Errors and mistakes in child protection: an introduction

Abstract

This chapter outline the thinking behind and rationale for the book on errros and mistakes in child protection, the key questions to be addressed and how the book is organised. It argue that errors and mistakes in child protection are an important issue in different countries across Europe, Scandinavia and North America. They attract public interest, media debates and influence changes in policy and practice. Such developments open up a number of important questions including: What are the impacts of errors and mistakes in child protection? What sorts of discourses inform the way errors and mistakes are understood and the way they are responded to? Are certain strategies seen as helpful in reducing errors and mistakes? The book analyses the developments in policy and practice in response to errors and mistakes in child protection in different countries. Chapters will cover the historical and political background of discourses on errors and mistakes in different countries and will show how errors and mistakes are constructed differently in different political and social contexts and have both similar and different impacts. The book demonstrate that what is understood as errors and mistakes varies both over time and across different jurisdictions. The chapter provide both the framework for the way the book is organized and will briefly introduce the contents of the different chapters.