Illuminating the complexity of decision making in child welfare using the decision making ecology: A scoping review

Decision making in the context of child welfare is inherently complex and their lasting potential impact on families subject to them cannot be overstated. The Decision-Making Ecology is one framework for understanding this complexity as well as the interplay between various decision-making factors and the subsequent outcomes that they inform. The purpose of this scoping review was to understand the extent to which the Decision-Making Ecology has been employed in research examining case, decision-maker, organizational, and community factors’ associations with child welfare decisional outcomes. Our review of 56 studies found that most studies (n = 48, 86 %) examine case factors, organizational factors are the second most likely category to be explored (n = 42, 75 %), followed by decision-maker (n = 33, 59 %) and external factors (n = 29, 52 %). A majority of studies explored more than one domain; indeed, nearly 90 % of studies (n = 50) explored at least two domains while a mere six studies explored just one. Further, nearly 60 % of studies (n = 33) explored three domains while nearly a quarter (n = 13) explored all four. Across methodologies placement and substantiation were the most commonly explored outcomes in nearly a third and fifth of studies (n = 18, n = 12), respectively. While the results of our scoping review confirm the premise of the DME; when examining decisions and outcomes, decisional factor variation matters and DME framework continues to provide a useful scaffold for productive child welfare decision-making research. It also clearly demonstrates that there is ample room for more research in this area, particularly as it relates to proposing solutions to address the root causes of decisional variability and thus, inequitable outcomes for marginalized populations.