Errors and mistakes in child protection: an introduction

This chapter introduces the whole book: it outlines the thinking behind and rationale for the book, the key questions addressed and how the book is organised. It argues that errors and mistakes in child protection are an important issue in different countries across Europe, Scandinavia and North America. They have attracted public interest, media debates and influenced changes in policy and practice. Such developments raise a number of important questions including: What are the impacts of errors and mistakes in child protection? What 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 cover the historical and political background of discourses on errors and mistakes in different countries and show how errors and mistakes are constructed differently in different political and social contexts with both similar and different impacts. The book demonstrates that what are understood as errors and mistakes have varied both over time and across different jurisdictions. This chapter provides both the framework for the organization of the book and briefly introduces the contents of the different chapters.