An Exercise in Influencing Child Abuse Policies and Programs in Victoria

In this article it is intended to describe the activities of a pressure group which was formed with the explicit objective of influencing the course of events in Victoria in relation to the development of child abuse policies and programmes. In the course of this it will be necessary to present something of the recent history of these developments, the place of such policies in the wider policies relating to child welfare, the reasons why it was thought necessary to establish a pressure group and the directions of the pressurising activity. It is also argued that pressure group activity is a necessary and legitimate part of social work activity and can be undertaken whilst recognising the limitations of such an approach in a liberal-welfare, or to give it a shorter name — a conservative economy. This part of the article will be dealt with first.