Errors and Mistakes in Child Protection: International Discourses, Approaches and Strategies

This comprehensive international study provides a cross-national analysis of different understandings of errors and mistakes, as well as lessons to avoid and how to handle them in child protection practice, using research and knowledge from 11 countries in Europe and North America.

Divided into country-specific chapters, each examines the pathways that lead to mistakes happening, the scale of their impact, how responsibilities and responses are decided and how practice and policy subsequently change. Considering the complexities of evolving practice contexts, this authoritative, future-oriented study is an invaluable text for practitioners, researchers and policy makers wishing to understand why child protection fails – and offers a springboard for fresh thinking about strategies to reduce future risk.

Kay Biesel is Professor of Child and Youth Services, focusing on child protection, at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland.

Marit Skivenes is Professor at the Department of Administration and Organization Theory and the Director of Centre for Research on Discretion and Paternalism at the University of Bergen.

Tarja Pösö is Professor in Social Work at Tampere University.

Fred Powell served as Professor of Social Policy and founding Head of the School of Applied Social Studies at UCC for 25 years, Dean of Social Science and latterly Student Ombudsman. He received the Richard Titmuss Book Award in 2018.

Judith Masson is Professor of Socio-legal Studies at the University of Bristol.