ABSTRACT
Social workers in child protection work operate with a variety of checklists and procedures, some formal and explicit others informal and implicit. A key feature of case records is the characterisation of clients, which is otherwise difficult in face-to-face encounters. As Prince observes, social workers strategically signal their distance from what is recorded in case notes. This also takes care of clients’ concern that their words may be interpreted differently – that their own interpretation of events may not be preserved in the official written document. The non-cooperative dimension is mainly accomplished through Janice’s disagreement with the social services’ version of events. Social workers have to work within the institutional categories and types of responses available to them in dealing with particular cases. In the context of physical abuse, they will need to seek actively medical and factual evidence, which necessarily means reporting other professionals’ assessment of the case in hand.
