The Changing and Challenging Nature of Child and Family Social Work and Its Research

The aim of this chapter is to critically reflect on the development of child and family social work (CFSW) from its origins in the early nineteenth century to the present day. In the process, it will identify the core debates and challenges which it attempts to address together with the core tensions which lie at its heart and which research both reflects and aims to address. It will demonstrate how the nature and purposes of CFSW varies both historically and in different societies and thereby takes different forms and sets of priorities. It will argue that the growing role of science and research was important in attempts to professionalize CFSW but this brought new challenges. The relationship between CFSW policy, practice, and research has rarely been straightforward and has been continually contested and subject to, often heated, debate. To illustrate this, debates about the importance and implications of prevention and early intervention will be drawn upon. For while prevention and early intervention strategies are seen by many as central to both the philosophy and future development of CFSW and there is a range of research which is drawn upon to support this there are also significant concerns about how such a development undermines the core values and rationale of CFSW. Such developments can increase the surveillance elements of the work and can be a threat to the civil liberties of the children and adults who encounter CFSW and who are primarily from the most deprived and marginalized sections of society