Embodied care practices and the realization of the best interests of the child in residential institutions for young children

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to draw attention to the meaning of social workers’ conduct of care practices with young children living in residential child protection institutions. I am interested in identifying what good care practices may be, and to unfold how these practices could be understood as realizations of CRC Article 3, on the best interest of the child. Through observations and articulations of what social workers do when they provide care for children in residential institutions, I attempt to show that good care practices for young children have a lot to do with the social worker’s willingness to engage in sensitive, responsible and embodied interactions with the children. These embodied care practices, which I call good care practices, rest on an ethics of proximity or care ethics that is intimately connected with the realization of the child’s best interest. I see this as a part of social workers’ professionalism that is seldom articulated in a rights-based context.