Critical Child Protection Studies: An Introduction

Until the last few years of the twentieth century, there was very little critical analysis surrounding child protection policies and practices. Child protection was seen as secondary to the question of understanding and explaining child abuse. First, you needed to understand and explain the problem (child abuse) and secondly, you needed to develop a societal response (child protection). It was what was done—or needed to be done—to prevent and stop child abuse. Child protection was in effect embedded in discussions of what to do about child abuse and had no existence or dynamic separation from discussion about child abuse. It was what constituted the technical, administrative, and legal response to the problem of child abuse.