Social Worker Decision-Making and Use of Discretion in Finnish Child Welfare

Abstract

The present study explores the decision-making roles and use of discretion of Finnish child welfare social workers. Social workers are tasked with the critical role of assessing children’s circumstances, and they are granted the authority to make autonomous decisions. Utilising survey data from 221 social workers and methodologies of descriptive statistics, principal component analysis (PCA) and linear regression analysis, the study explores child welfare social workers perceptions of their role as decision-makers and the extent to which their discretion is influenced by individual and workplace characteristics. The findings indicate that while social workers generally feel empowered to fulfil their role as decision-makers, time constraints present a significant challenge. A correlation is found between greater work experience and smaller caseloads (of no more than 30 clients) with higher perceived discretion. In addition, intention to leave the employing agency was observed to correlate with lower perceived autonomy. The study emphasises the need to foster a supportive work environment and ensure manageable workloads, particularly for less experienced social workers.

Key words: decision-making, social workers, child welfare, discretion, child protection