Child Welfare Professionals and Incest Families

Based on a comparative study of Canada and the UK, this book describes the often inappropriate or inadequate interventions made by child welfare and legal professionals with incest families. Because of the relative newness of the problem and the difficult emotions the tabooed behaviour arouses, professionals faced with making decisions regarding interventions with incest families tend to fail to intervene, leaving the child at risk, or over-intervene, with the result that the family members, including the victim, experience trauma. The book examines the iatrogenic effects on the family of coercive and punitive measures and refutes the current belief that the only way that an incest perpetrator will accept responsibility for his/her incestuous acts is if there is criminal prosecution.