Introduction

The previous chapter considered ‘information’ and ‘information sharing’ through a philosophical lens in the context of referral making and taking in child protection. A ‘destabilised’ picture of ‘information sharing’ has already begun to unfold, and challenges received ideas that ‘information sharing’ is merely an institutional safeguarding task, involving diligent professionals being well informed, having all the information available and passing on ‘facts’. Although this may indeed be the case on certain occasions, it is certainly not the case all of the time. The stock vocabulary of ‘information sharing’ is partially responsible for producing this picture – a picture that fails to accent the complexities of what information means and why and when it matters to professionals in their respective everyday work of protecting children. Eileen Munro (2005) critiques the use of the term ‘information sharing’, suggesting that it serves to ‘gloss’, or disguise, a range of interrelated tasks that are subsumed under the information-sharing umbrella. Furthermore, the term condenses and simplifies a range of complex information-related behaviours that reflect professional information needs that arise in context. In order to understand the latter, and to throw some light on to those issues of information-sharing in child protection work highlighted repeatedly in public inquiries and serious case reviews, we are forced to look further afield to the discipline of ‘information science’ (also known as ‘human information behaviour’, Wilson, 2006). You might say this is another piece of the jigsaw, in trying to build up a complete picture of the complexity of information practices across a multi-agency, child welfare spectrum.

Using flowcharts to understand ‘information sharing’ and ‘information behaviour’

Diagrams are a good way of visualising and thinking through problems. Take, for example, the information-sharing flowchart presented in Chapter Two, and aimed at professionals with responsibility for safeguarding children. This flowchart is part of a ‘tool kit’ that provides busy professionals with an economical ‘how to guide’ about when and how, to share information. The flowchart is one of many ‘simplificatory devices’ (Law and Mol, 2002, p 2) that provides ‘easy to follow’ steps that professionals can digest, understand and feel they can work with, irrespective of the uncertainties that surround day-to-day practices. In other words, the information-sharing flowchart helps professionals to understand, in a manageable form, how they are ‘officially’ expected to perform an institutional task most effectively.