Abstract
This article describes practice in a fieldwork team which runs a service for the court, a Service d'Educationet de Prévention, in a large voluntary organisation in the Manche Department of France1. Features of French social work are highlighted in this account; how the social work plan is described as educational, the prominence of the children's judge le juge des enfants- and the collaborative style of the children's judicial system (Cooper, Hetherington, Baistow, Pitts, and Spriggs, 1995), a social work mandate which is negotiated (administrative) or compulsory (judicial), and the adoption of a systemic perspective which connects to the values of French social work - solidarity, social inclusion, and partnership. The éducotrice spécialiséeis a specialist in a range of group care locations for children and young families and increasingly engages in ‘therapeutic’ practice in fieldwork settings. Two case studies illustrate the work and its principles