Child protection and human rights: A call for professional practice and policy

Abstract

Professional practice is a defining trait of modernity, and democratic and constitutional nation-states depend on professional practitioners and their efforts to solve problems and coordinate activity in order to distribute state services as accurately as possible, thus dealing with the particular problem at hand. Throughout modern history, legislators in different democratic nation-states have developed complex systems of implementation to make sure that public resources are distributed at the street level according to their democratic intent, and in an accurate manner aimed at solving particular problems. In this manner, state services at the street level are provided according to predetermined political and legal distributive standards set by elected officials through regular law-making and constitutional rights norms. Consequently, professional practice is a central tool in the democratic chain of command in the efforts of legislators to implement democratic policies, and to distribute public goods and burdens. This is also the case with regard to child protection services. Within the system of child protection there are countless practitioners who must abide by the law.