A Word Salad: Enterprise based competencies in child protection

This paper reviews the Skills Enhancement Project for social welfare workers in child protection. It argues that both the description and conceptualisation of competencies is flawed. These enterprise competencies use a language that suggests expertise and control in human relationships that is antithetical to good practice. The push for incorporation of these competencies into the higher education curriculum is also problematic because of their messages about worker client relationships; the failure to consider the moral and ethical basis of practice and the assumption that professional expertise is developed solely through a technical approach.