Social workers urged to ‘take a stand’ against poor policy

New Zealand’s child protection workers and public health researchers must stand up for “human rights-based social work against the orders and influence of risk-averse managers”, a leading social services academic has said.

Liz Beddoe, a social work researcher at the University of Auckland, has called for changes to government child protection agencies that will stop “punitive, intrusive and downright aggressive processes” in responding to family difficulties.

“It is time for child protection in Aotearoa to be more transparent,” she writes in an editorial published by the independent news outlet Newsroom.