Raising a number of critical questions, Brid Featherstone, Susan White and Kate Morris challenge a child protection culture that they see as becoming increasingly authoritarian. Calling for a family-minded practice of child protection, they argue that children should be understood as relational beings and that greater sensitivity should be paid to parents and the needs they have as a result of the burdens of childcare. They argue that current child protection services need to ameliorate, rather than reinforce, the many deprivations that parents engaged in their systems face. Bringing together authors who combine a wealth of experience in both scholarship and practice, this book provides a sensitive reassessment of a critical point of contact between governments and families. 

Since 1997, child welfare services have been faced with new demands to engage fathers or develop father-inclusive services. This book emerges from work by the author as a researcher and educator over many years on the issues posed by this agenda for child welfare practitioners in a variety of contexts. In locating fathers, fathering and fatherhood within a historical and social landscape, the book addresses issues seldom taken up in practice settings. It explores diversity and complexity in fathering in different disciplines such as psychoanalysis, sociology and psychology and analyses contemporary developments in social policies and welfare practices. The author employs a feminist perspective to highlight the opportunities and dangers in contemporary developments for those wishing to advance gender equity.A key strength of the book is its inter-disciplinary focus. It will be required reading for students, graduate and postgraduate, of social work, social policy, sociology and child and family studies. Academic researchers will also find the book invaluable because of its breadth of scholarship.

Product Description: This timely text provides a constructively critical analysis of contemporary debates and developments around family support. It draws from a range of sources, including the author's own research, to demonstrate why feminist insights are needed to understand the changing lives of men, women and children today...read more

Although postmodernist theory has been related to and explored in sociology and social policy, this book is amongst the first to apply the theories to social work, and relate them to current debates. Contributors come from the UK, Australia, South Africa and Canada and many have professional experience as social workers. They appraise the key issues in the contested field of postmodernism and feminism and focus on their applications to practice, research and education in social work. (view table of contents)

Product Description: This major contribution to debates on violence and gender relations looks at abusive behaviour as it affects women, men, children and older people. The book is fundamentally concerned with the interrelations of theory and practice...read more