Publisher's Synopsis
'The Management of Child Protection Services' is not about child abuse but about child protection. It is about the arrangements that professionals from different disciplines make to ensure they operate together effectively to protect the most vulnerable children in society. The book examines five different contexts of child protection: historical, cross-cultural, structural, managerial and professional and includes a consideration of the operation of Area Child Protection Committees. In exploring these contexts, the books seeks to address such questions as: 'how can universal standards be applied to protect vulnerable children whilst avoiding ethnocentrism?' and 'from where are derived, historically, and cross-culturally, the models of child protection adopted in the UK today?'. It also seeks to identify the different professional contexts, roles and contributions of agencies involved in child protection, with a view to promoting interdisciplinary understanding. These questions and understandings are necessary if changes currently being contemplated are to enhance the effectiveness of child protection.