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Law's Healing of Children's Hearings: The Paradox Moves North

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2009

Michael King
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Abstract

This article surveys, from the perspective of systems theory as expounded by Niklas Luhmann, recent developments in the evolution of the role played by Scottish Children's Panels in the protection of children. It traces the way that in England the problem of the paradoxical nature of the social worker's task in protecting children was resolved by reconstructing the problem in legal terms. The same process, it argues, has now occurred in Scottish social work practice, but there ambiguity in the nature of the Children's Panels makes it difficult for social workers to obtain clear legal authority for their actions. Since the Clyde Report on the Orkney case, therefore, considerable controversy has arisen over the future of Children's Panels and, in particular, over their role in emergency situations. This controversy is seen as part of a wider evolutionary process involving law and child welfare, which cannot be adequately explained in terms of changes in political ideology.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , July 1995 , pp. 315 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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