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In evaluating the risks for children who have been severely neglected and/or abused we often confront placement alternatives that present difficult choices in trying to safeguard the child's best interests. If there has been physical abuse in which the child's life or physical integrity has been significantly threatened or endangered, society usually interrupts the continuity of the child's relationship with the abusing parent or parents and tries to provide a less detrimental alternative, e.g. termination of parental rights and adoption or long-term fostering by adults who want the child and who can provide a safe, nurturing, affectionate continuity of care on a permanent basis. This is best carried out as quickly and carefully as possible in order, by respecting the child's sense of time, to minimize the potential damage (since passage of time without replacement is damaging, especially to younger children) and by being realistic about the placement alternatives.
An ‘at risk’ register is a high-risk process. The criteria for being placed under surveillance on the high-risk register, based on our inability to make long-term predictions, lower the value of family privacy in order to correct or prevent child abuse, sexual and non-sexual. High-risk registers discourage the ingenuity necessary for creating attractive, accessible voluntary services and may be more effective in protecting the social agency from blame than the child from abuse.