Children in Social Work – Selected Problems of Social Work with Children Across the Europe

Abstract

Child protection work in the UK has to navigate between the rights of parents and the rights of children. This is because our law states that the best interests of the child must be paramount, whilst there is also government guidance and professional codes saying that we should work in collaboration with parents to achieve this. In a small minority of situations, social workers in the UK have to be part of recommending that the court makes an order to remove parental responsibility from the parents they have been working with. So, social workers have to try to empower parents'participation in order to help them be the best parents that they can, whilst balancing this against the ongoing situation for the child. This chapter in particular examines issues of the rights of parents to participate in such processes, balancing these up against our knowledge of the effects of situations in which we are working with resistance/disguised compliance in safeguarding children work, where principles of empowering parents and encouraging their participation, but where this is may only be on their terms, can lead to serious adverse consequences for the children involved.