ABSTRACT
Contemporary child welfare policy debates the balance between parental and community responsibility for children. It also debates what are the exact rights of parents and children, the appropriate roles of the family, and what is the role of state intervention in family life. Parton (1983) emphasises that decisions about children’s best interests remain a compromise between a family’s right to parent their child and a child’s need for protection. Contemporary child protection policy assumes that parents are the best carers of their children and emphasises that, where there are child protection concerns, it is better to support parents in their attempts to care for their children rather than removing them from their families and placing them in care.
