The Case Conference as Social Ritual

Abstract

This article reports a case study of social workers’ constructions of mothers of sexually abused children, which revealed that, although they no longer constructed mothers as collusive, these social workers persisted in pejorative constructions, which depended upon and interacted with multiple practice contexts. A case exemplifying a ‘good’ mother, who believed her child at disclosure, was chosen. Workers’ constructions occurred through the interaction of individual thoughts with the social process of agency case conferences, embodied in the written treatment summary. The full depiction of the mother occurred through: (1) the reading of the written summary; (2) the worker’s verbal ‘telling’ of the case’s story, and (3) the discussion that ultimately led to a treatment plan. The case conference was a social ritual, whose manifest and latent functions deeply influenced social workers’ constructions of the mothers.