Journal of Public Child Welfare

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Navigating the context of uncertainty in child

protection practice

Laimutė Žalimienė, Violeta Gevorgianienė, Donata Petružytė, Miroslavas

Seniutis, Lijana Gvaldaitė, Eglė Šumskienė & Jūratė Charenkova

To cite this article: Laimutė Žalimienė, Violeta Gevorgianienė, Donata Petružytė, Miroslavas
Seniutis, Lijana Gvaldaitė, Eglė Šumskienė & Jūratė Charenkova (2023) Navigating the context
of uncertainty in child protection practice, Journal of Public Child Welfare, 17:1, 141-166, DOI:
10.1080/15548732.2021.1997874

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2021.1997874

Published online: 01 Nov 2021.

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JOURNAL OF PUBLIC CHILD WELFARE
2023, VOL. 17, NO. 1, 141–166
https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2021.1997874

Navigating the context of uncertainty in child protection

practice
Laimutė Žalimienė , Violeta Gevorgianienė , Donata Petružytė ,
Miroslavas Seniutis , Lijana Gvaldaitė , Eglė Šumskienė ,
and Jūratė Charenkova
Sociology and Social Work Institute, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This article offers a conceptual framework within a decision- Received 3 April 2021
making (DM) context in situations, when child protection work­ Revised 31 August 2021
ers have to decide to either remove a child from his or her Accepted 12 October 2021
parents care or leave him or her in a family. Based on the KEYWORDS
thematic analysis of data from the 33 interviews, we have devel­ Child protection workers;
oped the concept of DM context as a space of uncertainty which decision making; context;
is multilayered and implies an inherent duality of each contex­ uncertainty
tual element. The study contributed to the research on work in a
private setting, by revealing the role of agency culture and
public attitudes in child protection workers’ decisions.

Introduction
Often in a public discourse we observe a great deal of criticism toward child
protection workers due to over or under-representation of cases of child
removal from families (Corby, Shemmings, & Wilkins, 2012; Parton, 2004,
2005). In Lithuania, this criticism was strengthened with an introduction of
children rights reform in 2014. It was further fueled by one particular story in
the media, detailing how child protection workers were blamed for exceeding
their authority in decision making during the process of removing a child from
his or her family (Mockaityte˙-Cicilioniene˙, 2014). Studies have confirmed
that the decision to remove a child from the family impacts the wellbeing of a
child because it threatens his or her attachment to, and bonding with parents
(Jones, 1993), thus professionals have to be scrupulous when implementing
the intervention into a family (Parton, 2005). On the other hand, taking a child
from a family is one of the most significant, challenging, and high-risk
decisions in child protection practice (Arad & Wozner, 2001; Chor, 2013;
Lietz, 2009), and studies showed that high responsibility decisions raise stress,
and reduce the well-being of professionals (Rippon, 2000; Rugulies et al., 2007;
Žalimiene˙ et al., 2020).

CONTACT Laimutė Žalimienė laima.zalimiene@fsf.vu.lt Sociology and Social Work Institute, Vilnius
University, 3 Universiteto Street, Vilnius LT-01513, Lithuania
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
142 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

The stress, experienced by child protection workers, and caused by the fear
to make errors in decision making, according to Munro (2019), is influenced
by a context which can help to achieve or hinder a good performance. The role
and importance of the context in decision making have widely recognized in
psychology, management, marketing, health care, information sciences, and so
on. Researchers from various disciplinary fields agreed that all behaviors occur
within a context, and that various elements of the decision-maker’s environ­
ment enable them to embrace the complexity and ambiguity of the world
(Baumann et al., 2014; Bruch & Feinberg, 2017; Clitheroe Jr et al., 1998;
Fantino & Stolarz-Fantino, 2005; Grimshaw, Mott, & Roberts, 1997;
Rohrbaugh, Shanteau, & Hall, 1999; Strauss, 2008; Thaler, Sunstein, & Balz,
2012; Thomadsen et al., 2018).
Analysis of the decision-making research reveals a variety of descriptions of
the context. Some authors described the context very broadly: as an environ­
ment, which is included in the decision-making situation (Rohrbaugh et al.,
1999); as being constructed of factors which influence the decision making
(Fantino & Stolarz-Fantino, 2005); Thaler et al. (2012) argued that the envir­
onment of the decision making is constituted not only from the features that a
person is aware of, but also from those he is not. Duncan (1974) identified the
internal and external environment of a decision, and Thomadsen et al. (2018)
similarly distinguished exogenous and endogenous contextual factors. Bruch
and Feinberg (2017) discussed the social context, which encompasses the
opportunities available, the importance of a “default” option, time pressure,
constrained resources, and the choices of others. Time and place, as important
aspects of the decision-making (DM) context, were also identified by Atkinson
(1995). Baumann et al. (2014) focused on organizational culture as the context
in which the decision is being made, and Clitheroe Jr et al. (1998) defined the
context as the totality of personal, physical, and social aspects of environment
or situations and the relationships among them. Similarly, Rohrbaugh et al.,
(1999) noted that context encompasses the experience and individual differ­
ences of various decision makers. Moreover, contextual elements of DM may
be chosen or defined by a researcher for a particular purpose (Clitheroe Jr et
al., 1998; Rohrbaugh et al., 1999).
Although considerable data was accumulated in conceptualizing a context
of DM, in many research fields, according to Bruch and Feinberg (2017), there
is a scarcity of research in the field of sociology, and literature concerning
decision making in child protection is also scarce (Broadley, 2016). Not
surprisingly, there is even less focus on the context of DM within the research
of specific functions, such as child removal from a family or his or her
temporary relocation. The nature of this decision (implementation of a coer­
cive action) and the place of a decision making (private family home environ­
ment) creates a multi-faceted and multi-level environment for DM. According
to Munro (1996, 2019), the decision making in child protection is often based
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 143

on having an imperfect knowledge. Moreover, the event of entering into, and

being in a private family home causes a sense of disorientation for workers,
which means an additional challenge in the decision making (Ferguson, 2018),
and influences employees’ well-being (Lee, 2014). Consequently, cognition of
the context of the decision making may help to overcome this disorientation,
leaving less room for emotions or beliefs (Zinn, 2008), and thus decreasing the
risk of non-adequate decisions. Research related to the context of DM in child
protection specifically, identified similar contextual elements mentioned ear­
lier, such as previous experience with decision making, organizational, perso­
nal, external factors, availability of options, time (Munro, 2019, p. 19),
ecological environment of the family, system of services, cultural context,
such as public attitudes, and legislation (Benbenishty et al., 2015, p. 12).
However, the interdependence of these elements and influence of their inter­
action on decision making was not thoroughly discussed before.
Therefore, the aim of the article is to develop a comprehensive conceptual
framework of the context of DM in child protection work, by identifying not
only the characteristics of the contextual elements, but also their interdepen­
dence and interaction, which influence the assurance of child protection
workers in their decisions taken in a family setting.
Our article contributes to the knowledge of DM in child protection services
by identifying the DM context as a space of uncertainty, which is characterized
by the inherent duality and interdependence of various contextual elements.
We use empirical data from interviews with Lithuanian child protection
workers, whose function is to make the decision whether or not to intervene
when arriving to a family after a report of a possible threat to a child.

Theoretical framework
The theoretical background of the research is the paradigm of social construc­
tionism and its premise is that social context and interaction provide a frame­
work for our realities (Berger, & Luckmann, 1966). The ideas of constructionism
are relevant for understanding the DM situation: the study is based on the
assumption that the DM is not merely the action of participants in this decision,
but it is strongly influenced by the environment, or the context, in which this
decision is being made. The reality encompasses many possible truths and facts
(Burr, 1995), but none of them can be claimed as a “final truth,” without
considering its context (Gergen, 1994). Moreover, the viewpoint of social con­
structionism, that meanings do not remain constant, and a new meaning can
emerge in a relationship between a researcher and the study object (Burr, 1995),
is an important premise for our study. The qualitative approach, which was
chosen for the study of the DM context, enabled us, firstly, to find out how
informants construct the DM context, and further, to conceptualize their con­
struct by searching for more general understanding of the phenomenon.
144 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

The intention of this study is to develop structural components in the

context of DM, based on the stories of child protection workers. How do
they define the situation when they arrive to a family after a report? The
strength of the qualitative research strategy in this case is that a researcher does
not have to define a priori the contextual elements that are important in this
particular situation.

Research method
The semi-structured interview method was chosen for the empirical study. The
study was designed to delve into the very specific situation where workers of the
Child Rights Protection Service (usually two members of staff) travel to families
after urgent calls for help due to a threat to a child’s safety. The researchers
undertook a detailed examination of the context of DM in the situation when
workers have to assess a case and make the decision – whether to remove a child
from the family, or leave him or her with the family. Such situations are very
sensitive, taking place in a private place, and studying them directly by observa­
tion is not possible (researchers cannot accompany a child protection worker
who arrives to a family due to the ethical issue of protecting the parents’ right to
privacy, etc.). Therefore, we have used a retrospective interview method where
information is collected about past events. This kind of an interview triggers a
recall of past situations and allows both informants and researchers to see the
decision-making situation within a broader context of the reflected experience.
A total of 33 semi-structured interviews with child protection workers took
place in children’s rights protection offices from January to October in 2020 (see
Table 1). The sample of informants was based on the list of child protection
workers, which was obtained from the public websites of 12 regional child
protection agencies. Based on the job description, two groups of informants
were selected from the list of staff: on-call staff and chief specialists, who were

Table 1. Characteristics of informants.

Min-max/ Work
Number total length experience
of Sampling of the Geographical Professional in child
Stuff positioninterviews method interviews coverage Sex background protection
Child 33 Criterion selection 28–80/ 1620 minutes All 12
protection regional
workers: child
on-call staff
and chief
specialists
protection 7 men and Pedagogy, psychology, From 1
offices 26 social management year to
women pedagogy, 24 years
social
work, law,
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 145

both assigned the responsibility to go to families on a day-to-night basis due to a

reported threat to a child’s safety. Firstly, the written consent of the State Child
Rights Protection and Adoption Service was obtained for the carrying out of
interviews. The researchers then consulted the employees who perform the
above functions by telephone about the upcoming interviews. The interviews
were conducted face-to-face with employees from various regions, in order to
represent both large cities and smaller district towns and rural areas until,
according to the researchers, information saturation was obtained. According
to Lithuanian legal acts, child protection workers in Lithuania have to have a
university education in social sciences, such as social work, pedagogy, law,
psychology (Pabedinskiene˙, 2018). During the interviews the informants (in
the findings section labeled shortly as,,I” plus the number code, e.g., I-5) were
asked to describe the process of decision making when they go to a family after
the report of a threat to a child, from the moment of sitting in their car, and
ending when they leave the family. The main question we asked was this: “please,
tell us about the process of decision making within a family and your experiences
in implementing this function.” In case the narrative of the informant did not
cover the issues implied by the research aims, a few additional questions were
presented. For instance, we asked: please, tell us about the most difficult situation
that you have encountered in your work; what should have been done differently
during the procedure of workers’ intervention into this particular family situa­
tion; how do you explain your decision to parents and children?
The interviews were audio recorded, and transcribed verbatim.
Transcriptions were coded using MaxQDA 10 software for qualitative
research. Based on the transcriptions of interviews, we conducted qualitative
thematic analysis of the data (Mayring, 2014). The initial overall reading aimed
to identify the main themes, after this the texts were organized by themes and
sub-themes. Themes were identified inductively from the data. All the con­
tents were retained in order to avoid personal selection and ensure trust­
worthiness. In the next step, we worked through the empirical texts line by line
and in parallel reformulated initial categories. This step permitted the authors
to identify categories that were organized from general to particular (Ritchie et
al., 2013). The categories were mutually exclusive and defined in such a way
that they were internally as homogeneous as possible and externally as hetero­
geneous as possible. Finally, eight main themes, revealing the DM context in
cases where there was a threat to a child were revealed.

Research ethics
A permission to conduct interviews with child protection workers was
obtained from the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service under
the Ministry of Social Security and Labor. Before the interview, an informed
consent was obtained from all child protection workers, who agreed to
146 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

participate in the study. Each informant was informed about the anonymity
upon publication of data (by using a code to conceal his or her identity).
Ethical approval for the research was obtained from the Institute of Sociology
and Social work at Vilnius University.

Findings
Our analysis of the research data identified eight elements which were
most prominent in the interviews with child protection workers: decipher­
ing the “shadow theater,” assembling facts, child’s condition, (un)caring
atmosphere of parenting, organizational support when working in a pri­
vate family home, lack of clear legislation, sword of Damocles: a fear of
public condemnation, and “a matter of time.” Each theme was divided
into a few subthemes which helped to emphasize important aspects of the
category. The main themes – contextual elements – were arranged in a
logical order and summarized, as illustrated by Figure 1, which is pre­
sented in the discussion part.

Deciphering the “shadow theatre”: what I see, sense and hear

Entering the private space of another person always implies an encounter
with unfamiliar things. When workers enter the private space of families
living in difficult physical and social conditions, which are often quite
different from their own, they have to “decipher the shadow theater” (I-
14) – the meaning of what they see, sense, and hear (labeled shortly as
“Home” in Figure 1). Therefore, the context of their decision making is
very much embodied from the perspective of a worker. However, the title
of the category, which we chose to define this embodiment, is rather
obscure, because in such a way it best reflects the ambivalence of the
embodiment or embodied ambivalence. The embodied decision making is
revealed in two subcategories: it is a) (in)formed by the “first glance,” and
b) draws from the “sense experience.”
The subcategory, called “informed by the first glance,” was among those
dominating in the data. The majority of workers have expressed this using very
similar wordings: “there are usually not only drunken parents, but also a huge
mess and . . . and hungry children, malnourished, dirty, not asleep, this is
visible at the first glance” (I-8).
From their accounts, we also learned about the environment:

just barefoot kids in some horrible dormitory, no sewers, fasting, three little kids and we
brought them to the hospital . . . . And they tell us, but listen, well, those kids are terribly
dirty, they have scabies, and in that sense it’s scary . . . (I-16).
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 147

COLLECTED
INFORMATION

ORGANIZAT LACK OF
IONAL SOCIAL
SUPPORT SUPPORT
home

HOME
HOME

TIME

LEGISLATION

PARENTING CHILD
ATMOSPHERE CONDITION
BASIC INFO

Figure 1. The context elements of a decision to either to remove a child or leave it in a family,
made after the arrival of child protection workers to a family.

The recurring experience of seeing similar child removal situations legit­

imizes workers’ attempts to “draw from the sense experience”: “one just feels,
maybe, that experience allows you. I make the decision easily” (I-5). However,
the experience of similar cases not always can be supported by the facts, and
this sometimes complicates the decision:

you understand that you are powerless, that if you do everything according to the
documents, there will not be enough data, you will not prove that it was necessary to
do so. This is the hardest part here when you try you see it would be better, but you
realize you won’t prove it (I-14).

Thus, paradoxically, the embodied encounter with the family situation does
not always inform the decision in a proper way. There is often a contradiction
among those three “channels” (hear, see and sense), from which a worker
draws contextual information, making himself or herself ask: Is it true what I
hear? Is it usual here what I see? Can I trust my inner feeling that despite an
outwardly quite normal situation we have to relocate a child?
148 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

Assembling the facts

Collecting factual data

Often the arrival of a family due to an emergency call occurs at night time, and
thus there are limited possibilities to obtain information about the family. In
that case workers try at least on their way to the car “to find decision clues in
prior information” about the family and possibilities of child relocation. For
instance, one informant put it: “when you receive a message that the situation
is bad for a child, and it is not planned, you just go to the family and from that
[scarce] information you are already discussing your possible actions” (I-10).
Another informant commented:

yet when you try to find out what’s happening, you’re trying to find something else in the
database (because we have a common database and check if the family was known
before, when or whether children’s rights professionals visited, if there ever was violence,
or something else) (I-9). Even in such a case, when the family is known to the child
welfare workers, the ambiguity remains. As one informant put it, sometimes “it is very
difficult when you don’t know where to put a child. I wish that everything was aligned”:
you go, you have a list [of guardians], you know that today one of these will take a child
. . . (I-5).

Reliability of parents’ information

Parents’ cooperation is extremely important in order to obtain information
about where to relocate a child (if such a decision is taken) and to inform them
about the next actions of the Office. “If people are sober, we may talk . . . and if
not, we briefly explain and ask them to sign a blank sheet. In most cases, we do
not receive information about the family [from parents]” (I-8). Often parents
neglect the workers and do not interact with them and their children. The lack
of proper communication contributes to the ambiguity, and sometimes to
making the wrong decisions:

But when we went to that place [indicated by the intoxicated mother], it turned out that
those conditions were also unsanitary, and there was no electricity, and it was dirty,
untidy, so I had to make a remark to the mother who has misled us . . . but it seemed
normal to her eyes (I-22).

The ambivalence is increased when the parents’ opinions and their child’s
opinions differ:

And it happens that one of us is talking to a parent and hears one side, the other one is
talking to a child and hears a child’s side. Then one of us advocates for one side, the other
– for the other side. A parent has said one thing, a child – another, and how it is really?
And then it happens, well, that we try to put together that puzzle without knowing the
child’s opinion and without knowing the parents’ opinion (I-16).
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 149

Child’s condition

Child’s age
The purpose of the decision making after the arrival to a family is to ensure a
child’s safety. The living place, the state of a child, his or her behavior and
opinion are at the center of the attempts to decipher the meanings of the
“shadow theater“. A child’s reaction to the presence of workers, his or her
emotions and behavior are important elements of the context. The smaller the
children, the easier it is to remove them from the family in a physical sense,
“because you take a child in your arms” (I-2). On the other hand, small
children sometimes fear the workers and do not want to be approached. The
reaction of older children and adolescents also varies: they understand the
situation better and sometimes even feel relieved, especially when their nega­
tive experiences in the family are repeated. It is easier to find a common
language with older children and to convey a message that at the moment their
parents simply are unable to take care of them:

You can still explain to an older child that you, that you, that it’s temporarily, as I say . . .
(we always talk very nicely) - that your parents need some doctor’s help to improve their
health and to think about how you will live on (I-8).

Child’s willingness
The child’s reaction to the arrival of workers and the maturing decision to remove
them from their family manifests in two ways: they either resist it, or submit to it,
sometimes even with readiness (e.g., an older child, waiting for the workers with a
packed backpack): “The easiest is with young children. You just tell them: we are
taking you to a safe place now, where you will meet the other kids’” (I-2).
Sometimes the reaction of children mirrors the reaction of their parents,
and in such cases they might resist in order to please their parents, if those
parents actively fight for their child. In situations of suspected or evident
abuse, a child’s level of stress amid the presence of strangers determines how
effectively the workers can help, because talking to, listening to and comforting
him or her, is of the utmost importance.
The child’s opinion on whether to stay with or leave the family is asked (the
UNCRC was ratified by Lithuania in 1992) and is especially decisive in cases
when a child does not want to stay. The level of a child’s readiness to be
relocated is leveraged by repeated negative experiences. As one informant
put it:

there are older children, who, when they see professionals, (I have heard such cases), say
themselves ‘thank God, I want to go where there will be peace, I am tired’. These are the
children, who feel relieved, they go somewhere, they are taken to a safe environment,
they fall asleep, they eat, they wash up, they no longer see that violent or unpleasant
environment (I-19).
150 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

But in other cases, we learn that:

it is very difficult when the [older] child does not want to leave, whatever it is, the
environment is unsafe there, but he or she needs to be persuaded in some way . . . we talk
so that the child has as few negative emotions as possible, but everything happens, and
we have a very hard time coping with it (I-13).

Thus, the situation of decision making remains ambiguous, if the workers

notice that:

it is in the best interests of the child, and his or her safety, but the parents do not want
[that we take him or her away], or sometimes even the child does not want to be taken,
but child’s desire does not always meet his or her needs and interests (I-9).

(Un)caring atmosphere of parenting

Emotional climate
The prevalent emotions of the parents create the emotional context in which
the workers take decisions. In such cases, when parents are sober and under­
stand the risk of losing a child, they may act with anger by insulting workers,
trying to snatch the child from the hands of workers. The workers also try to
calmly explain the reasons for their arrival and the consequences of the child’s
removal (if such removal occurs). It is important to convey a message that the
child is taken from the parents’ care in his or her best interests (i.e. because
parents are lacking competence to take care of their child) and on behalf of the
family. As one informant put it, parents:

. . . take it as a questioning whether ‘I am a good mom or dad?’. They have also the
attitude: what right do others, the state or institutions have to interfere into my family
life?! In any case, parents are convinced that their upbringing is the best and fairest (I-
17).

In some cases, which are emotionally the most hard for workers to endure,
parents say: “it’s good that you have taken them, we’ll now live in peace and
quiet” (I-30). Such situations of “total neglect by parents” are especially painful
for workers to see.

Signs that a child is (is not) being cared for

A common situation that child protection workers see when they arrive to a
family is parents intoxicated by alcohol. According to the law, when parents
are drunk, workers have to make the decision to temporarily remove a child.
Even in such cases however, there are different situations in which different
decisions can be made. As one informant put it, child protection workers:
“assess not only drinking, but also the environment, how the family members
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 151

react, how a child responds to the parents . . . .all those conditions sum up” (I-
21). In other situations, the decision might be influenced by the behavior of
other family members:

Well, in fact, mom wasn’t drunk, maybe 0.3 or 0.4 per mille, the man was more drunk.
They had a disabled child. I don’t know if the child was aware of that situation, because
he was severely disabled, but I saw older girls, sisters, maybe twelve or eleven years old,
they quickly sorted out that stoma [of a disabled child], fed him. Well, of course, mom
was not so drunk” (I-20).In some other cases, parents feel their guilt and cooperate with
workers: “yes, I am intoxicated, I’ll give contacts to my relatives, where the child can be
taken, yes, I can’t take care of that child (I-16).

Organizational support when working in a private family home

Is support from the department head limited, due to working from a distance?
The informants expressed the opinion that the decision making in the best
interests of a child is a big responsibility, and should be taken not by one or
two workers, who arrive at a family, but by a larger number of professionals. It
is therefore not surprising that child protection workers feel the need to
consult with their department head in difficult situations. However, they are
usually unable to consult their supervisor and perceive the heads of depart­
ment as being distant from them, both due to physical distance (workers
performing their functions in a family home) and because the decisions
often have to be made at night or during another inconvenient time:

The supervisor was saying that you can call and ask any time, but in some way this is
inhumane . . . it’s not working hours, it’s night, you don’t want to interfere too much
either, unless something is completely unclear (I-31).

Moreover, they say: “you won’t call the management in every case on
weekends” (I-18). Some employees complained: “we never see the heads of
the agency, for us they are Gods in the clouds” (I-15).

Expectations toward supervisory support

Some informants stated: “we do not feel that we have a strong backing” (I-12);
“once [a supervisor] did not even allow us to call her, saying: ‘discuss among
yourselves, do not show me how poorly you work’” (I-10). The lack of support
in the decision making is also reflected in the informants’ complaints that the
heads tend to withdraw from uncertain situations, directing employees to act
strictly in accordance with the law. The workers feel underestimated, pushed
to work hard by the head, and in a constant pressure to justify their actions. In
152 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

case of a mistake, the head complains for a very long time and keeps asking for
clarification about the past situation. Other informants, meanwhile, acknowl­
edged the support of, and trust of the heads:
Let’s say there are situations where you go to an incident, and it’s night, and it’s not quite
clear how to do it right, and we can call the head at night, and he will answer and advise”
(I-20). “The head helps, advises, and supports, instead of constantly oppressing us for a
mistake which we could have made” (I-21) and “We really receive full, unconditional
support from our direct head . . . both in terms of means and emotionally . . . (I-19).

However, some informants perceived the support by the head as very

controlling:
Sometimes you feel like at school, you are always very strongly checked and no freedom
of expression is given to you . . . but sometimes it is good - if you do not want to think
thoroughly, they think instead of you (I-35).

Importance of mutual support in a team

Workers arrive in pairs, to families on a call, which they are happy about
because they feel safer and find it easier to work in conflict situations, e.g.,
“when it is sometimes impossible to understand who is lying, who is telling the
truth (child or parents)” (I-18). Besides, this allows us share responsibilities:
one speaks with parents, another with children. In such cases when one of the
workers loses his or her self-control (“because we are all human, not robots”
(I-30)), working in pairs allows us to see each other from an outside perspec­
tive, and, if necessary, to help to restrain ourselves. If, nevertheless, it happens
that a colleague behaves inappropriately, the other partner does not condemn
such conduct, because “it is only in the interests of good” (I-16).
As the situation in a family is usually tense, rushed professionals sometimes
see the situation differently, which leads to disagreements or even conflicts
between colleagues regarding decision making. Because child protection work­
ers have a background either in social work, or in educational sciences, law,
and psychology, this sometimes determines why the situation is assessed
differently. The informants stated that it is advantageous when both colleagues
have different personalities, as well as when a new employee works with an
experienced colleague, who has gone through fire and water many times
during his or her career. The workers believe that it is very important to
agree with a partner, to act in unison, and to understand each other in a
difficult situation “at a glance” (I-3).
In addition, it is the police who are usually the first to arrive to a family
situation. They not only safeguard any workers who come next, but also
provide them with important information: “the police sometimes have very
detailed information [on the situation], from which you can see that there is
already complete trouble here” (I-12). On the other hand, it is pointed out that
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 153

sometimes police intervention in the decision-making process is harmful, in

cases when police officers do not understand the goals and specifics of child
protection workers’ conduct.

The need for work “tools”

Usually workers travel to a family with a regular agency car, driven by one of
the employees. In such cases where there is more than one child in the family,
the workers need to think immediately what they will do if the decision will be
made to remove children: “you don’t know how the child will behave in the
car. You need to engage with the child, just hold him in your hands” (I-3).
Often workers face an unsafe situation due to parental drunkenness, and
aggressive behavior at the family home, and not all workers have self-defense
skills. When it comes to defending themselves against the aggressive behavior
of family members, workers can sometimes feel insecure, not knowing what
behavior is considered legal or illegal. They state that a lack of training is the
cause of this problem and extra training in this area would allow them to de-
escalate specific situations: “there was training on the standard of behavior . . .
how to take a child in such a way as not to face [problems] later . . . to avoid
condemnation that the child was not taken correctly under the procedure”
(I-1).

Lack of clear legislation

Legislation helps to make the right decision . . . but does not cover individual
situations
The interviews with informants about their decision-making situations
revealed that they particularly pay attention to the topic of legislation. First
of all, child protection workers emphasized that decisions must comply with
legal provisions: “there are statutory cases in which to consider what to do and
you simply follow the law” (I-33). They also commented more, saying:
We are bound fairly strictly by law in regard to when a child must be taken away: if he is
abused, if he says he does not want to live with his parents . . . if a child is left alone, or if
parents are intoxicated, suffering an attack of mental illness (I-16).

However, the law is a very good guide in most, but not in all cases.
Therefore, when making a decision, it is necessary to assess each individual
situation:
no law defines the degree of drunkenness, which indicate that the parents are really not
able to take care of a child . . . you look at a situation, and decide on the degree that dad or
mom is adequate; because some people are less adequate even if they are sober (I-32).

On the other hand, informants point out that they are lacking specific
guidelines, for example, in cases when a child screams.
154 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

Legitimate, but not right

Employees face dilemmas regarding the justice of existing laws and
emphasize the importance of their own confidence that the decisions
they have taken are right, during this complex and responsible procedure:
“The law stipulates that if there is domestic violence there is nothing else
we can do . . . then the decision [to remove a child] is correct” (I-5). The
law serves as a support and an argument in explaining to parents as to
why a child should be taken: “you just nicely explain that there are such
laws, and we follow them” (I-34). While the recognized importance and
supremacy of the law is evident in the interviews, still some doubts are
expressed as to whether legitimacy of the decision makes the decision
right in each individual case: “of course, decisions will always be legit­
imate . . . maybe.” (I-7).

Legal regulation is lacking clarity

It is noticeable that the laws are not always clear to workers:

sometimes you read and do not understand what is written there . . . . I think they should
be simple enough . . . to make it really clear that you could feel that you are doing the
right thing . . . because sometimes you think – will it be right here, will it be wrong . . . the
internal struggle (I-26).

Thus, the application of the law causes a certain amount of tension to the
workers, as they fear that they might misunderstand or misinterpret some­
thing: “you do get complaints . . . there is still a complaint from the last year
dragging on, a huge one . . . Maybe it was possible to do something different in
that situation” (I-6). The problem of law enforcement is further exacerbated by
frequent changes in the law, as employees do not manage to reorient so quickly
from one statutory provision to another in their practice: “and laws are in a
constant correction, and we are in a constant ignorance . . . ” (I-12).

Ignoring employee and her professionalism

When there is a collision between the strictness of legal norms and the need to
individualize a decision, workers feel as if their professionalism is being
questioned. The informants state that the employee is expected to make a
conscious decision, but in some cases there is a strict regulation that requires
only enforcement, and does not leave room for the worker’s discretion.
Sometimes, in the wording of the law, the informants have a very technocratic
and bureaucratic attitude toward the employees, in other words they see them
only as a workforce, without considering that they are human beings who can
make mistakes: “the law does not ‘think’ about the employee, because if
something goes wrong, the employee remains the one to blame” (I-21).
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 155

A sword of Damocles: a fear of public condemnation

The workers feel like they are caught between two fires when implementing
the child removal function: the laws and procedures stipulate that a child must
be taken in the case of a threat to his own safety, but society views child
protection workers as abductors, and they cannot be proud of their work
because of such a negative public attitude. The fear of public blame is vividly
illustrated by a situation described by one informant, when the team of child
protection workers ordered a dinner at a restaurant on New Year’s Eve, but
were afraid to say who they were: “we were so afraid that somewhere someone
will find out who we are, will immediately start taking pictures, will put them
on youtube(s), everywhere; everyone will say – ‘look, the child’s rights sat,
drank wine there’” (I-15). To our informants, the media demonizes the child
protection institution, and portrays workers as if they are “some kind of beasts
who take away children” (I-3). Yet the confidentiality of family information
does not allow employees to justify themselves, for example, by explaining
about the family environment in which those children live: “. . . one cannot
show that bog, barn, smell” (I-14).

It’s a matter of time

Time conflicts with distance

The important contextual element, influencing decision making from the very
moment that child protection workers are sitting in their car on the way to a
family house, is time. The pressure of time was especially tangible in those
situations when the workers had to travel far to reach the settlement, for
example, located fifty or even more kilometers away from their office. In
such cases, the time allocated to the travel conflicted with the distance and
aggravated the psychological state of workers. Being aware that time is pre­
cious, because the child might be in danger, they often had to drive their car on
unknown roads, searching for the house they needed. As one informant put it:
We use navigation from the phone. Sometimes it happens that we have to search for a
single farm, in a forest and that navigation doesn’t show it, and then, then we brutally
waste time driving in that forest path, and we do not find that address, it is very . . . it
should not be like this, sometimes we wander heavily, navigation deceives us (I-33).

In such situations, the time spent correlates with the level of stress, which in
turn complicates the decision making.

The here and now . . . and protracted

Despite the fact that some of their informants stated that the decision is often
made quickly, the majority of informants complained that they had not
enough time to decide: “You stand . . . before that fact, let’s say there are
156 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

drunken parents, some emotions, something else. And you have no hour. You
have only a few minutes to make that decision” (I-5). However, in some cases,
if, for different reasons, the situation is unclear, this might occupy up to seven
hours to solve: “we’ve spent seven hours on that call . . . I honestly say – we
didn’t make any decision . . . then our colleagues came after us, we somehow
tried to talk about postponing that decision . . . so look how many people were
involved” (I-9).

Guardians of the night

The aspect of distance is further complicated by the time of the day when
workers have to drive to a family. The calls from police or neighbors about a
child in danger are often received during the night watch in the office. The
night time is neither physically, nor psychologically conducive for children,
their carers, and child protection workers themselves. Their encounter with a
family at night is often limited in regards to achievement. The very call to
come to a family at night often implies working in very difficult circumstances
– be it violence, drunkenness, or an attack of mental illness: “The night, the
tension, and I am alone. Well, you never know how things can turn there” (I-
33). The night time also complicates the child’s participation in the decision
process: “And he [a boy] still wants to sleep, the police are still talking, then he
says ‘I wanted to sleep so much, but that woman is questioning me, my eyes are
gnawing, I can’t cope anymore, you know” (I-12).

Discussion: the context of decision making as a space of uncertainty

Building on the themes and subthemes described above, which originated
from the analysis of the interviews, the authors developed a conceptual frame­
work with a multilayered structure, which includes three types of elements,
organized according to their configuration in a general structure of the con­
text. A physical, home, (micro) environment is the first background layer of
the context into which workers arrive; they enter the house, and the psycho­
social characteristics of its environment (child condition and parenting atmo­
sphere) are the first input into the decision making. By referring to legal
regulations and scarce information from the family databases that they bring
themselves, workers start to generate the decision. On a higher horizontal level
of the context, we identify organizational support and lack of social support as
mezzo and macro factors; and the factor of time permeates all other elements
of the DM context (see Figure 1).
When conducting an in-depth analysis of the content of all the contextual
elements of DM (as presented in the empirical analysis), we see that each of the
contextual elements has an inherent duality: each element might be clear (e.g.,
if parents are sober and their emotions are adequate; or legislation clearly
describes the procedure) or ambiguous and conflicting (e.g., such as extremely
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 157

emotional reactions of parents or discretion of the legislation, c as to whether

the fairest decision has been made). Interplay among unequivocal and equi­
vocal elements creates an additional complexity of the DM context; conse­
quently, the context becomes not easily decipherable and causes constantly
evolving dilemmas regarding the role of child protection workers in this
situation. The complexity of the context and the duality of most of its elements
presuppose a high uncertainty, which a child protection worker must navigate
toward decision-making.
Authors who studied uncertainty (e.g., Rotmans and Van Asselt (2002),
Walker et al. (2003), Helou, DiazGranados, Ryan, and Cyrus (2020)) argued
that the concept of uncertainty emphasizes the complexity of the problem,
imperfection of knowledge, and lack of data. The uncertainty also refers to
unpredictability (Lipshitz & Strauss, 1997). It is also related to ambiguity,
which is about “knowing differently” (Zandvoort, Van der Vlist, Klijn, &
Van Den Brink, 2018). Kwakkel et al. defined ambiguity as “uncertainty arising
from the simultaneous presence of multiple frames of reference about a certain
phenomenon” (2010, p. 310). In the context of DM, ambiguity can arise from a
disagreement among experts about the situation (our empirical data shows
that child protection workers’ perceptions of a given family situation some­
times differ, depending on their educational background, experience, and
personal characteristics). This complexity, duality, and ambiguity of the ele­
ments of the DM context, was the reason to conceptualize it as a space of
uncertainty. As uncertainty is unavoidable in child protection (Munro, 2019,
p. 7), we can only try to reduce it, and to manage it intelligently.
The uncertainty navigation (see Figure 1) starts from collecting basic
information about a family while on the way to their home, and then decipher­
ing the “shadow theatre,” starting from the arrival to the family (shortly
labeled as “home” in Figure 1) as well as further supplementing the whole
picture of the situation by communicating (or not) with the parents, child, and
invoking legal regulations. Under pressure of time, a worker has to generate a
decision, and if there is a need (because of unclarity about how to apply
legislation) and if it is possible, he or she tries to consult with a supervisor,
at the same time reflecting on the potential reaction of society to his or her
decision. Therefore, in a metaphorical sense, the decision making resembles
climbing a steep mountain while trying to navigate the safest path.
The c oncept of uncertainty allows us to see the possible interaction of
contextual elements: some elements can contribute to or reduce the uncer­
tainty of other factors, thus improving or worsening the circumstances of the
decision making. For example, a well-organized legal framework can help
reduce the need to consult with a supervisor, thus reducing the time pressure
in DM. While “uncertainty occurs at the limits of knowledge” (Wakeham,
2015), the interaction of separate contextual elements might create additional
knowledge. For instance, a collaborative environment and organizational
158 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

support may help to understand how to apply the laws that the employee does
not understand; an outburst of emotion from a parent might indicate that they
still care for their child. The complex interplay of contextual elements creates a
challenge to accurately decipher what is really going on, which sometimes
makes workers feel legitimate, but not always right. In the following para­
graphs, we describe this interplay of contextual elements in more detail.
The uncertainty of DM context in a given situation is, firstly, generated by
the micro environment, in which a family lives and the psychosocial atmo­
sphere, in which the child is being brought up. This context, into which a
professional arrives and has to make a decision is often unfamiliar and
emotionally demanding. An acquaintance with a family often starts from
examining the available data about the family, during the journey to their
home. It is expected that the information on a given situation or the possibi­
lities of a child’s temporary placement (e.g., at relatives) will be complemented
by the information provided by the parents. However, the additional informa­
tion that workers receive from them is not always reliable. Parents’ coopera­
tion might be constructive (in cases when they are sober) or destructive (in
cases when they are intoxicated or violent).
The objects that surround a child are another source of contextual clues.
Moreover, according to the order of integration (Babrow, 2001, it is the
physical surrounding that gives the first cues about the family situation. The
objects are the carriers of information, and a worker has to decipher their
meaning. In that sense, the objects are the contextual actors (Latour, 2005) that
elicit worker’s insights. The things that a worker sees, smells, or perceives
through other senses create a context for DM. These embodied cues have an
accumulative effect, and result in what we call an “embodied uncertainty.” The
similar term, an “embodied risk,” is used in the research on patients having
cancer or other serious illnesses (Rees, 2018), and implies the uncertainty
about the state of one’s body. In our research, the “embodied uncertainty” is
rather an imprint of visible and perceptible environment, which, for a worker,
who comes from another social space (Liu, 2021), might be difficult to inter­
pret correctly (e.g., is absence of a TV – a neglect of the child’s interests or a
sign of poverty?).
What is most clear, is that a child and his or her safety are the focus of
professionals’ attention. Usually, a child’s condition is an obvious and non-
negotiable fact. In some cases, however, there also might be certain ambiguity,
e.g., if children have a visible sign of a trauma (such as a bruise), but both they
and their parents insist that this happened during play.
Another important contextual clue is how parents take care of their chil­
dren. Despite the fact that a child protection workers’ decision often has to rely
on what is seen here and now, the child’s appearance and the behaviors of
other family members (sisters or brothers) allow them to draw a bigger
picture, which extends the limits of a snapshot. The emotions that parents
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 159

express when facing the danger of a child's removal are both the source of
additional information about the situation at hand, and a challenge to child
protection workers because they have to face anger, aggression, or the oppo­
site, total indifference. Often the strong emotions of parents are not easily
decipherable – does a mother act ardently because she is expressing her regret
at the removal of her child, or she is merely fighting against an invasion into
what she perceives as her private life?
Child care workers also try to decipher the meanings of what they see, hear,
and sense, relying on experiential intuitions, that (Krieger, 2019) accumulated
in similar situations in disadvantaged families. This embodied knowledge,
when workers act almost in a “reflex-like” manner, is what Zinn (2008) calls
an “intuition.” All of this highlights the mediating role of the workers’
personal and professional qualities, in interpreting the home environment
and its psychosocial atmosphere.
Time was indicated among the important contextual elements by other
authors as well (e.g., Bruch and Feinberg (2017), Harenčárová (2017)), and is
also a source of additional stress. Time is perceived as ambiguous both
objectively (often a call about a necessary intervention into a family is received
at night), and subjectively, when workers struggle to find the right place, or are
restricted in their right to call to a supervisor (e.g., in case they doubt how to
interpret the legal provisions in a specific individual situation).
Zinn (2008) stresses the role of trust in the DM, e.g., in the experts with the
most appropriate knowledge and skills for the particular occasion, because
these situations usually need to be resolved in limited time and sometimes
with limited knowledge. Our study revealed that when workers encounter the
ambiguity of a situation, it is very important for them to consult with the heads
of their agencies, as the experts in the DM. To Beauregard (2018), organiza­
tional support (emotional or instrumental, provided by the head or collea­
gues) can be a facilitating factor in decreasing uncertainty in DM, though not
always available. For instance, in our case a “wrong” (night) time is often not
convenient for a call to the head of the office, especially when workers fear that
such a call will be attributed to their lack of professionalism. Munro (2019)
defines this as a negative error culture in child protection services, which leads
to workers’ fear of blame and a defensive approach. The negative error culture
prevents employees from using manager support effectively, which could
otherwise help reduce the uncertainty in some DM situations.
Thus, on the one hand, child protection workers are bound by organizational
rules and policies (Evans, 2013). On the other hand, they are provided with
discretionary space for DM, which implies a risk that their decisions may be too
arbitrary (Heggdalsvik, Rød, & Heggen, 2018). In the frame of our research the
discretionary space for DM is perceived by child protection workers both as an
opportunity to express their expertise, to act in the best interest of a child, or as a
higher level of uncertainty and insecurity because the worker is afraid to make a
160 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

mistake when making a decision and be accused. Research shows that the
experience of discretion is affected by organizational and institutional factors
(Liodden, 2019). For example, a worker remembers that he or she has long been
blamed for an error that occurred when he or she has exercised discretion. But
with the support of managers and colleagues, uncertainty caused by discretion
can be reduced (Liodden, 2019), and we may call it “a shared discretion” in
decision making. Perhaps this might explain why our study revealed that super­
visor support is very important for workers in making a decision.
The uncertainty of the DM context is also constructed by macro factors.
Legislation is lacking clarity, and frequent changes in it do not allow employ­
ees to delve deeply into the legal acts and understand how to apply them; on
the other hand, workers face situations where their experience and profession­
alism speak for themselves, but the legislation forces them to do the opposite.
Workers are not certain if implementing the regulations always complies with
the best interests of a child. In that sense, the regulations are also a source of
uncertainty.
The fear of blame arises not only from the organizational culture, but also
from the public discourse. Retrospective interviews allowed us to detect that
child protection workers cannot relieve the burden of public opinion, which in
all the interviews was defined as judgmental and condemning. A lack of public
support was identified as an important element of the DM context. Negative
views of society toward child protection workers is like the sword of Damocles,
hanging over their heads, forcing them to consider well every decision,
because in the event of a mistake, the next day the media might start scolding
them about it.
In general, our concept about uncertainty in the context of a family home,
in which the decision on child safety or removal has to be made, mostly stems
from the ambiguous and conflicting sources of information, which are also
related to unclear alternatives and an unpredictability of outcomes. Therefore,
we agree with (Han, Klein, & Arora, 2011, p. 832), who stated that “all
uncertainty, scientific or not, might ultimately be construed as epistemic –
related to the incompleteness of one’s knowledge.” Moreover, when child
protection workers have to make a decision, the source of uncertainty –
incomplete and conflicting knowledge about a complex issue – is aggravated
by the resource constraints (Bilcke, Beutels, Brisson, & Jit, 2011). In our case,
such constraints are time, lack of societal support and lack of support by
organization heads in particular.

Practical implications of the research

By understanding the duality of these contextual elements and their interac­
tion in a particular, situation, we can learn to manage the uncertainty in
decision making. First, the results might help to reduce the stress of workers
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 161

and increase their well-being. Second, in order to better decipher individual

context elements, it might be relevant to develop training programs for such
competences as applying the legislation in a particular case, communication
with parents and children, and time and stress management. Third, the results
emphasize the importance of change in the organizational culture of child
protection agencies, because it strengthens the different types of organizational
support and mutual trust between employees and managerial staff. Moreover,
as the lack of social support was the only contextual element with a negative
connotation, this suggests that workers, while committing themselves to the
principles of confidentiality and professional ethics, might learn to better
articulate to the public the influence that the negative public attitudes have
on their own decisions, and to more successfully represent their work as a
service to society.

Limitations
This model has been developed in a particular social and cultural context, thus
further research is needed to test this model in other countries, which may
enrich it with additional elements. Its relevance should also be tested in other
professions with a high level of uncertainty. Besides, due to the word limit an
additional theoretical line – a worker’s discretion in DM – has not been
elaborated on, and probably it could add new aspects to the model. Another
limitation is that men make up only about a third of the informants, so the
sample possibly does not reflect the DM variations in respect to gender.

Conclusions
The study revealed that the context of DM in child removal situations is a
multifaceted and multilayered phenomenon, as was also argued by other
studies on decision-making in a variety of other disciplines. Our research
allowed us to define the context of decision making in a child removal
situation, presenting it as an assemblage of the following elements: private
family home environment, child’s conditions, parenting atmosphere, informa­
tion, organizational support, personal characteristics of the professionals, legal
regulation, public support, and time as perceived by a child protection worker.
These elements construct the uncertainty in the work environment of child
protection workers.
Our contribution to studies of the decision-making context is the disclosure
of an inherent duality of separate context elements, which presupposes a child
protection worker’s navigation through uncertainty when deciding to either
remove a child, or leave him or her in a family. Moreover, the interplay
between the elements of the context might reduce or increase the uncertainty.
The study also contributed to the research on work in a private setting, by
162 L. ŽALIMIENĖ ET AL.

revealing that child protection workers’ decisions in a private family home

take place within the strong influence of an agency culture, which, in turn,
might reduce or increase the uncertainty of the workers’ decision. Such a
collision between organizational and family cultures further increases the
uncertainty and the risk of making a wrong decision.

Acknowledgments
The authors express gratitude to Professor Elena Cabiati from Catholic University of Sacred
Heart in Milan whose guidance and corrections to the draft version were very helpful and
encouraging.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
Research was supported by the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT) under Grant No. S-
MIP-19-37. 2019-2021.

Notes on contributors
Laimutė Žalimienė is a Professor at the Sociology and Social Work Institute, Vilnius
University. Her research interests focus on social support policy, organization of social services,
occupational welfare and wellbeing.
Violeta Gevorgianienė is an Associate Professor at the Sociology and Social Work Institute,
Vilnius University. Her research interests include dignity of persons with disabilities and their
inclusion, participatory research methods, social ecology.
Donata Petružytė is an Associated Professor at the Sociology and Social Work Institute,
Vilnius University. Her research interests include theory interrelation between different social
problems, innovative social work methods, psychotherapy in social work, mental health,
development of qualitative research methods.
Miroslavas Seniutis is a doctoral candidate at the Sociology and Social Work Institute, Vilnius
University. His research interests include the role of information technology in social and
organizational changes as well as anthropological and participatory action research methods
with a particular focus on empowerment of the vulnerable groups.
Lijana Gvaldaitė is an Associate Professor at Sociology and Social work Institute of Vilnius
University. Her teaching and researches are focused on various issues of family and child well-
being, in particular, on foster care and adoption, h social work methods and
professionalization.
 NAVIGATING THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY 163

Eglė Šumskienė is an Associate Professor at the Sociology and Social Work Institute, Vilnius
University, and the director of the Institute. Her research interests include human rights and
social work, rights of persons with intellectual and mental disabilities, stigma and discrimina­
tion, social care institutions.
Jūratė Charenkova works at the faculty of Philosophy of Vilnius University. Her research
interests include various aspects of welfare and wellbeing of older people (formal and informal
care, leisure quality, changes of social network, identity, etc.), gerontological social work,
qualitative research.

ORCID
Laimutė Žalimienė http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0445-4643
Violeta Gevorgianienė http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6816-8390
Donata Petružytė http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3268-4895
Miroslavas Seniutis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8089-3341
Lijana Gvaldaitė http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2916-8176
Eglė Šumskienė http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8645-5748
Jūratė Charenkova http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7315-9168

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