ABSTRACT
The very scepticism that is the driving force of expert knowledge might lead, in some contexts, or among some groups, to a disen chantment with all experts; this is one of the lines of tension be tween expertise and tradition. (Giddens, 1994, p. 87)
At the end of 2001 there were approximately 5,500 children in care in Ireland but the number of children’s residential centres has decreased from 176 in 2002 to 154 in 2003. Of these centres, 89 were run by health boards, 65 by the non-statutory sector and 15 by private providers (Social Services Inspectorate, 2003).1 Fewer males are being attracted into child and youth care and retention of staff at all grades is a particu lar challenge as there are currently less than 150 males studying at third level in the Higher Education and Training Awards Council and Dublin Institute Technology system out of some 3,000 students (McElwee et al., 2003). The Association that represented front-line social care practitioners in Ireland for decades, the Irish Association of Care Work ers, disbanded in May, 2005, and its passing went largely unnoticed by many social care practitioners. An Association in decline for some years, its membership base had fallen from five hundred in the mid-1990s down to under one hundred and twenty care practitioners by 2005.
