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This is an overview of the well-known difficulties of engaging fathers in the child protection process and makes some suggestions about constructive responses from services. There is brief discussion of the historical context of the problem, current child welfare policy, the culture of front-line practice amongst child protection staff and the behaviour of fathers who come to the attention of child protection staff. Ideas for changes in policy and practice include embracing more sophisticated theory, avoiding the dualistic responses of seeing men as either risk or resource, institutionalizing the engagement of men as core business and building on interventions that have been found by research to be effective. A range of effective interventions may be relevant, including cognitive-behavioural work with abusive men and strengths-based family work such as the family group conference.

Across the West, suicide rates in young men have been rising for some time. This trend has attracted considerable media attention and is often cited within media discourse as evidence of a 'crisis of masculinity'. The field of suicide research (or suicidology) is dominated by quantitative methodology, and although there has been research attention to the gendered character of suicidal behaviour, studies tend to compare 'men' as a group with 'women' as a group. There is also relatively little consideration within this literature of power relations and the social-political dimension of masculinities. This paper argues the case for a qualitative sociological approach to the study of gendered suicide and begins to outline a framework for understanding the diversity of suicidal masculinities. Connell's theoretical work on masculinities is used to analyse evidence from the suicidology literature. The framework includes consideration of when hegemonic masculinity fails; the subordinated masculinities of gay sexuality and mental illness; and control in intimate relationships.

The child protection process has been characterized by some commentators as being primarily concerned with the scrutiny of mothering. For a variety of reasons, social workers tend to spend relatively little time working with men in families where children are considered to be at risk. Even where a man is considered to be the primary abuser in a family, the usual approach is to concentrate on the mother's "failure to protect" the children. This article presents an analysis of data from an ethnographic study in a child and family social work team in the United Kingdom, which set out to explore this concentration on mothering and avoidance of men. The article outlines some discourses of masculinity in the occupational culture of child protection social work: men as a threat, men as no use, men as irrelevant, men as absent, men as no different from women, and men as better than women. The author's contention is that if injustice to women in social work provision is to be addressed, these gendered constructions of clients have to be made explicit and their implications understood.

Cover -- Half title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction -- Social work and the scrutiny of mothering -- My starting point -- The book's structure -- 2 Child protection, gender and social work -- The family and social control -- Child protection policy and practice -- Gender and other inequalities in child protection -- What is meant by 'gender'? -- Social constructionism -- Occupational culture -- Conclusion -- 3 Who are the clients? -- Families, children or parents? -- Social class and community -- Social control -- Conclusion -- 4 Working with women -- Women as mothers, women as social workers -- The reality of women clients' lives -- Women's responsibility for protection -- Empathy -- Conclusion -- Implications for practice -- 5 Working with men -- The 'problem of men' -- Discourses of masculinity in the social work office -- Conclusion -- Implications for practice -- 6 Child protection priorities -- The rediscovery of child neglect -- What is neglect? -- The physical care of children -- Other factors -- Body maintenance work and the scrutiny of mothering -- Why dirty, hungry children and untidy houses? -- Conclusion -- Implications for practice -- 7 Knowledge and values in practice -- Inherent tensions in social work knowledge and values -- Discussion -- Conclusion -- 8 Understanding gendered practice -- Structure and discourse -- Gendered identities in a gendered organisation -- Regulation of the body -- Gender, class and crime -- Conclusion -- 9 Conclusion -- Summary of research findings -- The current state of child protection work -- Messages for practice -- References -- Index.