Protection to Prevention: Child Welfare Policies

Abstract

This study was undertaken to examine child welfare policies in terms of their relative emphases on protective or preventive measures, and it set out to determine whether, in general, protective policies enhance or reduce the impact of preventive policies or vice versa. There are great contradictions implicit in governments attempting simultaneously to pursue protective and preventive policies. Protection is used, in this report, to mean the rescue or supervision of a child from adverse family circumstances by compulsory government intervention, while prevention is used to refer to the summoning of an appropriate range of services on a non-compulsory basis, to reinforce and enhance the caring capacity of the family for the child.