Codesigning rights-based recordkeeping for childhood out-of-home care

Abstract

Decades of inquires in Australia and internationally into child welfare and protection systems have highlighted the importance of quality recordkeeping to the lifelong identity, memory and accountability needs for those who experience Alternative Care. Having learnt about the devastating impacts of poor recordkeeping and challenges in accessing records of childhood Care experiences, it is clear that transformative approaches are needed to tackle what Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Childhood Sexual Abuse in December 2017 has labelled a ‘systemic and enduring’ problem. In this paper, we report on our involvement in a co-design team of recordkeeping researchers, Care leaver advocates, and digital technologists working together to develop a deep understanding of Care recordkeeping needs and realise them in the functionality of a digital prototype. Developed as a design provocation–a blueprint for participatory recordkeeping infrastructure–we will explain how it enables those currently cast as the client of services and ‘subject’ of records, to participate in their Care recordkeeping on equitable terms. We will discuss how having knowledge of, and appropriate say over, who has access to personal information and records can be re-imagined through digital technologies in support of lifelong rights to identity, privacy, autonomy and accountability.