Establishing an accessible data corpus based on evidence to the Victoria Climbié inquiry

1. Establishing an accessible data corpus based on evidence to the Victoria Climbié inquiry Rachel Balen, Graham Gibbs, Chris Hall, Helen Masson, Andrew Teal With Jacqui Gabb, Yvette Taylor, Maryam Mirza Centre for Applied Childhood Studies School of Human and Health Sciences University of Huddersfield

2. The Victoria Climbié Corpus (VCC) • The Victoria Climbié Inquiry (Laming Report) • Major review of the child protection system in England and Wales -> Green Paper ‘Every Child Matters’ • Inquiry investigated circumstances surrounding the death of Victoria Climbié • Took evidence on wider aspects of the child protection system through a series of seminars • Reported to both the Home Office and the Department of Health Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

3. Testimony already on the Web • http://www.victoria-climbie-inquiry.org.uk/ • 64 days of the verbatim cross-examination of witnesses (up to 200 pages per day) • Written submissions (image pdf – not part of current study) • Evidence about state of child protection services in late 1990s • detailed testimony about: • day-to-day practice • decision-making • inter-agency working • the context of service delivery • policy making across all agencies: social services, police, health, voluntary groups. Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

4. But: • HTML pages not amenable to analysis • Data set very large - too large for some uses/users • Needs a means of “navigation” • Like Medjedovic & Witzel (in FQS) we believe some basic coding of the corpus is helpful and compatible with further analysis done by other researchers. Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

5. Three stages of our research • Identify themes & topics in cross-examination required by or of use to a range of professional & educational users. • Catalogue and code data & establish system of data management & retrieval. (Using Atlas.ti) • Establish an online data corpus available for future research outside the University. (Using XML output from Atlas.ti.) Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

6. Themes and topics obtained from potential users • Used Delphi technique to do this. • “a method for structuring a group communication process which facilitates a group of experts to deal with a complex problem by focusing on a set of predetermined tasks” • Policy Delphi gets an informed group to examine all the options and supporting evidence on a particular topic. • more qualitative responses • not necessarily a consensus of experts’ views • neutralizes the power imbalances • does not need expensive face-to-face meetings or focus groups Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

7. Four steps to Delphi • Panel of experts selected and exploratory questionnaire completed. • Through sequential questionnaires, a review of experts’ opinions was undertaken. Looked for areas of agreement and/or disagreement. • Areas of agreement and/or disagreement presented back to panel. Stages 2 and 3 of process repeated. • The experts’ responses were evaluated. Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

8. Our experts • Professionals with specialist knowledge in child welfare issues in the fields of social work, nursing, paediatrics, policing, law, housing and education • 360 in first round survey, 74 by last stage. Result = • themes suggested by them • & ideas for professional and educational use. Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

9. What the experts wanted. • Would find it useful to have: • Key examples / exemplars of a particular theme • Summaries of key incidents • Chronology of the case • Commonly suggested uses for corpus: • Using case studies as training material • Teaching risk assessment • Teaching decision making Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

10. Most useful generic themes • Cultural assumptions • Support and/or supervision • Training • Accountability • Communication • Assessment skills • Child centeredness Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

11. Themes for coding • From preceding and other info. from Delphi, • 108 codes used to code the data thematically e.g. Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

12. Used Atlas.ti • Question from lawyer and answer from witness combined into single quotation • 47,352 quotations Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

13. Face sheet data • Currently developing this for main witnesses. • Includes e.g. • Occupation • Relationship to Climbié case • Summary of involvement • Workplace • Phase of Climbié case they were involved • Implemented as memos in Atlas.ti • Free memo - would like to link to a code but this would mean coding v. large no. of quotations Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

14. Critical Incidents • Still to be done. • At start of Inquiry the barrister outlined what he felt were 12 missed opportunities to intervene. (These repeated in the Laming Report) e.g. 1. The visits made by Kouao and Victoria to Ealing Social Services during the spring of 1999. 2. The anonymous call made to Brent's one-stop-shop on 18th June, and the consequent visit to Nicoll Road on 14th July. 3. Victoria's admission to Central Middlesex Hospital on 14th July. 4. The visit of Victoria and Kouao to Ealing's Acton Area Office on 15th July. 5. Victoria's admission to North Middlesex Hospital on 24th July. • Link data on each incident with a document (memo) describing key features of the incident. Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

15. VCC Different from archived data set & language corpus • Themes not just research led • Users may want complex searching (may need to re-import data to CAQDAS) • Education users want subsets of data for teaching use (e.g. research projects) • Data set not representative • in sense of random sample of child protection mgt. & talk • Or in sense of comprehensive examples of the range of child protection mgt. & talk Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

16. Barriers to archive use (following Corti) • Problem of the implicit nature of qualitative data collection and analysis – context and reflexivity • Climbié corpus collected in a well documented, legal setting • Lack of time to get fully acquainted with research materials created by someone else • We are doing some of this work • Constraints of informed consent • Inquiry is matter of public record and already on Web. • Insecurity about the exposure of one’s own research practice; IPR or threat of misinterpretation • Delphi means coding reflects wide range of professional needs • Lack of publicly available research data • Similar inquiries (Bichard, Children in Instl. Care etc.) Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005

17. Issues for XML based data archiving • Atlas.ti produces database format XML, TEI/Qualidata uses mark-up approach • Produce web pages from Atlas.ti HU or from archived v.? • Complex overlapping of coded segments. (Using fixed quotations helps this, but at cost of inflexible coding.) • How to represent (hyper-)linking of quotations/text • Linking of memos to documents and codes • How to re-import data into CAQDAS program if mark-up approach used. Online Qualitative Data Resources:Best Practice in Metadata Creation and Web StandardsNov. 2005