Bureaucracy, creativity and resistance: a psychosocial framework for practice with parents in child protection

This article creates a psychosocial theoretical framework to re-evaluate social work practice in the context of bureaucratised systems driven by the audited management of data. The demoralising working conditions in the profession have been well established by empirical studies and critical literature. Responding to this cue from the front line, the article argues that creative and critical thinking can illuminate the contradictions inherent in neoliberal organisations. The location of creativity in child protection social work is presented as a necessary challenge to the formal characteristics of bureaucracy. Through a reading of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, the article constructs an interpretative framework to interrogate the structural conditions of social work. Working in dialogue with psychoanalysis, the article develops this thinking to devise creative forms of practice with mandated parents. The article is driven by critical analysis, creative engagement and reflection, creating bridges between theory and practice.