On crossing sacred and profane boundaries in time-space and place: The child protection practitioner as "other"

Assessing spaces and places for child abuse and neglect is a daunting task. This paper will discuss the difficulties child protection practitioners might encounter while attempting to locate and potentially transcend the... [ view full abstract ]

Assessing spaces and places for child abuse and neglect is a daunting task. This paper will discuss the difficulties child protection practitioners might encounter while attempting to locate and potentially transcend the boundaries between sacred and profane spaces and places in the biopsychosocial-spiritual ecosystems of abused and neglected children. Child protection practitioners are repairers of the breach, helping to mend generations of parental sociopathy, and “intermezzos,” crossing space and place to secure service delivery between agencies. Accomplishing such tasks is another story, for the practitioner entering the home, agency, or school is xéno; the foreigner; the other, which might also be experienced as a sacred or profane symbol.
Simultaneously, practitioners must recognize and address their own subjective views of otherness (which is an intangible space) within the external spaces and places that are often rife with deceit and violence—environments that can be quite different from their own… sometimes. A solution to such difficulties, which will be presented for discussion and feedback, is to develop time-space intelligent practitioners through a continuous process framework called the Time-Space Intelligence Assessment System for Child Protection Services (TSIA-CPS).