Affected Community Perspectives on Algorithmic Decision-Making in Child Welfare Services

Algorithmic decision-making systems are increasingly being adopted by government public service agencies. Researchers, policy experts, and civil rights groups have all voiced concerns that such systems are being deployed without adequate consideration of potential harms, disparate impacts, and public accountability practices. Yet little is known about the concerns of those most likely to be affected by these systems. In this talk I will discuss what we learned from a series of workshops conducted to better understand the concerns of affected communities in the context of child welfare services. Through these workshops we learned about the perspectives of families involved in the child welfare system, employees of child welfare agencies, and service providers.