Exploration of decision making among child welfare social workers in British Columbia

The goal of this qualitative study was to examine the lived experience of decision making by child welfare social workers in British Columbia, Canada. The research problem was a gap in research regarding the decision making of expert child welfare social workers in both crisis and non-crisis situations. The phenomenological research design was to allow social workers the opportunity to express their lived experience of decision making. Through personal interviews with eight social workers currently employed by the Ministry of Children and Family Development in British Columbia, who each had more than ten years of experience, information was collected about decision making in both crisis and non-crisis situations. These data from the interviews were analyzed through a modified Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method that included writing textural and structural descriptions of the participants' interviews and combining these into composite descriptions. From the interviews, the participants revealed that, contrary to the literature, they used intuition as a supplement to rational decision-making processes in both crisis and non-crisis situations. Intuition was based on their experience and expertise in the field of social work. 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.