Re-Imagining Child Protection: Towards Humane Social Work with Families

Abstract

In many ways, this is a groundbreaking book—one which (at last) critiques the ‘muscular authoritarianism’ that social workers in child protection often inflict on multiply-deprived families. Such authoritarianism involves parents simply being told to change their behaviour and lifestyles or face the prospect of having their children removed for adoption. It is a result of the neo-liberal imperative to ensure that people, including children and families, are self-responsible and, if for any reason they cannot be, they have to face the consequences. The introduction notes the disquiet felt by many social workers about current policy and practice in relation to child protection, in particular the fact that social work's concern with social justice is being lost. This chimes with critical/radical social work concerns, though, if a criticism of this book has to be made, such perspectives are not really acknowledged. Ensuing chapters deal with a number of themes: Chapter Two looks at how neo-liberalism has affected (dismantled) the welfare state and welfare more generally; Chapter Three looks at ethics and the necessity of continuing moral conversations with families and others; Chapter Four is concerned with evidence showing how, for example in relation to neuroscience of the infant brain, it can be used to restrict discussion; Chapter Five examines developing a just culture in organisations so as to place human beings and human factors at the heart of developments; Chapters Six to Eight draw on growing social science literature on suffering including the lived experience of poverty, relationships between men and women, and the notion of the family as the context for the resolution of children's needs; and the concluding chapter looks at moving things forward such as developing a relational approach to welfare generally this including, for example, an ethic of care replacing the notion of risk, and new forms of conversations with families.

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