Children's rights: have carers abandoned values?

Abstract

Traditionally, social workers have been concerned about the importance of values as significantly influencing professional practice. It is argued here that the emphasis on values has latterly been superseded by a focus on rights. This shift in perspective has come to characterise the activities of social workers and ‘professional’ carers such as foster and residential carers, and is related to a growing concentration on the externally measurable elements of practice (performativity) rather than the internal, and relatively intangible, quality of relationships (caring). It is necessary to understand the relationship between rights, needs and values in order to ensure that children are accorded their rights without having to forfeit the experiential quality of relationships with their carers.