THE CHILDRENS PLANNING INITIATIVE - RESEARCHING DECISION-MAKING FOR CHILDREN

This paper recounts the story of how a number of workers involved in t he care of children decided that they needed to do more than improve t heir skills and began instead to question some of the assumptions on w hich child care planning processes are built. The paper records a grow ing consciousness about the value of action research in developing alt ernative models of decision-making. It leads us from early questioning , through model creation, and on into testing the model in a new and c omplex organizational setting. While other voices are quoted, the pape r recounts the story from the viewpoint of two actors, practitioner/ma nager and consultant.