Risk assessment and decision making in child protection

My research covers cardinal professional skills and reasoning, including engaging effectively with service users, identifying future risk, and deciding when and how to intervene. It incorporates four levels of analysis—individual, group, organizational, and policy—and seeks to identify the interconnections between them.

Children’s participation in child maltreatment research and practice

Considering children as active agents in society entitled to decision-making power over their lives, my research focuses on increasing opportunities for meaningful, ethical, and effective participation of children in research and practice around child maltreatment.

Client aggression toward employees in social services industries

Paradoxically, social services providers become targets of aggression by the same people they are trying to help. My research examines key aspects of workplace aggression, including antecedents, outcomes, and coping strategies.

A.   Ph.D. Dissertation

         Alfandari, R. (2015). An Evaluation of Child Protection Reform in Israel [Doctoral dissertation, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)]. LSE Theses Online. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/3254

B.   Scientific Books (Refereed)

a.     Edited Books and Special Journal Issues

         Roth, M., Alfandari, R., & G. Crous. (Eds.). (2023). Participatory research on child maltreatment with children and adult survivors: Concepts, ethics, and methods. Emerald Press. [Accepted for publication]

C.   Articles in Refereed Journals

1. Alfandari, R. (2009). The effects of environmental factors on aggressive behaviour among adolescents. Violence, 2, 13–39. (In Hebrew)

2. Alfandari, R. (2016). Evaluation of a national reform in the Israeli child protection system designed to improve children’s participation in decision making. Child and Family Social Work, 22, 54–62.

          [Recipient of ESPAnet ISRAEL award]

3. Alfandari, R. (2016). Evaluation of a national reform in the Israeli child protection system designed to improve children’s participation in decision-making. Social Security, 99, 13–30. (In Hebrew)

4. Alfandari, R. (2016). Partnership with parents in child protection: A systems approach to evaluate reformative developments in Israel. British Journal of Social Work, 47, 1061–1077.

5. Alfandari, R. (2017). Systemic barriers to effective utilisation of decision-making tools in child protection practice. Child Abuse & Neglect, 67, 207–215.

6. Alfandari, R. (2018). Systemic barriers to effective utilisation of decision-making tools in child protection practice. Society & Welfare, 38, 707–727. (In Hebrew)

7. Alfandari, R. (2019). Multi-professional work in child protection decision-making: An Israeli case study. Children and Youth Services Review, 98, 51–57.

8. Alfandari, R. (2019). Legal advocacy for parents in child protection: Not a question of if but a question of how? British Journal of Social Work, 49, 1601–1618.

9. Alfandari, R. (2019). Approaching the study of client-professional cyberbullying from a systems perspective. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 48, 60–64.

10. Nouman, H., Alfandari, R., Enosh, G., Dolev, L., & Daskal-Weichhendler H. (2020). Mandatory reporting between legal requirements and personal interpretations: Community healthcare professionals’ reporting of child maltreatment. Child Abuse & Neglect, 101, 104–261.

11. Nouman, H., & Alfandari, R. (2020). Identifying children suspected for maltreatment: The assessment process taken by healthcare professional working in community healthcare services. Children & Youth Services Review, 113, 104964.

12. Enosh, G., Alfandari, R., Nouman, H., Dolev, L., & Dascal-Weichhendler H. (2020). Assessing, consulting, reporting: Heuristics in professional decision-making regarding suspected child maltreatment in community healthcare services. Child Maltreatment, 26(3), 291–301.

13. Alfandari, R., Enosh, G., & Rechnitzer, H. (2020). To split or include? Child sexual abuse mandate reporting in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community. Children & Youth Services Review, 120, 105759.

14. Alfandari, R., Massarwa, Z., & Enosh, G. (2021). Applying Intersectionality theory to understand Arab art-therapists’ experience in child maltreatment mandatory reporting. Health & Social Care in the Community, 29(6), 1747–1755.

         (First and second authors contributed equally to the manuscript)

15. Alfandari, R., & Taylor, B. J. (2021). Systematic bibliographic database searching for literature reviews: Case study on child protection decision making. British Journal of Social Work, 52(1), 518–535.

16. Sicora, A., Taylor, B. J., Alfandari, R., Enosh, G., Killick, C., Lyons, O., Mullineux, J., Rölver, M., & Whittaker, A. (2021). Using intuition in social work decision making. European Journal of Social Work, 25(4), 772–787.

17. Alfandari, R., & Taylor, B. J. (2021) Processes of multi-professional child protection decision making in hospital setting: Systematic narrative review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 24(1), 295–312.

18. Alfandari, R., & Taylor, B. J. (2021). Community-based multi-professional child protection decision making: Systematic narrative review. Child Abuse & Neglect, 123,

19. Alfandari, R., Taylor, B. J., Enosh, G., Killick, C., McCafferty, P., Przepers., Rölver, M., & Whittaker, A. (2022). Group decision-making theories for child and family social work. European Journal of Social Work. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2021.2016651

20. Alfandari, R., Enosh, G., Tzafrir, S. S., & Regehr, C. (2022). Understanding health outcomes following workplace aggression: A social exchange perspective. Health & Social Care in the Community, 30(6), 3995–4005.

21. Alfandari, R., Enosh, G., Nouman, H., Dolev, L., & Dascal-Weichhendler, H. (2022). Judgements of physicians, nurses, and social workers regarding suspected Child maltreatment in community health care services. Health & Social Care in the Community, 30(6), 4782–4792.

22. Alfandari, R., Taylor, B. J., Baginsky, M., Campbell, J., Helm, D., Killick, C., McCafferty, P., Mullineux, J., Shears, J., Sicora, A., & Whittaker, A. (2022). Making sense of risk: Social work at the interface of care and control. Health, Risk & Society25(1-2) special issue on social work at boundaries. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698575.2022.2147904

D.   Articles or Chapters in Scientific Books (Refereed)

1. Alfandari, R. (2019). Systemic barriers to effective implementation of child protection reform in Israel. In U. Klammer, S. Leiber, & S. Leitner (Eds.), Social work and the making of social policy (pp. 155–167). Policy Press.

2. Alfandari, R., Przeperski, J., & Taylor, J. B. (2023). Interprofessional decision making. In B. J. Taylor, J. D. Fluke, J. C. Graham, E. Keddell, C. Killick, A. Shlonsky & A. Whittaker (Eds.), The Sage handbook of decision making, assessment and risk in social work. Sage. [Accepted for publication]

3. Alfandari, R., Crous, G., & Fuentes-Pelaez, N. (2023). Children’s participation in research on violence affecting them: A European overview. In M. Roth, R. Alfandari, & G. Crous (Eds.), Participatory research on child maltreatment with children and adult survivors: Concepts, ethics, and methods. Emerald Press. [Accepted for publication]

E.     Other Scientific Publications

         Book Reviews

1. Alfandari, R. (2019). Child welfare removals by the state: A cross-country analysis of decision-making systems. Social Security, 107, 1–3. (In Hebrew)

        Scientific Reports

1. Alfandari, R. (2017). Parents’ representation in child protection decision making processes of the social services – Literature review of five European countries. Myers-JDC-Brookdale. (In Hebrew)

2. Ben-Rabi, D., Alfandari, R., & Philippov, M. (2018). Evaluation of the “Families Meet Opportunity” program: Final report. Myers-JDC-Brookdale. (In Hebrew)

3. Alfandari, R. (2018). Parents’ legal representation in planning Intervention and Evaluation Committees: The chairs’ perspective. Myers-JDC-Brookdale. (In Hebrew)

4. Alfandari, R. (2021). Risk factors for intimate partner violence: Review of systematic reviews. Institute of Justice (Poland).

F.     Other Works and Publications

          Podcasts

1. Alfandari, R., McCafferty, P., & Mercado García, E. (2022). Panda Project: Participation and collaboration for action. https://qubstudentcloud-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/3052289_ads_qub_ac_uk/EZ6myDplRjtIh4og1jRSL0EBpPo73hL5tPbROkjJYNcs1g

Future Research Plans

A core principle of my scholarly work is to develop action as much as knowledge. My professional experience engaging with individuals who slipped through the safety net of the state’s welfare system elicited a deep commitment to generate evidence that can facilitate early help and effective social programming. A basic question that recently directs my empirical work is: “How can technology help professionals make better decisions?” As a step forward, I started leading a comprehensive research project, designed for several years and funded by grants aimed to improve health care professionals’ capacity to identify and manage suspected child physical abuse cases through the development of an AI-driven digital clinical decision support system that will integrate and bridge the welfare and health care systems.

Of the many things that my empirical research has emphasized is that the provision of social interventions can be done in better or worse ways, but they cannot be taken off the shelf. Failure by policymakers and practitioners to acknowledge broad contextual factors increases the risk of exposing individuals to ineffective or potentially harmful interventions. Therefore, I constantly strive to apply a cross-country perspective to my scientific inquiry. My position as a leading member in several active European research networks provides me with considerable ongoing opportunities for joint international research.