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In its eagerness to prove that social workers are over-zealous, naive and unprofessional - in fact, that society would be better off without them - the Daily Mail has once again fundamentally misunderstood the nature of child protection.

Of course children are not taken into care purely because of their parents' poverty. The closest this scenario ever comes to reality is in the case of destitute asylum seekers, and the social work profession has made clear its objection to the legislation that allows for this. The Mail has made no objection.


Ill-informed, over-excited debates in the Mail would be irrelevant if it were not for that newspaper's undoubted influence on public opinion and, more alarmingly, on politicians.

But if the Mail can and should be ignored, the real issue of poverty and its undue influence in the interaction between family and state should not.

Poverty exacerbates the difficulties faced to some degree by all parents. The stress and fear caused by simply not having enough money, as well as the effects of poor housing, dangerous neighbourhoods, inadequate education and poor health which are more likely to afflict low income families, threaten children's welfare. The challenge parents in these circumstances face in safeguarding their own children would defeat many who manage in more fortunate circumstances.


The challenge social workers truly face is in mitigating the effects of poverty - supporting families to manage despite the odds society has stacked against them. But despite their efforts, there is no doubt that poverty fundamentally disadvantages children in many ways.

In addition, poor families are more likely to be regularly in touch with public services, and their behaviour is therefore more visible to professionals. Their children may well be more likely to be taken into care, while abuse in more affluent families may go undetected.

Social workers are well aware of these complexities, even if the Daily Mail is not. In our necessary defence of the profession, we must not ignore the undoubted relationship between poverty and both the occurrence and the detection of harm to children.