Social Work, Child Protection and Politics: Some Critical and Constructive Reflections

This Critical Commentary reflects on how the author's personal and professional experiences have both mirrored and fed into the changing policy and practice contexts in England over the last forty years. A central part of the argument is that the way public and political debates have been constructed has meant there is a very intimate relationship between social work and child protection such that the former almost fails to have an existence outside of the parameters of the latter; social work has been reduced to a very narrow concern with child protection. The Commentary considers how this has come about and concludes by arguing that the two need to be clearly disaggregated such that each has a clear existence separate from the other so that more progressive policies and practices can be developed.