ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the aim of developing our understanding of the various factors that influence social workers’ child protection practice in cases involving the familial sexual abuse of adolescent girls. The key point was that they provided boundaries for the intervention strategies of social workers and were perceived by those social workers to a greater or lesser extent as constraining their practice. The social workers, for example, enjoyed good relationships with professionals from education. There was a tendency to be suspicious of the motives of psychiatrists and psychologists when they gave reasons why they could not work with particular girls, and many social workers were clearly annoyed at the attitudes of some consultants and GPs at Child Protection Conferences. The social workers’ concerns in this area reflect a wider debate both within social work and academia, in terms of the problematic interface between social work and the criminal justice system in the child protection process.
