Decision‐Making in Child Welfare Among Arab Child Protection Officers in Israel: The Cultural Context

Child protection officers (CPOs) play a critical role in protecting children at risk and make important decisions that significantly impact children and their families. These decisions are influenced by wider contexts such as family, system, organization and multiple cultural contexts. Working in the Arab community, which has different values and norms from mainstream Israeli society, requires the CPOs to consider the cultural context within their decisions. This qualitative study used the decision‐making ecology (DME) framework and the Judgement and Decision Process in Context model (JuDPiC). The study aimed to explore what factors influence Arab CPOs' intervention decisions regarding children at risk and to gain a better understanding of how the cultural context shaped their intervention decisions. This study included 30 Arab CPOs working in social services departments in Israel, and semistructured interviews were conducted. The study's results revealed several factors at the case (e.g., child's age, gender and type of maltreatment) and organizational (e.g., accessibility of community services) levels that influenced the Arab CPOs' intervention decisions. The results demonstrated how the cultural context was embedded within the Arab CPOs' decisions. CPOs should be aware of the contexts in which decisions are made and how these may impact their intervention decisions.