Partial Truths: Documents in NSW Children’s Court

Chris KroghPhD Student

School Social Sciences and PsychologyUniversity Western Sydney

Words

• WordsAll these wordsShould be fragrant as the sea of pineAs morning starsFading at dawn above the mountains

(Kosovel )

Background to the research

• PhD; University Western Sydney– Due to be completed later this year

• Title: Documents as (en)actors in NSW child protection’s regimes of living.

• Question: “What do child protection court documents do to the people closely involved with them?”

Breaking the title apart

• NSW child protection– Viewed ‘ecologically’: all the agencies, strategies, people

and ideas that seek to prevent harm to children or respond when it does occur.

– In this research: the NSW Children’s Court

• Documents as (en)actors– Documents ‘do’ things and make things different

– (see, for example, Cooren, 2004, Latour, 2005, Frohmann, 2008)

– E.g. Care Application and Initiating Affidavit

• ‘Regimes of living’– Global assemblages (Collier and Ong, 2005)– Governmentality (Foucault, 1991)– Regimes of living (Collier and Lakoff, 2005)– Common Assessment Framework (White, et al. 2009)

Research Method

• Single unit case study• Document review• Interviews– Parent–Magistrate– Caseworker– Casework manager– Solicitor– Contact worker

(Some) interview themes

1. Documents tell stories2. Global assemblages – UNCRC; parenting

capacity; attachment. 3. Documents’ roles in child protection’s

processes of regulating parenting (as per

Barithwaite et al. 2009). 4. Gendered responses to child protection

processes and documents5. Documents have immediate effects6. Documents have future effects

Interview themes continued

• Documents embody inequity• Documents are made up of other

documents: police, hospital/health, prison, housing, etc. – What kinds of representations of people can be

built from those sources?

• Documents invite participants to take up a position – honesty, fairness, considerateness – ‘Regimes of living’ conceptualisations were

supported.

Where is the child?

• In the court process:– Child’s position or experience or

representation was not directly explored in this research

– Documents are the only way that some people will ever know the child – Magistrate for example.

Documents are (en)actors

• Documents are integral elements of the Children’s Court assemblage/ecology– this court does not function without them

• What role do you occupy when you write?

• And then, what position does your writing invite you to occupy? – What are you trying to make better even

within highly constrained circumstances?

IF YOUii“If the poets stay silent

who will tell youof the flash and flame

in that evil moment? If the poets do not speak

who will tell youof the demon skin that melted so unnaturally?

 If the poets run away

who will make the words knownEpitaph*

 “Forever carved in stoneA shadow thrown on the sandBetween heaven and earth, fallenThe spirit of a flower”