Exploration Of Decision Making Among Child Welfare Social Workers In British Columbia

A Doctoral dissertation studying the lived experience of decision making by child welfare social workers in British Columbia, Canada. Through personal interviews with eight social workers currently employed by the province of British Columbia, who each had more than ten years of experience, information was collected about decision making in both crisis and non-crisis situations. The participants revealed that, contrary to the literature, they used intuition based on their experience and expertise in the field of social work as a supplement to rational decision-making processes in both situations. This has implications for future research and for social work leadership. The field of social work has been moving towards decision aids and structured decision-making tools in an attempt to standardize social work decision- making. The role of intuition based on practice experience needs to be addressed by research on decision making and the practice of child welfare social work.