This book builds upon and advances the comparative analysis of child protection systems that was conducted in the mid-1990s and presented in the ground-breaking book Combatting Child Abuse: International Perspectives and Trends (Gilbert, 1997). Chapters provide a detailed analysis of how the systems have changed during the period with a particular focus upon: • What are the criteria which define child maltreatment? • Who is responsible for reporting suspected cases of maltreatment? • What are the processes for enquiring into the reports? • How are the allegations of maltreatment substantiated, and what is the state’s response? Each chapter also considers two broader and key questions: • What have been the major issues and trends since during the period? • What have been the significant changes in the wider political and social contexts and how have these influenced child welfare and child protection? It becomes clear that all the countries have witnessed considerable change and the Conclusion summarizes the main themes. While there are important similarities in the changes experienced there are also important differences. In the process the chapters identify important developments in the two alternative orientations to the problem identified in Combatting Child Abuse – the child protection and family service orientations and the emergence of a new and significant orientation a child-focused orientation.

This paper examines the changing form of knowledge in social work over the past thirty years and its implications for theory and practice. In particular, it considers the impact of new systems related to a range of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the shift from a narrative to a database way of thinking and operating. In doing so, it attempts to identify a series of key challenges and questions which need to be considered in order to engage with the changes. In particular, it addresses how far social work is still primarily concerned with subjects and their social relationships and argues that social work now operates less on the terrain of the ‘social’ and more on the terrain of the ‘informational’. Such changes have implications for the relationship between theory and practice in social work and the nature of ‘social’ work itself.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and reflect upon the current state of child welfare policy and practice and how this has changed over recent times. In the process it aims to make a contribution to the current debates on ‘the refocusing of children's services’. A central part of the argument is that new strategies have emerged which do not have as their central focus either meeting the needs of children or responding to child abuse, but the assessment and management of risk. In selecting such a focus, such developments are in danger of overlooking a central characteristic of policy and practice in terms of the pervasiveness of uncertainty and ambiguity. Not only do these characteristics need to be reorganized, but they need to be built on in order to take our thinking and practices forward.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of the discipline of social work and to argue that perhaps its central and unique characteristic is the way theory and practice are closely interrelated. In doing so it suggests it is important to locate social work in its particular social, political and historical contexts and to identify some of the key factors which have influenced not only its development but its forms. Social work is identified as being essentially ambiguous, complex and uncertain such that its major strengths are in terms of its ability to improve dialogue, understanding and interpretation, rather than simply be concerned with legislating and acting with authority. In this sense it has the potential to make a significant contribution to the contemporary social sciences more generally.

Drawing upon social constructionist and postmodern perspectives, together with recent feminist debates about ‘the ethics of care’, this paper reflects upon the productive ways in which contemporary social work can be thought about, organized and practised professionally. It argues that an emphasis on: process; plurality of both knowledge and voice; possibility; and the relational quality of knowledge are key elements in taking these issues forward. In contrast to the traditions of abstract and instrumental reasoning where the pursuit of knowledge is intertwined with the pursuit of control, the importance of sensory knowledge, symbolized by the unity of hand, head and heart is underlined.