Complexity Theory Webinar Series
Complexity Theory for better Child Protection & Welfare and Public Services
Complexity is a feature of modern public service provision. Rather than fear and seek to simplify it, we need to harness complexity. This webinar series explores complexity theory and related aspects for public service and child protection and welfare work. We aim to increase insights into how complexity theory frameworks and approaches can help practitioners, managers, leaders and academics to better understand and engage with complexity at practice, service and system levels.
In this Webinar, we focus on understanding the systemic and dynamic characteristics of complexity and how adopting a complexity focus can contribute to risk management, judgements and decision-making in complex practice, services and systems.
Speaker:
Professor Rick Hood, Kingston University, London.
Presentation is available here.
Respondents:
Professor Caroline McGregor, Professor in Social Work, University of Galway.
Mr Cormac Quinlan, Assistant National Director for Practice Reform, Tusla, Child and Family Agency.
In this Webinar, we focus on the main differences required in perspectives, practices and institutions to adopt a complexity informed approach to public sector systems.
Speaker:
Dr Mary Lee Rhodes, Associate Professor of Public Management and Co-Director of the Centre for Social Innovation at Trinity College, Dublin.
Presentation is available here.
Respondent:
Dr Fergal Lynch, Senior Lead, Government and Public Policy Engagement, Institute for Lifecourse and Society, University of Galway.
Professor Munro is particularly interested in the implications of complex causality and how it challenges traditional evidence-based practice. The limitations of the randomised controlled trial methodology are explored, and a case made for giving more attention to the mechanisms of how change is achieved. This draws attention to the causal impact of organisational factors that impact on the front-line worker.
Speaker:
Eileen Munro, Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics.
Presentation is available here
Respondent:
Dr. Cormac Forkan, Discipline of Applied Social Science, School of Political Science and Sociology, UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, University of Galway
With growing complexity, it is recognised that managerial control is both less possible, and less useful in dealing with the increasing adaptive challenges that face public policy in the information age. Complexity theory has come to the fore in public sector management and leadership, challenging traditional linear hierarchical approaches. A complexity focus to management/leadership requires Managers/Leaders to balance the administrative practices needed for efficient management of routine challenges with enabling and adaptive practices required to respond to dynamic circumstances.
Speaker:
Professor Mary Uhl-Bien, BNSF Endowed Professor of Leadership at the TCU Neeley School of Business in Texas.
Presentation is available here
Respondent:
Mr. Tony Canavan, Regional Executive Officer for the new HSE West and North West region.
The task of incorporating children’s voices into institutional decision making is considered a challenge despite the widespread policy imperative to do so. Decision making is burdensome for child protection decision makers due to the number of decisions they are required to make; the dangerous nature of decisions; and the emotional imposition of those decisions. These complexities are perceived to be intensified if children’s voices are added to the decision-making process. The tendency is to try to reduce complexity , but Michail et al (2024) argue for ‘complexity absorption’, collective sharing, and multiple creative practices to incorporate the voice of children in decision-making so as to moderate the burden of child protection work.
Speaker:
Samia Michail, Lecturer in Social Work at the School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University.
Presentation is available here.
Respondent:
Dr Caroline Duignan, Children and Young People’s Service’s Committee, Roscommon.
Organizations tasked with responding to child protection and welfare concerns do not function in isolation, but are instead interconnected components in a broad system of complex and non-linear networks involved in care and protection, which include domains across domestic violence, physical and behavioral health, housing and homelessness, criminal and juvenile justice, mental health, education, and a myriad of community service and social supports that intersect with child protection and welfare involved families. Colvin and Millar (2020) consider that it is essential to consider the ways in which organizations interact, to what degree, and to what end. What dynamic processes and networked approaches are fundamental to meeting child, family and community needs? How is knowledge created, transferred, synthesised intra and inter-organisationally to inform shared decision-making; joint policy implementation; and service delivery integration? We will discuss how complexity theory and network analysis help us to better understand the intra and inter-organizational dynamics found in modern child protection and welfare service provision landscapes.
Speaker:
Dr Marianna Colvin, Associate Professor in the Sandler School of Social Work at Florida Atlantic University.
Presentation is available here
Respondent:
Marie Crawley, Area Manager, Donegal, Tusla Child & Family Agency.
Gillen, A., Canavan, J., Devaney, C., & McGregor, C. (2024). Systems Complexity in Child Protection and Welfare: Policy, Leadership, Practice and Evaluation, Routledge. London.
Aisling Gillen , John Canavan, Complexity Theory and Child Protection and Welfare: A Tool of Hindsight and/or a Tool to Assist Improved Decision Making in Child Protection and Welfare Work, The British Journal of Social Work, 2023;, bcad180, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcad180
