ABSTRACT
The care and protection of children is the most visible of a social worker’s professional responsibilities. Even as we write this chapter, a cursory glance through the day’s newspapers produces a range of dramatic headlines condemning yet again the professional competence of social workers in another case which has been subjected to the full glare of media exposure. Even the sober Daily Telegraph runs a headline proclaiming ‘Social workers failed to stop killer’ – the views of the tabloids are not worth recording. In the public’s perception the latest incident is just another episode in a long catalogue of professional disasters to add to the names of Jasmine Beckford, Cleveland, Kimberley Carlile and many others, where the competence of social workers has been found to be wholly inadequate.
