An evaluation of the child protection system in Türkiye: challenges, solutions, and opportunities

• First integrated analysis of Turkey’s child protection system from multiple perspectives. • Identifies systemic weaknesses in prevention, coordination, and rights-based practice. • Proposes school social work and healthcare integration to strengthen early intervention. • Advocates for case management and professional supervision to improve service quality. • It offers meaningful insights for other national systems facing similar socio-political and institutional challenges. This study employed a phenomenological design to explore the perspectives of social work academics (n = 14) and practitioners (n = 17) on the child protection system in Türkiye. Participants were recruited via purposive and snowball sampling, and data were gathered through semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Two overarching themes guided the analysis: (1) perceived challenges in the Turkish child protection system and (2) recommendations for enhancing child protection practices and services. Findings indicated a lack of systemic integrity, insufficient implementation of rights-based approaches, and deficiencies in legislative enforcement and preventive services. Key issues included poor inter-agency coordination, an ambiguous definition of the social work officer role, the absence of case management and supervision mechanisms, inadequate service models, and disregard for merit-based recruitment. Recommendations included expanding school-based social work, assigning social workers to primary healthcare settings, enhancing family support services, and institutionalizing case management and supervision systems.