Family Support and Child Protection: Natural Bedfellows

This article explores whether family support theoretical underpinnings and models of work can be applied to child protection social work practice. The setting for the small-scale study is a statutory social work department which processes child protection and welfare referrals. The researcher presented family support as an approach to seven social work practitioners who applied these during the course of the study to two specific child protection cases. Predominantly qualitative research methods were employed in the study along with some quantitative data on attitudes and perspectives of the social workers. The practitioners were enthusiastic about the use of family support as an approach in child protection work and held a retrospective view that the application of the principles had an overall positive impact on their work encouraging a meaningful partnership with families. Overall, the continued use of family support in child protection work was welcomed and strongly recommended.