The Impossible Imperative ─ Navigating the Competing Principles of Child Protection

The Impossible Imperative brings to life the daily efforts of child welfare professionals working on behalf of vulnerable children and families. Stories that highlight the work, written by child welfare staff on the front lines, speak to the competing principles that shape everyday decisions. The book shows that, rather than being a simple task of protecting children, the field of child welfare is shaped by a series of competing ideas. The text features eight principles that undergird child protection practice, all of which are typically in conflict with others. These principles guide practice and direct the course of policymaking, but when liberated from their aspirational context and placed in the real world, they are fraught with contradiction. The Impossible Imperative is designed to inspire a lively debate about the fundamental nature of child welfare and about the principles that serve as the foundation for the work. It can be used as a teaching tool for aspiring professionals and as motivation to those looking to social work to make a difference in the world.

Jill Duerr Berrick, PhD, MSW, is Zellerbach Family Foundation Professor in the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Berrick's research focuses on the relationship of the state to vulnerable families. She has written or co-written ten books on topics relating to family poverty, child maltreatment, and child welfare. Her interests target the intersect between poverty, early childhood development, parenting, and the service systems designed to address these issues. Berrick's research approach typically relies upon the voices of service system consumers and providers to identify the impacts of social problems and social service solutions on family life.