Children and Youth Services have just published a detailed independent analysis from the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia of the six-year system wide implementation of the Signs of Safety approach within the Western Australian Department of Child Protection (DCP). DCP serves Australia’s largest geographical jurisdiction with a population of almost 3 million people. This article published in one of the field’s leading journals documents DCP’s simultaneous bottom-up/top-down practitioner and organisational-led implementation and learning journey. The paper analyses the implementation effort drawing on Roger’s diffusion of innovation theory and Fixsen’s five-stage implementation science model highlighting the key facilitators and barriers in the practice and organizational reform.
The full reference is:
Salveron, M., Bromfield, L., Kirika, C., Simmons, J., Murphy, T. Turnell, A. (2015). ‘Changing the way we do child protection’: The implementation of Signs of Safety® within the Western Australia Department for Child Protection and Family Support, Children and Youth Services Review 48: 126–139
A digital version of the paper is available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740914004095.