Abstract

Pre-birth assessment is a highly complex and uncertain area of child and family social work practice. Decision making during the pre-birth period involves predicting the future needs of the unborn child, and their parents’ future capacity to meet these needs. Despite this, these decisions can have a lasting impact on both the child and their family. This presentation will draw from the doctoral research of the author which looked at the experiences of social workers undertaking pre-birth assessments, using semi-structured interviews with ten social workers in one region of England. The focus of this presentation will be an exploration of the ethical dimensions,
challenges, and dilemmas of working with families and making decisions about a child’s future care before they are born. The presentation will position pre-birth practice as fundamentally ethical in nature, where there are tensions
present throughout the involvement. How these tensions present at individual, cultural, and systemic levels of practice will be examined. Despite the inherent and broad nature of the ethical issues identified within the study, the findings suggested that they are seldom recognised or discussed during practice. The implications of both the presence of the ethical dimensions, and their unrecognised nature, will be considered for social work practice, children and families, and the social workers themselves.