Social Work, Social Regulation and the Family

Abstract

The Children Act 1989 can be seen as the fruition of heated arguments during the 1980s about how British society should respond to the problems related to child abuse and child care. It was an attempt to address some of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues concerning the relationship between the child, the family and various state agents. In introducing the Bill for its second reading into the House of Commons on 27 April 1989, David Mellor, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, said:

As I hope I made clear, we have high ambitions for this Bill. We hope and believe that it will bring order, integration, relevance and a better balance to the law — a better balance not just between the rights and responsibilities of individuals and agencies, but, most vitally, between the need to protect children and the need to enable parents to challenge intervention in the upbringing of their children. Recent well-publicised cases, including the tragic cases of Kimberley Carlile, Doreen Mason and the events in Cleveland in 1987 have graphically shown the consequences of getting that balance wrong. Of course, of itself, legislation cannot stop such tragedies, but we hope that a clear legal framework will help to make more likely clear-eyed judgements by key people involved in child welfare. (Hansard, HoC, Vol. 151, No. 94, Col. 1107)