Thesis (PhD - Social Work) - University of Canterbury, 2005. This thesis presents an exploratory inquiry into the work of child protection in Aotearoa/New Zealand as experienced by social workers employed at the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services (CYFS). The primary focus is on their understanding of risk and their active construction of risk discourses. This inquiry took, as its starting point, narratives of 70 social workers about specific child protection cases. They were asked to describe both straightforward and more complex assessments, and, as a result, provided a rich and detailed range of narratives about how risk is defined, assessed and managed by social workers. This qualitative study employed a critical incident technique as a data collection method, and applied a grounded approach to the analysis of these practice stories. The focus of the interviews was on the day-to-day work as experienced by social workers. Probes were used to solicit further information when risk was discussed by the workers. This research also involved spending time in different branches of CYFS around the country and informal conversation with social workers. Fieldnotes made during these periods of immersion in different practice settings were also analysed to provide understandings of the contexts in which social workers engage in individual and collective knowledge production about children and risk. For the social workers in this study, risk discourses were actively and strategically used in the legitimation of their practice interventions. The practises of socially constructing knowledge about 'risk' are a continuing focus of this thesis, and the wider implications for social work practices of 'risk' assessment are discussed.--AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT

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