ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways in which the structural and procedural elements of child protection were mediated into the specifics of the social workers’ practice in cases involving the intra-familial sexual abuse of adolescent girls. The social workers’ child protection practice was not accomplished in a vacuum; rather it was always both enabled and constrained by the structures of welfare service organisations and the procedures or systems of social work delivery. Social Services departments have lines of accountability in terms of child protection to both the local authority and central government, tending to place the senior personnel of social services departments in a key position in terms of the implementation of policy and the development of particular procedures. Child protection work is accomplished through a whole series of policies and procedures that embody the priorities of the organisation and the availability and deployment of internal resources.
