ABSTRACT
Stress is part of the job for child welfare workers, but it takes a variety of forms. There is the stress of working with involuntary clients within organisations which portray child welfare practice in narrow bureaucratic terms. The chapter considers each of these stressors in turn and relate their impact on practice. Child welfare work differs markedly from the idealised worker-client relationship of the voluntary therapeutic encounter. Stress may be accentuated when the workers become emotionally involved in rescuing the child or the parent from untenable living conditions. The chapter examines two external sources of stress for child welfare workers at City Office, court work and threats to them of danger and violence. Commentators make a claim that child welfare work has been medicalised. Child welfare practice offers as much evidence of its legalisation. At each stage of the career of a case, there are a series of court hearings.
