This paper examines the knowledges affecting contemporary child welfare policy and practice. Using a number of conceptual frameworks, it seeks to challenge the view of some commentators that a new ‘legalism’ and a putative concern with ‘surface form’ has accorded formal psychological knowledge, and hence the ‘psy’ complex, a diminished and waning significance. The paper argues that, although there have been significant changes in child welfare practice, rumours of the waning of the ‘psy’ complex have been exaggerated. A detailed analysis of the way the law thinks, and of policy documents and practice guidance reveals both the complex interdiscursivity of the new ‘legalism’ and the durability of psychological and developmentalist forms of thought.
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