Child welfare practice and decision making center around service plans, but few recent studies have focused specifically on service plans and their use in routine child welfare settings. This qualitative study involving interviews, case record reviews, and court observations illuminates parent and caseworker perceptions about the meaning of service plans and service plan compliance, and about influences on compliance. Parents and caseworkers similarly perceive service plans as directives and service plan compliance as parental task completion and cooperation. But whereas caseworkers perceive a motivation to parent as the primary influence on service plan compliance, parents perceive multiple influences. Findings contribute to ongoing work to develop theories that can explain client service participation and its connection to positive child welfare outcomes.
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