How Nurture Protects Children

Prompted by another wave of high-profile safeguarding scandals, social care for children has been going through a further period of soul-searching in recent months. Given all the measures introduced following Victoria Climbie's death a decade ago how can it be that fundamental errors in protecting children are still being made? As we enter a period of greater financial constraint the key challenge underpinning Jim Rose's stimulating study of social care is not so much the cost of all these initiatives, more a concern about what they have brought.

How Nurture Protects Children is an impassioned plea for a return to the core values of social work with children. Rose makes a persuasive case for the central importance of practitioner discretion, the need for sustained and trusting relationships with children and the value of having a clear sense of the child's narrative. He also raises fundamental questions about the value of regulation and quality assurance.