Mapping the roles of social workers' emotions in child protection in Western Countries: A systematic scoping review

Emotions play a crucial role in social work, yet they are often perceived as inappropriate. This perception creates confusion about how social workers’ emotions should be integrated into professional practice. Working in child protection (CP) is particularly emotionally complex. However, there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge regarding the emotions experienced by social workers in this specific field. This article examines how the emotions of CP social workers influence their judgments and actions. It also discusses how these emotions can act as both a resource and a challenge within the framework of New Public Management. We focus on statutory CP social workers in Western countries. The study is a systematic scoping review of literature published from the year 2000 onwards and identified through searches in PsychINFO, SocIndex, Academic Search Premier, Scopus, and Google Scholar. We include empirical, peer-reviewed articles that utilize qualitative methods. The findings from 19 publications suggest that emotions, particularly negative ones like anger and anxiety, are prevalent in CP practice. Additionally, emotions play at least five distinct roles at various organizational levels: as a relationship builder, a motivating force, a guiding compass, a blind spot, and a burden. To ensure quality in child protection, it is essential to cultivate emotionally intelligent workplace cultures that encourage reflection on emotions and their impact on practice. Training, continuing education, and emotion-focused supervision for social workers and managers—along with providing adequate time and space—is vital for supporting this development. • In CP emotions act as a compass for navigating complex cases. • Warm emotions help build and maintain relationships. • Emotions can motivate CP social workers to take action. • Emotional burdens impact social worker well-being. • Emotions can impair objectivity and cause biases in CP practice.