‘In practice we don’t use that much theory’: Questioning claims of the dominance of attachment theory in children’s safeguarding social work

Abstract

Abstract There have been many calls for the use of attachment theory in children’s social work practice. Yet, some commentators claim that attachment theory has been uncritically adopted by social workers and has become an unhelpfully dominant perspective. Empirical evidence to support such claims is limited, however. We therefore sought to examine these claims in a qualitative vignette and interview study with twenty-three children’s safeguarding social workers from two English local authorities. We found that many social workers had an anti-theoretical orientation and that, for those who did draw on formal theories, attachment theory was less commonly identified as an influence than systems theory and was typically drawn on alongside other theories and perspectives. We also found examples of social workers taking a critical stance on the theory and its use in practice. The current study findings therefore challenge depictions of attachment theory as problematically dominant in children’s safeguarding social work practice. We argue that future debate on whether attachment theory has an appropriate level of practice influence would benefit from being grounded in more robust research on the current level of influence.