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The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
Child protection; child welfare; emotion; mistakes at work; professional emergencies; professionals; social services; social work
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Full-Text Articles in Social Work
Beyond Professional Emergencies: Patterns Of Mistakes In Social Work And Their Implications For Remediation, Keith Roberts Johnson
Beyond Professional Emergencies: Patterns Of Mistakes In Social Work And Their Implications For Remediation, Keith Roberts Johnson
The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
This paper analyzes the emerging field of government mandated child protection, the work's design, and the public crisis caused by public airing of its mistakes. The cycle of reacting to public revulsion at errors,followed by a return to "business as usual" persists despite official, government inquiries and the social work profession identified with the protection of children. The risk of working in a highly emotional area is discussed through the sociology of "mistakes at work," or professional emergencies. This work balances risks with advantages of evoking emotions. The risk comes from the negative emotions associated with official failures seen by …