social work ideals. Newly hired child welfare caseworkers are trained to use such practices in their work with families. Some adopted innovations reflect general approaches to practice, such as ecological, strengths-based, or family-centered approaches. Other adopted innovations reflect more specific methods or programs, such as family group conferencing (Burford & Hudson, 2000). In New York, for example, new caseworkers are trained to “identify client strengths” and understand “the importance of mutuality” in service planning (Center for Development of Human Services, 2001). States including Nebraska, Rhode Island, Washington, and North Carolina train caseworkers to take a “family-centered” approach to practice (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2007a). Caseworkers are typically trained to (a) conduct assessments prior to service planning, (b) take a systems approach to assessment in which aspects of larger family and community systems are considered, (c) take a culturally competent approach, and (d) work with parents in developing a service plan. Caseworkers are trained to expect reluctance to change and to promote “readiness to change” (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983). They are trained to be empathic and supportive of families. Whereas it is clear that innovative, supportive, and increasingly evidence-based practices are being adopted (i.e., selected) by child welfare jurisdictions for their practice, there is little clarity about whether and how such practices are being implemented (i.e., used) by frontline staff. Existing evidence casts doubt on the consistency and rigor with which programs, practices, and required policies have been implemented (Adams & Chandler, 2004; D'Andrade, Frame, & Berrick, 2006; Fixsen et al., 2005; Lewandowski & Pierce, 2004). Evaluators in Texas, for example, found that while caseworkers liked the family-group-conferencing model they were trained to use, they had difficulty implementing it as intended (Baumann, Tecci, Ritter, Sheets, & Wittenstrom, 2005). Understanding the Gap Between Intentions and Practice By identifying the importance of organizational and community contexts, scholars of human services have substantially advanced understanding of the challenges associated with implementing adopted technologies or desired practices in routine settings. Charles Glisson and colleagues (Glisson, 2007; Glisson & Hemmelgarn, 1998), for example, have demonstrated the importance of organizational culture and climate to the service quality and outcomes in mental health and children's services. Arguing that the implementation of best practices involves both technical and social processes, Glisson (2007) emphasizes that in human services, organizational context determines how things are done in the organization; what the priorities are in the work environment; what and who gets recognized, rewarded, or punished; and what the psychological impact of the work environment is on the individual service providers who work there. (p. 738) Earlier, Michael Lipsky (1980) illustrated how organizational conditions in public services, such as resource limitations and time pressures, can create dilemmas for frontline staff who feel unable to practice as they intend or prefer. In his theory of street-level bureaucracy, Lipsky suggested that implicit dictates, routine practices, and norms of public organizations can affect frontline practice, in addition to explicit organizational rules or policy. Lipsky also suggested that organizations whose clients have little power, such as public bureaucracies or human service organizations, are pressured to be accountable to external entities such as funders, licensing agents, and political leaders. Such insights reflect the institutional theory of organizations, which suggests that organizations attain legitimacy and resources by conforming practices to norms, beliefs, and expectations prevailing in the external organizational environment (Hasenfeld, 1992, chap. 2; Meyer & Scott, 1992; Scott, 2001). That is, the theory suggests that organizations will be more successful if staff use practices that respond to external pressures (Glisson & Schoenwald, 2005; see also Usher & Wildfire, 2003) or to “previously legitimated policies, values, and traditions” (Rosenheck, 2001, p. 1608). Theory and research identifying the important influence of organizational conditions and external contexts on practices in human services establish a framework for building more specific knowledge about how organizational contexts influence practice. Whereas organizational routines or notions about “how things are done here” seem to influence practice, more detailed knowledge of such influences might be gained by examining particular examples of how things are done in particular service contexts (see also Brodkin, 2008). In child welfare, for example, while it can be helpful to observe that practice will be influenced by accountability mechanisms that structure practice, a close look at the particular accountability mechanisms and their particular influences on practice might identify specific targets that may need to change before new practices might be implemented successfully. Caseworkers' observations and descriptions of their work can illuminate some specific ways that organizational contexts influence practice. The experiences can also illuminate how staff in organizations individually and collectively can come to develop norms and expectations about how things are done. That is, the experiences can lead to insights about the development of organizational culture. The remainder of the chapter illustrates three sources of accountability pressures facing child welfare caseworkers: (1) reporting requirements, (2) court expectations, and (3) the risk of being held personally responsible for a tragedy. An illustration of how particular accountability pressures can influence practice is followed by some examples of how caseworkers justify or explain their practice choices and a discussion of the potential consequences of these justifications for the implementation of new practices. Reporting Requirements A predominant aspect of the organizational environment in child welfare is that caseworkers face considerable pressures to be accountable to administrative rules and reporting requirements. Child welfare agencies are typically subject to multiple forms of scrutiny from multiple levels of government. All states, for example, are required to supply data on child welfare practice and outcomes to federal monitors assessing state compliance with Titles IV-B and IV-E of the Social Security Act (see Administration for Children and Families, 2007). Through child and family service reviews and the resulting performance improvement plans, the U.S. Children's Bureau monitors state performance in reaching service and outcome benchmarks, such as the length of time children spend in foster care. To receive federal reimbursement for foster care expenses, states must supply data to federal monitors via automated data systems, including the Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS) and the Adoption and Foster Care Reporting System (AFCARS). In addition to these federal monitoring mechanisms and the data reports they require, 30 states and localities have recently been subject to federal consent decrees, which require monitoring and reporting of additional data to federal courts overseeing services and outcomes (Children's Bureau, 2006; Child Welfare League of America, 2005). Finally, child welfare agencies face additional reporting requirements to assess compliance with particular state statutes (see Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2007b). The multiple sources of reporting requirements manifest for frontline caseworkers in supervisor and administrative demands for documentation of certain caseworker activities and case progress. Such documentation constitutes the often-derided “paperwork” required of caseworkers. Paperwork includes paper and, increasingly, computer-based forms related to assessments, referrals, case plans, court proceedings, and caseworker activities. Required documentation affects how caseworkers prioritize their duties and schedule their time. Importantly, however, only certain tasks must be reported or documented. Caseworkers are held accountable for making certain visits or documenting certain referrals; they are rarely held accountable for demonstrating a strengths-based communication style or promoting family empowerment. Hence, in an atmosphere in which some tasks must be left undone—one New York caseworker graphically conveyed the atmosphere in reporting, “There's no time to do what needs to be done. We are like Lucy at the conveyer belt”—tasks that must be reported are prioritized. A Chicago caseworker1 described how she prioritized her schedule around required reports: Interviewer: Now with all the things that you have to do, how do you prioritize your schedule or figure out what you need to do? Caseworker: Well,… every month there are certain things that I have to do. You know, like, I have to see my kids once a month. I got a report that has to be done once a month, and anytime you have contact with a client you need to write a case note. That stuff needs to be turned in once a month. So that's the first priority. Then, you know, court, of course. If you have to be in court, you have to be in court. You can't change that. So you work your schedule around that. So it depends. And then, depending on what's going on in court, they might court order you to do something. Of course, that's a priority. When only held accountable for certain activities, a caseworker may fail to prioritize some aspects of practice that seem important but require no immediate report. In the following exchange, one caseworker acknowledged that she had not observed a parent visiting her children. Interviewer: Tell me about what kind of parent Annie is. Caseworker: I haven't done much with her and the children. I would like to start monitoring some visits, but we haven't really been able to do much recently. We haven't been able to really make arrangements for all of us to meet. So I haven't been able to supervise visits. I know that she calls them a lot. She goes out and visits them. Caseworkers quickly learn what a supervisor expects to see and what questions to expect in court. A caseworker illustrated the expectations of the organizational environment when she described how she could predict the questions she would receive when she went to court: Pretty much, they'll ask you the same things every time you come. When you come, you check in with the GAL [Guardian Ad Litem], which is the attorney for the child, the State's Attorney. If the parents are involved in court, then they have a public defender. Their attorney usually will want to talk to me. And they ask me, well, actually, the same things. You know “How is the child doing? When was the last time you saw the child? Have there been any unusual incidents, any report of abuse or neglect?” And, normally, you'd say, “No. No. No.” [If] they know that she's in a program [they ask], “Is she going every day? Have you dropped her? What are the results?” They'll ask, “Has she completed the parenting classes yet?” They'll ask those kinds of questions. Caseworkers' experiences illustrate that reporting requirements can hinder best practices by creating incentives to engage in activities that will be monitored and counted. Unfortunately, many skills associated with high-quality family-centered child welfare practice, such as good judgment, empathy, creativity, or cultural sensitivity, are very difficult to monitor or count. Hence, while reporting requirements may serve a necessary purpose, they may detract from, rather than promote, the use of best practices. Caseworkers' descriptions of reporting requirements in day-to-day practice can also raise questions related to the formation and influence of organizational culture. Glisson (2007) characterizes organizations that stress rule adherence and have many reporting and paperwork requirements as having “rigid” organizational cultures. While many child welfare organizations fit that characterization, for the most part, child welfare reporting requirements are instituted by entities outside any particular organization. As described above, federal and state agencies and other administrative bodies are the source of most reporting requirements. Externally imposed rules and paperwork requirements raise questions about potential sources of variability among child welfare organizations in their emphasis on reporting, rule adherence, and paperwork. Placement under federal consent degree is one condition that seems to make an emphasis on paperwork and rule adherence even more intense (Adams & Chandler, 2004). What other conditions might influence the extent to which reporting and paperwork are emphasized in a child welfare setting? If rules and paperwork requirements are imposed from external sources, how might any organization subject to the rules avoid having a rigid culture? Can caseworkers in a child welfare organization with a less rigid culture respond to externally imposed rules and paperwork requirements in ways that are more conducive to good practice? Or do externally imposed dictates supersede the influence of organizational culture as an influence on practice? How can an organization become less rigid if external dictates remain in place? Court Expectations for Service Plans Another important way in which accountability pressures in the organizational environment affect child welfare practice is through the influence of court expectations regarding the content of service plans. Service plans are intended to guide child welfare decision making and practice. Caseworkers are trained to engage families in the construction of service plans that reflect family-defined goals. In foster care cases, however, service plans are implemented in the context of court oversight in which judges make ultimate decisions about service requirements. Hence, in discussing the content of service plans, caseworkers make reference to “nonnegotiables,” which are generally tests or other requirements that court officers insist on seeing. Evaluators of the family-group-conferencing model in Texas note that the nonnegotiable plan contents and processes impede implementation of the service model and thwart caseworkers' preferred practice (Baumann et al., 2005). Due to “court expectations,” staff members develop a “court-ordered family plan” prior to each family group conference. In addition, court expectations require that certain placement decisions be made prior to the group conference, even though caseworkers argued that better decisions would result if such decisions were made at the conference. Evaluators report that due to court expectations, family group conferencing in the Dallas area is not implemented as intended. Rather, families are told at the conference relatively more of what they must do… CPS [Child Protective Services] and the courts create the non-negotiables in the plan and then during the conference, family and community members work together to determine what other goals they might add to the plan and ways to accomplish them. (Baumann et al., 2005, p. 14) Pressures to conform practice to court expectations are widespread. One Chicago caseworker objected to the extent to which court personnel interfered with practice by insisting on certain tests and assessments in service plans. She argued, “You really have to stand up to the courts and the [Public Defender] PD and the [Guardian Ad Litem] GAL because they want to put all these tests on these parents, and it's not needed.” This caseworker described how court demands could sabotage her practice with families and the consequent effects of court intervention on her morale: The mom requested some counseling, because, you know, she was stressed out. She said, “Well, can you guys give me some counseling?” I said, “Sure! You know, we can give you some counseling.” We get to court and, I mean, they tried to add three more services on there. I said, “But that's not what we discussed in our family meeting.”… It's stressful. It's stressful to the worker. Not only is it stressful to the parents, because you know, the parent says, “Well, you said I didn't have to do that.” [And] I say, “Well, the courts basically make the final decisions.” Court expectations for certain content in service plans can promote uniformity in the plans. Whereas caseworkers may be trained to provide “individualized, culturally responsive, flexible and relevant service for each family” (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2007c), in typical child welfare practice, services are standardized rather than individualized. Caseworkers in Hawaii estimate that 80% of service plans include the same requirements: substance abuse treatment, anger management, and parenting classes (Adams & Chandler, 2004, citing Hawaii Department of Human Services, 2002). Caseworkers interviewed in Chicago were often explicit about standard practice. One caseworker reported, “Standard. Parenting classes. It doesn't matter what they did. If you got your kids taken away, you need a parenting class.” Evaluators in Hawaii suggest that a possible reason for caseworkers' reluctance to implement family group conferencing with fidelity to the model is that caseworkers may fear that the resulting service plans will end up looking much different from the standard expected service plans that are conventionally used and that “courts want to see” (Adams & Chandler, 2004, p. 109). Court expectations for certain content in service plans can also encourage busy caseworkers to prepare the plans themselves rather than through a collaborative process with families. Asked, “When you come up with her service plan, is she involved? How does that work?” a Chicago caseworker explained, Well normally what I do is, I just write it up and I go, and then we go over it in the review. If there's something that should be added, we add it. But there's pretty much requirements that, you know, aren't negotiable. But then if there's other things that she's working on that she wants to add to it, we'll just add to it. In describing the formation of a service plan, another caseworker described a process that involved little if any parental participation. Asked, “So where do the requirements come from, or how do you know what to put in the service plan?” she replied, Well, normally, I just try and follow what the past service plans have said, what they've required her to do. If she's completed them, we just take off certain tasks. Or if I see something coming up that I think that she should be doing, I'll add it on. But, normally, it just depends on what the problem is. So like if there's a drug problem, you write “test” or “drug treatment,” that she stayed off drugs, that she participated in random urine drops, stuff like that. Caseworkers often take over a case in which a service plan is already in place. In such instances, they can feel that not only parents but even caseworkers have little role in determining the course of services. When asked how a service plan was formed, one caseworker reported, Well, basically, when the case was already given to me, it's more or less you're following set plans? You know? So it's more or less “Okay, natural mom needs to continue urine drops” Boom. She's continuing urine drops. But it's like, at this point right here, her kids are already working toward adoption. It's just more or less waiting for the courts to say “Boom. Parental rights are terminated.” Court expectations for certain content in service plans can also lead to service plans that emphasize psychological problems rather than social or economic problems. Even though best practices urge taking an ecological perspective to the assessment of strengths and needs, and the majority of parents having children in foster care have household incomes below poverty (Barth, Wildfire, & Green, 2006), Chicago caseworkers emphasized the importance of psychological evaluations as a means to plan services. Court personnel insisted that parents receive psychological assessments and substance abuse treatment; they did not commonly insist that parents receive job training, public assistance, or other concrete assistance. One caseworker objected to the pervasive use of psychological assessments with parents. She noted with regret, “Soon as you go to court, [someone asks], ‘Well, has she had a psychological?’” Caseworkers' descriptions illustrate how court officers' insistence on certain service plan content can hinder practice by limiting, making peripheral, or nullifying parental participation in the formation of goals and service plan content. Court demands can also limit caseworkers' autonomy and creativity in working with a family to plan helpful services. Most troubling, however, is when caseworkers' descriptions illustrate that court demands can be antithetical to new, innovative, or promising practices that caseworkers are trained to use. Glisson (2007) characterizes organizations as having a “proficient” culture when it is expected that staff prioritize client well-being, are competent, and have current knowledge. The characterization raises a question about the development of proficient cultures when aspects of practice are dictated by court expectations. How can child welfare organizations develop proficient cultures if external entities preclude caseworker and organizational autonomy? Risk of Personal Responsibility Another pervasive aspect of the organizational environment in child welfare is that caseworkers fear being held personally responsible for certain adverse outcomes, such as child injuries. Importantly, caseworkers do not seem to fear being held personally responsible for all adverse outcomes. They do not describe fears of being held accountable for a foster care stay being extended longer than it might have been or parental rights being terminated when they need not be. Yet caseworkers across the United States, and even in other countries, are cognizant of the risk of their practices receiving high profile scrutiny in the media in the terrible event of a child injury (Cooper, 2005; Moseley & Tierney, 2004; Warner, 2006). Caseworkers have described the pressure they feel as a result of outsiders holding caseworkers personally responsible for tragedies as a “siege mentality” (Adams & Chandler, 2004, p. 108). They report feeling “out on a limb” (White, Hall, Peckover, Pithouse, & Wastell, 2007) or “scapegoated” (New York Social Work Education Consortium, 2003) and afraid of making mistakes because they have observed harsh retribution come to others who have made mistakes. Such fears can influence practice by making caseworkers more likely to take risk-averse approaches (Moseley & Tierney, 2004). A Chicago caseworker suggested that such pressures were reducing any efforts he made to promote reunification by arguing, Let's say I send these kids back home to him… Something happens then the case comes right back in. One thing the media will be saying is, “This kid was already out of the home, why did [the agency] put him back when they knew his whole history?” Joanne Warner (2006) illustrates how social workers in the United Kingdom engage in “defensive practices” as a result of the risk of public scrutiny and blame. Asked how his practice is influenced by the threat of public exposure, a caseworker in her study observed, You start to think, if an inquiry happened with me, have I covered myself in a way that makes it quite clear that I have done my job? Which is rather different from doing the job. It is about slowing down really and doing less in order to keep clearer records. (Warner, 2006, p. 232) The risk of being held personally responsible for a tragedy or mistake, through media exposure or job loss, can create incentives for caseworkers to assume greater control in case planning. If caseworkers fear that they will be held personally responsible for mistakes or poor outcomes, they will be less likely to embrace a new service model, such as family group conferencing, that gives them less control or deviates from commonly expected practices (Adams & Chandler, 2004). In addition, they will be less likely to seek parental involvement or to avoid time delays if delays reduce their exposure to risk. Caseworkers' observations illustrate how the risk of exposure or public scrutiny can constitute an impediment to the implementation of innovative practices. Justifications and Defense Mechanisms Due to organizational conditions, such as the accountability pressures addressed above, child welfare caseworkers are likely to experience a dilemma. They may want to engage in family centered or other best practices that they have been trained to use, but they may also want to practice in ways that will be responsive to demands, considered legitimate, and unlikely to attract undue scrutiny. Since they can rarely do both, they must justify or make sense (Weick, 1995) of the practices they use. While there may be individual variation in the degree of awareness or conscious recognition of their dilemma, caseworkers in an organization seem to develop shared or collective ways to justify practices (Sandfort, 1999). One way caseworkers rationalize or justify a perceived inability to practice in family-centered ways is to maintain that they are offering help. No matter how invasive or demanding a service plan requirement might be, caseworkers characterize it as “offering services.” Caseworkers refer to requirements to submit to random unannounced urine tests, for example, as “offering services.” When explicitly questioned about this terminology, one caseworker conveyed that she can ignore the inherent contradictions in believing that requirements are being “offered” and that mandated tests constitute “services.” This caseworker also conveyed that it was appropriate to make such “offers” while preparing to terminate parental rights. When questioned about the appropriateness of such requirements under such circumstances, however, the caseworker justified the requirements by suggesting that reunification was, in fact, still possible. In relation to a parent who was scheduled for a hearing to terminate parental rights, the caseworker was asked: Interviewer: What things are in her current service plan? Caseworker: I believe that right now it is that she complete her parenting classes; that she continue in her literacy classes, and to work towards her GED; to visit with the children regularly; continue her drug treatment program; meet with her counselor as scheduled; and to participate in her individual counseling, as recommended by the therapist. Interviewer: And these things are still in her service plan even though she's in termination court? Caseworker: Oh, yes. Interviewer: And why is that? Caseworker: Because we offer services to most parents until their rights are terminated. So, regardless of where their case is, you still offer them services. Interviewer: That's interesting that it's called “offering services.” I'm just thinking it sounds more like requirements that the mother needs to do rather than something that's being offered. Caseworker: Well [short laugh] it's not that they're really required. I can't force her to do them. But it's what's recommended if she wants to get her children back. So, it's pretty much, yes, she has to do them. Interviewer: So there is still hope that she'll get her children back? Caseworker: Uh, hah [yes]. Interviewer: And do you think that will happen? Caseworker: If she would stay clean [and] I can get some more negative drops, I would like the children to go back home. And, see, what has happened recently that has kind of worked towards her favor [is that] the children were just recently moved… So, they really have only been in this home for like six months. So there's really no ties. It's not like when they were living with their aunt. They had been there for a year. They had really developed a relationship. She wanted to adopt them, but she had become ill. The characterization of mandating tests as offering services may be a way of reframing routine practice into a more favorable light. Lipsky (1980) argues that faced with discrepancies between “what they are supposed to do and what they actually do” (p. 143), frontline workers modify their conceptions of work to mitigate cognitive dissonance. Lipsky additionally notes that frontline workers cope with the discrepancy between desired and actual practice by modifying conceptions of the client. Child welfare caseworkers seem to justify common service system problems by developing a conception of biological parents as being capable of controlling their own destinies in the child welfare system if only they care enough about their children. Referring to caseworkers who discourage parents from pursuing reunification, one caseworker insisted that a motivated parent could overcome such influences: It doesn't take a mom who truly loves her children four years to get her children back. If you were truly involved with your child's life, you will know the court dates. You will participate in anything, no matter what the worker says, if you genuinely want your children back. With such beliefs, caseworkers can justify or rationalize unhelpful practice by minimizing its ultimate effects. The belief that if a parent “truly loves her children” she will participate and have positive outcomes from the service system “no matter what the worker says” suggests that even if a caseworker or the service system fails or ignores a parent, parental love will overcome. Thus, the consequences of routine practice are not so bad. Holding such beliefs could help mitigate some of the cognitive dissonance that caseworkers may feel when they are unable to practice in family-centered ways. A potential consequence of such beliefs and responses to cognitive dissonance, however, is that they can lead caseworkers to be less open to innovative, new, or family-centered practices. If caseworkers find that external pressures and accountability mechanisms make it too difficult to use such practices, they may need to minimize the discomfort they feel by rejecting family-centered practices or developing a negative opinion of them. That is, caseworkers may eventually come to view family-centered or other innovative practices as “sour grapes” that are unlikely to be helpful anyway. Such beliefs and defenses could constitute an obstacle to the implementation of evidence-based or other promising practices in routine settings. Caseworkers' descriptions illustrate potential challenges associated with administrative or policy decisions in adopting innovative practices. Whereas administrators might be praised for the adoption of new practice approaches, frontline caseworkers typically bear the responsibility to implement the new approaches. Yet often, new approaches are insufficiently supported by organizational resources and inconsistent with external demands. Glisson (2007) characterizes as “resistant” organizational cultures in which staff respond to innovative service initiatives with criticism and apathy. Caseworkers' descriptions of their experiences help illustrate how self-protective justifications and resistance can develop if caseworkers find that new practice methods are hindered by conflicting court demands or insufficient internal support. As Lipsky (1980) noted, “The tendency to equate what exists with what is best is strong when patterns of practice must be defended psychologically to avoid confrontations with work failures” (p. 144). Conclusion The essence of good child welfare practice is complex, nuanced, and difficult to measure. In addition, given the multiple influences on child welfare outcomes, the links between any individual's intervention with a particular family and the family's outcomes are murky and weak. Hence, it is difficult to assign staff rewards or acknowledgments on the basis of family outcomes. Procedural accountability mechanisms, intended to improve practice and make it transparent to the public, are likely to have the unintended consequences of steering practice toward activities that are counted, overburdening caseworkers with paperwork, rewarding routine “by the book” practice, and leaving creative, empathetic, or innovative practice unacknowledged and unrewarded. Such conditions create substantial challenges for promoting the implementation of helpful and competent practices in routine child welfare settings, not to mention innovative, family-centered, or evidence-based practices. Recent conceptual and empirical findings have identified the important role of organizational contexts to service quality and outcomes in child welfare and other human services (e.g., Hemmelgarn, Glisson, & James, 2006; Hoagwood, 2003; Schoenwald & Hoagwood, 2001; Yoo & Brooks, 2005). Given the apparent importance of child welfare organizational culture and climate to service quality and outcomes, efforts to understand organizational contexts must continue. In identifying the mechanisms through which organizational contexts influence child welfare practice, however, it remains important to acknowledge the role of concrete, externally imposed pressures in the development of shared norms and expectations and in possibly superseding organizational norms as an influence on practice. Evaluations of attempts to implement new practices and caseworkers' descriptions of their everyday experiences lead to important questions about organizational conditions, external pressures, and their effects: Do bureaucratic, rule bound, rigid organizational cultures lead to routinized practices? Or, do external entities expect and require routinized practices, which, in turn, develop into organizational norms? Do resistant organizational cultures hinder caseworkers from engaging in new practices? Or do caseworkers reject new practices because they have found them too difficult to implement under existing conditions? If subpar practices chiefly result from entrenched norms perpetuated through socialization of new recruits and maintained through unquestioned or unobserved standard operating procedures, it would seem that a very different intervention strategy will be needed to foster change than if practices chiefly result from specific and concrete demands from judges, funders, or public officials. Caseworkers' observations suggest that intervention strategies to promote quality, innovative, or evidence-based practices in child welfare should not only target internal organizational norms, but they should also address external norms and pressures that child welfare organizations face. Note 1. Unless otherwise noted, caseworker quotations come from data collected in Cook County, Illinois. 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