By the 1950s, we began to see a different response from government assuming more responsibility and increasing its use of legislative power to enforce adequate standards of care. We saw the closing of many large institutions and the establishment of smaller residential facilities for children in need of care and protection (Tomison, 2001, p.48). The ideology behind this child protection reforms Harris (2003) explained that was driven by a more overarching business discourse to increase the effectiveness and efficiency in the provision of services .
In the 1960’s we saw the rise of what is known as the second wave of the child “rescue movement” driven by research professionals such as Dr Henry Kempe who introduced the concept of the “battered- child syndrome” providing medical evidence of physical injuries of abuse by the family and other care givers. (CFCA, 2015). Laws also began to change at around this time, making it a legal obligation for health professionals to report apparent child abuse. (CFCA,2015). We began to see the evolution of different theoretical models that inform the development of child protection systems Nett and Spratt (2012). Not only did philanthropic communities felt an obligation to act and protect children from abuse and neglect, but the government began to assume responsibility to examine apparent child abuse cases and provide child protection services (Lamont & Bromfield, 2010).
According to Harris (2003 ) in the 1980’s and 1990’s child protection services adopted a more business-like approach to child protection, employing case managers , developing business plans, following a managerial approach, measuring service outputs and entering in competitive tendering processes. Spratt (2001) also identified two other significant ideologies that have influenced child protection reform, and these are bureaucratic and technocratic ideology. This change in ideology provided different child protection work practices, solutions, case management systems that were more legalistic and bureaucratic and it involved more layers of accountability Howe (1992)
One of the criticisms of technocratic ideology is that it tends to exclude other ways of improving the skills of the workforce, for example, through staff development initiatives. History exemplifies that child protection policy and practice reform predominantly have been shaped and driven by ideology and less so by research-based evidence Gray, Plath, & Webb, 2009; Sholnsky & Stern (2007). According to Gillingham, (2014) the explanation for this occurrence is that choosing research base evidence over ideology in policy and service practice reform is not always a simple and easy task to achieve and can result as history has shown in wrong cause