Effective Child Protection

Eileen Munro is Professor Emeritus of Social Policy at the London School of Economics.  She worked as a social worker for many years before turning to an academic career. Professor Munro has written extensively on how best to combine intuitive and analytic reasoning in child protection risk assessment and decision-making and also on the importance of understanding how systems’ factors influence workers’ actions. In 2011, she completed the Munro Review of the English Child Protection System conducting a systems analysis of the problems. She is currently working with philosophy colleagues on research methods for complex systems.

This book is a great catalyst for not only practitioners working with children and families but also those studying this area. The continually evolving nature of child protection and working with families and children is central to the approach take n in the text and affords the reader opportunity to consider their role, practice and professional development needs. The books overall design and approach enable professionals and students to consider how effective child Protection might be shaped, facilitated and evaluated while offering a critical yet balanced perspective on the challenges in working is such contexts.

• Chapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: Child Protection Agencies as Complex Adaptive SystemsChapter 3: Expertise in Child Protection WorkChapter 4: Evaluating complex interventionsChapter 5: The social contextChapter 6: Defining child abuse and neglectChapter 7: The Challenges of Managing Uncertainty in PracticeChapter 8: The process of assessing riskChapter 9: Making decisionsChapter 10: How organisations can support effective practiceChapter 11: Conclusion