Social Work for Sociologists: Theory and Practice

CHAPtEr 4

Moving from risk to Safety:

Work with Children and Families

in Child Welfare Contexts

Emily Keddell and Tony Stanley

Introduction

Child welfare is an emotive and complicated area of social work practice.
Child welfare not only has its own internal complexities but also attracts
immense political and media scrutiny every time a child abuse tragedy plays
out. In addition, the working lives of human service workers take place inside
organizations that are themselves in the public spotlight.
A worker’s role includes the tasks of assessment and intervention; these
always involve evaluating and managing risk. How processes of evaluating
and managing risk are conceptualized, organized, regulated, and delivered
differs widely across different practice settings. Practice contexts influence
definitions of risk, harm, and abuse, and these contexts are influenced by
differing national, legal, organizational, political, theoretical, and personal
factors. These contextual differences and multiple influences on how risk
is understood highlight the socially malleable construction of risk concepts
that human service workers must navigate in their work with children and
families.
In this chapter we discuss how to develop a critical approach to thinking
about risk, in order to develop responses to families that are congruent with
social work’s espoused moral commitments. Child abuse is often referred
to as a “wicked problem” because it is such a complex issue, is constantly
changing, and has multiple definitions, types, causes, and effects (Rittel
and Webber 1973). A critical approach to human service work draws on