Abstract
Over several decades Nigel Parton has been popular with social work students and he is viewed as an authoritative commentator on child protection in the UK and other jurisdictions. As he states, his new book can be seen as the fourth of a quartet following the Politics of Child Abuse (1985), Governing the Family (1991) and Safeguarding Childhood (2006). All map how child abuse, child protection and child safeguarding policy and practice have been shaped by political and social change.
The central theme of The Politics of Child Protection is that debates about child protection in England over the last four decades have been increasingly politicised, most recently following the death of baby Peter Connolly in 2007. Parton characterises this as a growing ‘“politics of outrage”’ directed at not just the perpetrators of the crime but the professionals, particularly social workers, responsible for the case, and the operation of the child protection system itself (p. 11). The concern is not so much about how to address child maltreatment in society but how to improve child protection systems. Eleven chapters cover issues such as: ‘New Labour, children and childhood’; ‘“Social breakdown”, the “big society” and the Conservative-led coalition’; ‘Child welfare reform and the authoritarian neoliberal state’; ‘Child protection and social work’; and ‘Moving beyond individualized child protection systems’.
Having now practised as a child and family social worker, in England, across five decades, I particularly enjoyed the chapter covering the authoritarian neoliberal state (see also Rogowski, 2013, 2014, 2015). Ideologically neoliberals say the aim is to reduce the size of the state, but actually this only applies to certain areas of operation. Ideas of increased laissez-faire and deregulation to reduce restraints on capital and entrepreneurial activity are embraced, but in relation to the poor and marginalised the state needs to be directive and disciplinary, shifting from the ‘nanny’ to the ‘muscular’ state.
High profile public criticisms of practitioners have led to a contradictory outcome undermining the authority, legitimacy and standing of social work, but nevertheless child protection has continually been confirmed as social work’s central responsibility. This is despite the profession having been marginalised or excluded from other areas of practice such as probation, work with young offenders, older people and those with mental health issues, as well as from a range of family support and community-based activities. Perhaps the conundrum is explained by the neoliberal need for the family to be governed, hence the need for social work, while political outrage at the profession and the child protection system serves to divert attention away from the societal problem of child maltreatment.
Parton’s final chapter advocates a public health approach for dealing with child maltreatment. The emphasis is on universal primary prevention and ‘minimally sufficient’ interventions made available to all members of the community. All this is linked to a children’s rights approach, one which recognises abuse perpetrated by individual adults but also recognises collective harm and exploitation can be caused by institutions, harmful policies and laws, conflicts, failure of governance and disruption. Addressing such structural issues means ‘a whole range of policies concerned with taxation, welfare benefits, health and crime are important and addressing social inequalities and the distribution of income and wealth are key’ (p. 193). All this will resonate with CSP readers and is to be welcomed.
If a criticism can be made it relates to the book’s failure to engage, in sufficient depth, with the incisive critical social policy literature that has interrogated related themes (see, for example, Garrett, 2003, 2009, 2014). Nevertheless, this is an excellent book and one that should be widely read by all those working or interested in the child protection field.