ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the particular way these themes influence the social workers’ perceptions and understanding of specific cases, and thus their child protection practices. It explores the ways in which social workers perceive the disclosure process, the girls’ attitude to and expectations of the child protection process, and the emotional and psychological state of the girls. The chapter looks at the ways in which the social workers make their assessments of the seriousness of the abuse and the ways in which they see forms of abusive practice relating to the duration of the abuse and the girl-perpetrator relationship. Factors associated with the girl herself also have a significant impact on social workers’ practice. More girls exercised a higher degree of autonomy at this stage than the social workers would have wished, with the consequence that many of them remained at home at least until the Initial Child Protection Conference.
