Systems Complexity in Child Protection and Welfare

Aisling Gillen is a Visiting Research Fellow in the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Galway and former Service Director with Ireland’s Child Protection Agency.John Canavan is Director of the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre and Personal Professor in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Galway.Carmel Devaney is Associate Director of the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, Lecturer and Head of Discipline of Applied Social Science in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Galway.Caroline McGregor is Senior Research Fellow in the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre and Personal Professor in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Galway.

• 1.Introduction: Understanding and responding to complexity in Child Protection and Welfare practice, services, and systems. 2.The Global Challenges of Child Protection that contribute to complexity. 3.Systems Complexity Theory- Concepts and Characteristics. 4.Systems Complexity Theory and Policymaking. 5.Systems complexity theory and practice, service, and system leadership. 6.Informing practice through the application of complexity theory and a complexity ‘lens’. 7.Applying complexity-theory thinking to practice, service and system evaluation in complex child protection and welfare (CPW) work. 8.Towards a Systems Complexity Framework: for Child Protection and Welfare: Key learnings and future considerations.