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In the wake of Reid’s excellent piece on Moss and the culture at OT I felt it important to talk about the organisational culture in child protection organisations. Be warned, it's a long thread... https://www.newsroom.co.nz/1270488/the-brave-new-world-of-grainne-moss?utm_source=Friends+of+the+Newsroom&utm_campaign=bac6e08b4a-Daily+Briefing+1.7.20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71de5c4b35-bac6e08b4a-88913523
A while ago I did a literature review about this, and the findings are stark. There’s no literature about this that’s based in NZ – why? Because none has been done. None that’s external to the agency. A key starting place for anyone wanting to reform OT would be to start there.
An independent, peer reviewed examination of organisational culture of child protection in NZ. But hey, we don’t have that, so what are some of the things I found in the international literature?
Kneejerk responses to extreme abuse cases mean that politicians are wont to meddle and create create structures in child protection that are not best suited to carry out the very tasks required of it (Blome & Steib, 2014).
Think about the NZ response to the deaths of the Kahui twins. Enough said. Next, the public wants some form of universal response to abuse cases, but that’s not possible. They are hard, complex, and don’t fit rule books. The culture needs to allow for flexibility, not tick boxes.
But also because of this, the culture is particularly susceptible to thoughts and attitudes of all who work there. We know there is very high turnover in CP systems the world over, this results in new workers often left alone on the frontline.
This leads to burnout, a lack of mentorship and a negative organisational culture. There is a tendency for organisations to stress ‘self-care’ for workers without considering what they actually do as an organisation to support it.
This results in blame assigned to workers for not properly ‘looking after themselves’. There needs to be congruence between workers personal ethics and values and the agency mission to help workers stay committeed and employed.
Where there is the biggest gap between these things, there is the biggest burnout. Role conflict occurs when role expectations differ from the actual work and this can occur due to a conflict between personal and organisational values, and decreases organisational commitment.
Peer and supervisory support is key, but, the nature of supervision given is important with Beddoe (2010) noting if supervision becomes embedded in risk management the nature of supervision changes from being supportive to surveillant. (Like at OT currently).
Findings indicate it is with managerial, rather than supervisory support, that frontline workers have the most concerns (Griffiths & Royse, 2017). This is perhaps as a result of some managers not having a social work background (Blome & Steib, 2014)...
Not understanding the work required (Griffiths & Royse, 2017) or that many supervisors are promoted into management without training (Strand et al., 2010).
In conclusion I noted that, research on agency characteristics show differences in org culture, management styles, a concern with bureaucratization, and the management of resources, with organisations that have less bureaucracy and a more flexible style having better outcomes.
There is some influence of ‘professional’ values and culture on organisational culture, and this is most strongly evidenced in social workers experiencing a gap between the values of social work and that of their employers.
Overarching all of these considerations is the influence of wider factors such as policy, media and inquiries, and neoliberalism. It is these latter that are the most removed from the day to day work of workers,
but it is often these latter that have some of the most profound influences, with many noting that a turn to bureaucratization caused by these policies is creating a defensive, and sometimes dangerous, organisational culture in many agencies.
Somewhat expectedly, given the research, a small number of studies indicate that client outcomes are improved with engaged organisational cultures. Ha! Not really a surprise at all, look at what OT has been doing - or not doing!
So in conclusion, OT needs to open itself up. Let's take a look at that organisational culture. What have they got to be so afraid of? The families of Aotearoa deserve better than this mess of organisational bullying. /end.
