User-Centered Policy Design: Importance of an Anti-racism Lens for Child Welfare

• In Event: Race and Public Policy

Abstract

In Ontario, Black children and youth are overrepresented at every stage of the child welfare system – from initial investigation to placement in out-of-home care (Bonnie and Facey 2022). Specifically, while accounting for 7% of Ontario children and youth between the ages of 0 and 15, Black children and youth are involved in 13.9% of child welfare investigations (Bonnie and Facey 2022). At the same time, existing public engagement practises in Ontario present significant challenges for Black individuals to influence the policy development process (Abebe and George 2022). Most notably, participants in public engagement sessions run by the government agencies typically come from privileged backgrounds, and thus have both time and opportunity to participate (Soni et al. 2022). When marginalized representatives get involved, their input is sometimes ignored as not representative of the general population. Therefore, voices from Black communities often get lost in policy and decision-making processes (Abebe and George 2022; Fan and Fox 2022). Research indicates that this problem is not unique to Ontario, but occurs in many jurisdictions throughout Canada, North America, and Europe (Fan and Fox 2022).

User-centred design is an approach to policy development that engages individuals directly impacted by government policies in identifying policy solutions. Its major distinction from the policy co-development process is that it involves primary research of end-user needs and perspectives as opposed to engagement with community representatives. It is regarded by governments in Canada and the United States as the best means of incorporating end-user needs into public services and policies (Mergel et al. 2021). Specifically, public policy and administration scholars note that iteration and prototyping involving end-users significantly enhances the quality of public services (Mergel et al. 2021). Although empirical analysis of the applicability of user-centred design for policy development is limited, some authors emphasize its benefits for facilitating a collaborative and innovative approach of knowledge creation to inform policy (Shaw and Suplee 2018). Despite these benefits, using design sessions to solicit end-user perspectives is not without its challenges. Soni et al. (2022) argue that user-centred design can fail to address systemic racism as participant recruitment is usually done by those in the positions of power. Moreover, the number of participants at design sessions is typically small, creating an opportunity to understand lived experiences but not generalizable to larger populations.

This paper discusses our approach to mitigating the critiques noted by Soni et al. (2022). By introducing an anti-racism lens throughout the user-centred policy design process: from research design and participant recruitment to incorporating suggestions gathered during the design sessions into the Child Welfare Redesign Strategy (CWRS) implementation, in partnership with the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services – a ministry of the Ontario Government responsible for the implementation of the CWRS, we highlight the importance of deliberate involvement of marginalized populations in the policy development and design processes. In addition, building on the preliminary results from the design sessions, the paper will point out the unique needs of Black children and youth in the child welfare system and service providers providing child welfare services in Black communities in Ontario.

Bibliography

Abebe, Alpha, and Rhonda C. George. 2022. “Failure to Include Black Communities in Health Policy Public Engagement Perpetuates Health Disparities.” The Conversation. Accessed November 9, 2022. http://theconversation.com/failure-to-include-black-communities-in-health-policy-public-engagement-perpetuates-health-disparities-180383.
Bonnie, Nicole and Keishia Facey. 2022. “Understanding the Over-representation of Black Children in Ontario Child Welfare Services,” Accessed November 9, 2022. https://www.oacas.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Black-Children-in-Care-OIS-Report-2022-Final.pdf. 50 pages.
Fan, Bonnie and Sarah E. Fox. 2022. “Access Under Duress: Pandemic-Era Lessons on Digital Participation and Datafication in Civic Engagement.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 6 (GROUP): 1–22.
Mergel, Ines, Sukumar Ganapati, and Andrew B. Whitford. 2021. “Agile: A New Way of Governing.” Public Administration Review 81 (1): 161–165.
Shaw, Sara and Lauren Supplee. 2018. “Human-Centered Design can create more efficient and effective social service programs.” Child Trends. https://www.childtrends.org/blog/human-centered-design-can-create-more-efficient-and-effective-social-service-programs
Soni, Sonya, Jessica Mason, and Jermeen Sherman. 2022. “Beyond Human-Centered Design: The Promise of Anti-Racist Community-Centered Approaches in Child Welfare Program and Policy Design.” Child Welfare 100 (1): 81–110.

Authors

• Maria Gintova, McMaster University

• Abigail Ruth Jaimes Zelaya, McMaster University

• Elliot Goodell Ugalde, Queen's University