Citation

Myers S. Child. Soc. 2007; 21(5): 365-377.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, National Children's Bureau of the United Kingdom, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1099-0860.2006.00053.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article critically analyses the AIM Assessment Model for children who have sexually harmful behaviour, exploring the underpinning knowledge and the processes involved. The model reflects current trends in the assessment of children, in child welfare and criminal justice services, producing categories of risk that lead to levels of intervention. When subjected to critical review, the knowledge base emerges as partial, contingent and obscured, and the process generates a particular construction of the subject which has consequences for practice. A social constructionist perspective is used to make visible some of the ways in which this knowledge is generated and how this may assist practitioners in considering the relations of power within such protocols.