Rethinking child protection and adoption: achieving social justice in practice

Abstract

This article presents contributions made at the ‘Rethinking Fostering and Adoption: Achieving Social Justice in Practice’ plenary at the 2019 Social Work Action Network conference. The contributors write from a variety of vantage points but share the view that the current child protection and adoption system in England requires radical transformation in order to become more humane, supportive and socially just. The article begins with an outline of the ‘investigative turn’ in children’s services and key findings from the adoption enquiry of the British Association of Social Workers. It goes on to argue, from lived experience perspectives, that we urgently need a new kind of children’s social care system that foregrounds support, rights, social inclusion and trauma prevention.