This article reports findings from an ethnographic study of pre-birth child protection, conducted in an urban Scottish setting. The study was designed to explore the interactions between practitioners and families in the context of child protection involvement during a pregnancy. This research aimed to understand the activities that constituted pre-birth child protection assessment, and the meaning attached to those activities by social workers and expectant parents. Very different perspectives on fathers and fatherhood emerged through the study. Fathers shared their feelings of familial tenderness in the context of research interviews. Yet social workers often focused on the risks that the fathers posed. This focus on risk led professionals to ignore or exclude fathers in significant ways. Fathers were denied opportunities to take an active role in their families and care planning for their infants, whilst mothers were over-responsibilised. Children meanwhile were potentially denied the relationship, care and identity benefits of involved fatherhood. This article shows how pre-birth child protection processes and practice can function so as to limit the contribution of expectant fathers. The way that fathers and fathering are understood continues to be a wider problem for social work, requiring development through research and practice. This study was not immune to the challenge of involving men in social work research in meaningful ways. Nevertheless, the findings highlight how participation in social work research can create a forum for fathers to share their concerns, and the importance of their perspective for practice.

本文报告了在苏格兰城市环境中进行的关于出生前儿童保护的民族志研究的结果。该研究旨在探讨在怀孕期间参与儿童保护的背景下从业者和家庭之间的互动。本研究旨在了解构成出生前儿童保护评估的活动，以及社会工作者和准父母对这些活动的意义。通过这项研究，出现了关于父亲和父亲身份的截然不同的观点。在研究访谈的背景下，父亲们分享了他们对家庭温柔的感受。然而，社会工作者经常关注父亲带来的​​风险。这种对风险的关注导致专业人士在很大程度上忽视或排斥父亲。父亲被剥夺了在家庭中发挥积极作用并为婴儿制定护理计划的机会，而母亲则承担了过多的责任。与此同时，儿童可能被剥夺了作为父亲的关系、照顾和身份利益。本文展示了出生前儿童保护过程和实践如何发挥作用，以限制准父亲的贡献。对父亲和父亲的理解方式仍然是社会工作的一个更广泛的问题，需要通过研究和实践来发展。这项研究并不能幸免于以有意义的方式让男性参与社会工作研究的挑战。然而，研究结果强调了参与社会工作研究如何为父亲创造一个论坛来分享他们的担忧，以及他们的实践观点的重要性。