Effect of multi-disciplinary deliberation on perceptions of risk and recommended actions in response to child abuse

Multi-disciplinary case review meetings are commonly held to facilitate a holistic response to child abuse. This study set out to examine whether multi-agency case review meetings change the perceptions of members in response to series of child abuse vignettes. The study involved twelve participants from law enforcement, child protection, health, and education agencies who regularly responded to child abuse in their jurisdiction. The study replicated ‘Strategy Meetings’, a multi-agency meeting that occurs in Western Australia at the start of a child abuse case. The study involved a novel pre-post design, with follow-up interviews. Participants were asked to read a child abuse vignette and assess the case, participate in a 15-minute case deliberation, then complete the same individual assessment with a total of 52 pre-post assessments completed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine participants a week following their session. The study found that participants generally did not change their perceptions of the case as a result of the deliberation sessions (Current Risk Scale Z = 0.173, p = 0.863, Future Risk Scale Z = 0.293, p = 0.769, & Response Scale Z = −0.161, p = 0.872). The interviews suggest that the deliberation sessions identified numerous points of difference on the cases, but these did not appear to be resolved by discussing the case in the time available. Further research on the effect of deliberation on larger samples and more diverse team structures is needed to clarify the purpose and value of holding multi-disciplinary case review meetings.