A Belief in Magic. Professionalization in Post Second World War Forced Child Protection

Abstract

Before the Second World War, child protection was in great majority carried out by volunteers or experienced experts without a diploma. This was true for family guardians, the composition of Guardianship Boards, with only the secretary, often a lawyer, being paid, and with the personnel in re-education homes. An exception on the rule was the juvenile judge, one of the few professionals within child protection. After the Second World War, a constant urge to professionalization and scientific research characterized child protection, which seems to be in a continuous crisis with in the 1960s, with the number of children dramatically decreasing, satisfaction with the work diminishing and pride of the job fading away. The numerous reports and publications published on reorganization and uplifting the quality of child protection proposed further professionalization and further research as the only option for the solution of the many and fundamental problems diagnosed, and such proposals also appeared in the proceedings of congresses celebrating the 1905 child acts in 1955, 1980 and 2005. The belief in professionalization and research was based on high expectations of changing behavior of children and parents and it developed in almost a belief in magic when those expectations failed.