{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/87318"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/87318","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Studying Permanency Decision Making","abstract":"Decision-making in child welfare has been an issue of concern for some time. A study of 28 reunification and 24 adoption and guardianship decisions was conducted to explore the factors considered important by child welfare professionals when making these decisions. Factors influencing decision making, such as confidence, uncertainty, adequacy of information, and similarity to other cases were explored to better understand how child welfare supervisors and caseworkers make decisions. Participants (supervisor-caseworker dyads) were requested to call the researcher when making a permanency decision and were asked to discuss the details of the case with no interruptions by the researcher. Within 3 to 7 days after this conversation a retrospective report was collected from the participants individually with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire. Findings demonstrated that supervisors and caseworkers were very confident of their decisions and indicated that they had most of the information they needed to make the decisions. They expressed low concerns and doubts about their decisions. Most supervisors and caseworkers expressed a similarity to other cases they had worked with, and some reported being influenced by it. High confidence has been associated with reduced search for information and inaccurate judgments. Strategies to reduce overconfidence as well as uncertainty and ways to improve accuracy in decision-making could be part of training for child welfare professionals. Better decision-making by supervisors and caseworkers will lead to better outcomes for children and their families served by the public/private child welfare system.","abstract_html":"Decision-making in child welfare has been an issue of concern for some time. A study of 28 reunification and 24 adoption and guardianship decisions was conducted to explore the factors considered important by child welfare professionals when making these decisions. Factors influencing decision making, such as confidence, uncertainty, adequacy of information, and similarity to other cases were explored to better understand how child welfare supervisors and caseworkers make decisions. Participants (supervisor-caseworker dyads) were requested to call the researcher when making a permanency decision and were asked to discuss the details of the case with no interruptions by the researcher. Within 3 to 7 days after this conversation a retrospective report was collected from the participants individually with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire. Findings demonstrated that supervisors and caseworkers were very confident of their decisions and indicated that they had most of the information they needed to make the decisions. They expressed low concerns and doubts about their decisions. Most supervisors and caseworkers expressed a similarity to other cases they had worked with, and some reported being influenced by it. High confidence has been associated with reduced search for information and inaccurate judgments. Strategies to reduce overconfidence as well as uncertainty and ways to improve accuracy in decision-making could be part of training for child welfare professionals. Better decision-making by supervisors and caseworkers will lead to better outcomes for children and their families served by the public/private child welfare system.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Tibrewal, Shradha"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Social Work","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Poertner, John"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2015,"date_issued":"2015-09-28T15:52:00Z","date_published":"2015-09-28T15:52:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:26:30Z","subjects":["Sociology, Public and Social Welfare"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["(MiAaPQ)AAI3044242"],"render_values":[{"text":"(MiAaPQ)AAI3044242","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/87318","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Poertner, John"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Tibrewal, Shradha"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2015-09-28T15:52:00Z","10000-01-01","2002"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Social Work"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Sociology, Public and Social Welfare"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/87318","(MiAaPQ)AAI3044242"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Decision-making in child welfare has been an issue of concern for some time. A study of 28 reunification and 24 adoption and guardianship decisions was conducted to explore the factors considered important by child welfare professionals when making these decisions. Factors influencing decision making, such as confidence, uncertainty, adequacy of information, and similarity to other cases were explored to better understand how child welfare supervisors and caseworkers make decisions. Participants (supervisor-caseworker dyads) were requested to call the researcher when making a permanency decision and were asked to discuss the details of the case with no interruptions by the researcher. Within 3 to 7 days after this conversation a retrospective report was collected from the participants individually with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire. Findings demonstrated that supervisors and caseworkers were very confident of their decisions and indicated that they had most of the information they needed to make the decisions. They expressed low concerns and doubts about their decisions. Most supervisors and caseworkers expressed a similarity to other cases they had worked with, and some reported being influenced by it. High confidence has been associated with reduced search for information and inaccurate judgments. Strategies to reduce overconfidence as well as uncertainty and ways to improve accuracy in decision-making could be part of training for child welfare professionals. Better decision-making by supervisors and caseworkers will lead to better outcomes for children and their families served by the public/private child welfare system.","Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-28T15:52:00Z (GMT). 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A study of 28 reunification and 24 adoption and guardianship decisions was conducted to explore the factors considered important by child welfare professionals when making these decisions. Factors influencing decision making, such as confidence, uncertainty, adequacy of information, and similarity to other cases were explored to better understand how child welfare supervisors and caseworkers make decisions. Participants (supervisor-caseworker dyads) were requested to call the researcher when making a permanency decision and were asked to discuss the details of the case with no interruptions by the researcher. Within 3 to 7 days after this conversation a retrospective report was collected from the participants individually with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire. Findings demonstrated that supervisors and caseworkers were very confident of their decisions and indicated that they had most of the information they needed to make the decisions. They expressed low concerns and doubts about their decisions. Most supervisors and caseworkers expressed a similarity to other cases they had worked with, and some reported being influenced by it. High confidence has been associated with reduced search for information and inaccurate judgments. Strategies to reduce overconfidence as well as uncertainty and ways to improve accuracy in decision-making could be part of training for child welfare professionals. Better decision-making by supervisors and caseworkers will lead to better outcomes for children and their families served by the public/private child welfare system.","Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-28T15:52:00Z (GMT). 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