Citation

Farmer E, Owen M. Br. J. Soc. Work 1998; 28(4): 545-564.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjsw.a011366

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In the debates about finding a new balance between child protection and family support, there has been silence on the issue of the impact of gender on child protection work. Using data from one of the studies in the Department of Health (1995) child protection research programme, this article examines the impact of gender at each stage of the child protection process. It shows that mothers have tended to be under-represented in relation to offers of service and over-included in respect of agencies' efforts to control them. When social work practice in cases of physical abuse by men focuses exclusively on mothers, this allows men's violence to their female partners to be ignored. This practice has been sustained in recent years, even though the child protection system itself developed in response to public anxiety about child deaths caused by men.