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A Systemic Governance Approach to an Effective Re-integration Process for the Institutionalized Children in Sri Lanka: Application of Critical Systems Heuristics

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Abstract

This is the second paper which makes a case in a two part paper. The first paper was titled “The quality of life of Sri Lankan Children: Participatory Action Research (PAR) to address the governance issues of the Voluntary Children’s Homes” (Ariyadasa and McIntyre-Mills, Quality of life of Sri Lankan children: participatory action research to address the governance issues of voluntary children’s homes, 2014). The first paper explored the governance issues of the Sri Lankan children’s homes and clarified that institutionalized children are denied their rights, often because their re-integration process is not efficient and/or effective. Thus, this paper addresses the issue of systemic governance of the re-integration process of the voluntary children’s homes as part of PhD research using PAR and critical systemic praxis undertaken at Flinders University. The research addresses the major task for policy makers and service providers to ensure that institutionalised children are supported by a systemic program that addresses their complex social needs. The research was conducted across all nine provinces in Sri Lanka, involving policy makers and service providers responsible for institutional care of children. All nine commissioners of the provincial departments of probation and child care services were interviewed to collect information on policy implications and their role in the policy making process. Thirty managers from different children’s homes were interviewed to ascertain information with regards to their service provision. All 298 probation officers, 287 child rights promotion officers, and matrons and wardens of all 416 children’s homes were included in a questionnaire census approach. Of these, approximately half responded. The aim of the research is to advocate for the standard of care the children receive, and the life chances they deserve in order for them to reach their full potential and integrate into their societies when they leave the children’s homes. In achieving this aim, the paper discusses the significance of re-integration and critiques the existing re-integration mechanism using this PAR’s empirical and secondary data. Furthermore, by applying Ulrich’s Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH), through this paper, we attempt to explore praxis to address the social justice challenge encountered by institutionalized children. The 12 boundary questions of CSH in the actual and ideal modes (Flood and Romm, Critical systems thinking: current research and practice, 1996) have made a platform to inquire the process by which plans are implemented and evaluated.

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Notes

  1. Institutional care: In this PAR, institutional care is mostly referred to as voluntary children’s homes.

  2. The family: “… the family (is) the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children … the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding …” (United Nations 1989, p. 1).

  3. UN Guidelines: United Nations, Resolution adopted by the General Assembly [On the report of the Third Committee (A/64/434)] 24 February 2010. Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children set out desirable orientations for policy and practice with the intention of enhancing the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and of relevant provisions of other international instruments regarding the protection and well-being of children deprived of parental care or who are at risk of being so.

  4. Participatory Action Research (PAR): “In participatory action research, some of the people in the organization or community under study participate actively with the professional researcher throughout the research process from the initial design to the final presentation of results and discussion of their action implications. Participatory Action Research (PAR) thus contrasts sharply with the conventional model of pure research, in which members of organizations and communities are related as passive subjects, with some of them participating only to the extent of authorizing the project, being its subjects, and receiving the results” (Whyte et al., 1989).

  5. PCM: The committee meeting that is held with the intention of reviewing the position of children in the home from time to time and to plan activities oriented toward their future well-being” (Roccella 2007, p. 63).

  6. General Standards: Department of Probation and Child Care, Fixation of General Standards for Promoting the Quality of Services in Voluntary Children’s Homes, S3/Gon/15, 15th October 1991—reported in Annex IV of Roccella (2007, p. 57).

  7. Sri Lanka ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1991 (IDLO 2007, p. 2) and the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children is an outcome of the resolution adopted by the General Assembly. The UN encourages States to take the Guidelines into account and to bring them to the attention of the relevant executive, legislative and judiciary bodies of government. UN Guidelines has identified ‘the child’ as an important member of the team that decide whether the reintegration of the child in the family is possible and in the best interests of the child (UN Guidelines Paragraph 49).

  8. Capabilities: The child’s missing capacities such as health, safety, education etc. that could have caused the child’s institutionalization. These missing capacities have to be transformed to capabilities before the child is re-integrated.

  9. Other circumstances: To socialize a child who has turned to the age of 18, s/he should be capable of sending a reasonably satisfied life after reintegration. The capabilities such as finding a suitable livelihood, adequate shelter, safety etc. fall into the category of other circumstance when an institutionalized child is socialized.

  10. Other permanent solution: adoption and Kafala of Islamic law (United Nations 2010, p. 2).

  11. To maintain the credibility of the results, the sample was selected representing all standard categories based on the grading standards granted by DPCCS at the children’s home standardization competition held nationwide in 2010.

  12. Four major variables: Potential re-integration, recommended re-integration, actual re-integration and parents’/guardians’ attendance to PCMs (variables w, x, y and z in Table 1).

  13. Potential no. of re-integration: The number of children, who have the potentiality to be re-unified, socialized or adopted out of the total no. of institutionalized children.

  14. Actual no. of re-integration: The number of children, who have been actually re-unified, socialized or adopted out of the recommended no. of re-integration.

  15. Recommended no. of re-integration: The number of children, who have been recommended to be re-unified, socialized or adopted out of the potential no. of re-integration.

  16. During this PAR 30 managers were interviewed from different children’s homes to gain insights on policy and governance perspectives in terms of institutionalized children and their rights. The results of these interviews demonstrate managers’ lived experiences with regards to the re-integration of their children in children’s homes. .

  17. UN Guidelines paragraph 14: “Removal of a child from the care of the family should be seen as a measure of last resort and should whenever possible be temporary and for the shortest possible duration…” (United Nations 2010, p. 4).

  18. Policy officers: There are two types of policy officers in the context of institutional care of children in Sri Lanka. They are the Probation Officers (POs) and the Child Rights promotion officers (CRPOs).

  19. Authors identify policy makers and policy officers (POs & CRPOs) as intellectually lit lamp posts because, 100 % of the commissioners are university graduates and members of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service, and over 90 % of the POs & CRPOs are graduates who possess social science degrees and/or diplomas (Source: PAR 2012/2013).

  20. There is no singular definition of governance as the dimensions and interpretations of governance vary across intergovernmental and donor organisations. However, governance is commonly defined as the traditions, mechanisms, and institutions by which authorities exercise and manage their affairs, resources, and policies in conjunction with the interests of their constituents. An important element across many definitions is that governance does not only encompass the responsibilities of government and state authorities but also the functions of private and social actors (UNDP 1997; World Bank 2013a; Save the Children et al. 2011; Kaufmann and Kraay, 2008 cited in Keshavarzian 2013, p. 5).

  21. Re-integration: In this PAR, ‘re-integration’ is referred to as ‘a child's reunification with family/natural birth environment, socialization with society/community or other permanent care solutions such as local/foreign adoption’.

  22. “Until the rise of science, Aristotle's view of practice (praxis) as a non-scientific domain of ethics and politics was generally accepted. It meant that practice could not be rationalized by means of theoretical knowledge (theoria) or technical skill (poiesis)” (Ulrich 2001, p. 23).

  23. Child-care institution means a non-profit private child-care institution, or a public child-care institution that accommodates no more than twenty-five children, which is licensed by the State in which it is situated, or has been approved by the agency of the State responsible for licensing or approval of institutions of this type, as meeting the standards established for licensing. The term does not include detention facilities, forestry camps, training schools or any other facility operated primarily for the detention of children who are determined to be delinquent (Cornell University Law School 2014).

  24. Ideal purposes: Preventing institutional care, institutional care followed by re-integration, re-integration followed by aftercare.

  25. General Standards: General Standards for Promoting the Quality of Services in Voluntary Children’s Homes (Roccella 2007, pp. 58-64).

  26. “Life chances refer to opportunities in life experienced by people as a result of a host of demographic, socio-cultural, political and economic factors” (McIntyre-Mills 2006, p. 389).

  27. Alternative caregiver: Policy makers and service providers (United Nations 2010, p. 10). In this research alternative caregivers represent Provincial Commissioner DPCCS of the division/PO in charge of the home, manager/representative of the Board of Management of the children’s home, mother/father in charge of the home (Roccella 2007, p. 63).

  28. Re-integration statistics: a-z variables that are indicated in Table 1.

  29. Placement committee: The child, the family, and the alternative caregiver (United Nations 2010, p. 10).

  30. Capabilities: Nussbaum ten fundamental capabilities lists as; health, safety, bodily integrity, education, standard of living, quality of social interactions, productive valued activities, Environment, play and basic rights (Nussbaum, 2011, pp. 33-34).

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Acknowledgments

This research is funded by the Australian Government’s Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships. The structure, ideas and philosophies presented in this paper draw on research under the supervision of Associate Professor Janet McIntyre, Dr Helen McLaren and Dr Leonie Solomons. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of the other members of the supervisory panel.

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  1. School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

    Eshantha Ariyadasa & Janet McIntyre-Mills

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  1. Eshantha Ariyadasa
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Correspondence to Janet McIntyre-Mills.

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Ariyadasa, E., McIntyre-Mills, J. A Systemic Governance Approach to an Effective Re-integration Process for the Institutionalized Children in Sri Lanka: Application of Critical Systems Heuristics. Syst Pract Action Res 28, 429–451 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-014-9338-8

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