ABSTRACT
The concept of risk assessment gained prominence in the UK following a series of child deaths thought to have been preventable. This led to legislative changes and an extension of the notion of child safety from a narrow focus on the protection of the individual to a broader view that includes the wider community (Smith, 2008). I welcome this emphasis because I am sceptical that a mass disorder, in this case that of child maltreatment, can be eradicated by focussing only on specific families. I share George Albee's (1983: 24) view that’… no mass disorder afflicting mankind is ever brought under control or eliminated by attempts at treating the afflicted individual.’
