Published: 23, march 2015 this essay is a review of a research article of how local authority social workers make decisions when they are considering referrals of children. The title of the study is threshold decisions: how social workers prioritize referrals of child concern by dendy platt 2008. I would attempt to critically appraise this qualitative journal article based on essential elements of the research which include the title, abstract, introduction, method, findings and conclusion.

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The study examined how social workers make choices on individual cases of children concern referrals, if to carry out a an initial assessment i.e. Sect 17 of the children act 1989 or if to undertake the child protection procedure under the sect. The major finding suggests that social workers prioritize their referrals based on five key areas, specificity, severity, risk, parental responsibility and corroboration. It was refreshing to know that data were collected from social workers and that parents were also involved. Who wrote this essay request removal example essays it is worth noting that the title adequately prepares the reader as it gives good insight into what the study is about.

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The title of an article is very important as it exposes the reader to an article. The key words were appropriate and sufficient as they did retrieve the article upon typing the key words in the search engine. According to descombe 2008 p.88 , a topic needs to be a very much more narrowly defined area of its study. The major finding in this article suggests that social workers evaluate referrals based on five key factors, specificity, severity, risk, parental responsibility and corroboration. The abstract clearly highlights that the aim of the study is to find out how social workers reach decision when to carry out an initial assessment sect 17 of children act 1989 or a core assessment, sect 47 of children act 1989 when considering referrals about child concerns. 243 , qualitative approach is often sensitive to context and process to lived experience and local groundedness, where the researcher tries to get closer to what is being studied. Using qualitative method allows the researcher to find out a lot about the study.

He went further to explain that qualitative research methods are the best way we have of getting the insider's perspective ibid qualitative method allows the researcher to generate new theoretical ideas. This happens because they are able to observe and speak to the people person being studied and allows them to come up with new ideas through out the study. Being bias is one of the limitations of qualitative research method because researchers can write their own view or even opinion on the matter. But as we can see that reaching difficult area is a great advantage to qualitative research method.

Looking at the introduction, it seems clear that the problem that led to the research was that the interpretation of the developments of the refocusing initiative has contributed to a climate where social workers work often feel pulled and pushed in different directions by political and popular opinion. The introduction touched on relevant government policies and initiatives such as refocusing initiative which was initiated by the government in 1990 and the framework for assessment of children in need. In my view, the author attempted to appraise the refocusing initiative policy which attempts to refocus social work practice and to initiate any necessary changes. I partly agree with this notion as the study may bring about positive changes in the child protection climate. But also the author needs to acknowledge where he points on that the climate of child protection is one of uncertainty, that social work itself is a profession full of uncertainty.

The researcher explained that the implication of the refocusing initiative is the rise in the threshold for acceptance of a child protection referral as it was thought that the cost to family of child protection procedures were not acceptable in the cases where allegations are minor. Nerida 160 hyett, phd candidate, amanda 160 kenny, dr 38 virginia 160 dickson swift, dr faculty of health sciences, la trobe rural health school, la trobe university, bendigo, australia despite on going debate about credibility, and reported limitations in comparison to other approaches, case study is an increasingly popular approach among qualitative researchers. We critically analysed the methodological descriptions of published case studies. Three high impact qualitative methods journals were searched to locate case studies published in the past 5 years 34 were selected for analysis. Articles were categorized as health and health services n 12 , social sciences and anthropology n 7 , or methods n 15 case studies. The articles were reviewed using an adapted version of established criteria to determine whether adequate methodological justification was present, and if study aims, methods, and reported findings were consistent with a qualitative case study approach.