Critical social work in child protection/safeguarding: challenges and (fewer) opportunities

Abstract

Social work in the UK is under ever more pressure to do the bidding of the government of the day, whether this is under New Labour with its targets and checklists, or the current Conservativeled coalition government’s authoritarian response to put ‘troublesome’ families on the straight and narrow by getting them back into work. Managerialism, and resulting bureaucracy and proceduralism, ever more dominates as managers control what practitioners do and how. All too often the focus is on rationing and risk assessment/management, the result being that minimal help and support from social workers are available to children and families. This article focuses on social work in relation to child protection/safeguarding – the ‘heavy end’ of practice. It acknowledges the difficulties in practising critically (and indeed radically) in current managerial circumstances. However, it argues that all is not lost, and that some critical possibilities remain. Furthermore, such practice is necessary as otherwise the way is left open for supporters of the status quo rather than those aiming for an emancipatory practice aimed at equality and justice for all.