Featherstone, B, White, S & Morris, K 2014, Re-imagining child protection: Towards humane social work with families, Bristol, Policy Press. An overriding question one has to ask when reading this book is when did the language of the child and of mainstream child protection, become so one dimensional and hegemonic? Which begs the follow up question, what is lost and what is perhaps gained by such language? In the environment we live in, with its overtones of risk... who is in need of protection and perhaps more importantly, from what? In this context, one needs to ask themselves whether it is actually ethical to remove children from their parents and under what circumstances. Featherstone, White and Morris (2014), attempt to address some of…show more content… What I find interesting about this book, is that it reads like a collection of writings and while this sometimes comes across in a disjointed or stop - start way, it led to a very interesting read. The authors, who collectively have over three decades of experience as: social planners; social workers; managers of companies involved with child protection; educators and researchers in the UK, identify the "key ingredients of just organizational cultures" where, "learning is celebrated" (Featherstone et al. 2014). As a student of Social Work, I would argue that is a vital reading for students or anyone else with an interest in child protection. Right at the core of this book, Featherstone (2014, p. 16) challenges "child centric" practice, with what can be considered it's 'arguably narrow focus on children, while excluding parents, the extended family and the community'. Ainsworth (2014) offers a great example of this practice, which is the New South Wales model of state child protection. This child protection model can be arguably viewed as prosecutorial or even discriminatory and ignores research findings about how parent’s perceive child protection caseworkers and how they mistreat them and even the misuse of their
