SUMMARY.The authors argue in this paper that the dominance of legal and professional approaches that individualise and pathologise child abuse has left welfare workers ill‐equipped to respond to the emergent interest in parent's and children's rights. They suggest that such approaches fail to take adequate account of inequalities based on class, gender and race and the socially‐constructed aspects of adult‐child relationships. They develop a concept of empowerment, informed by radical traditions within welfare work, which can be applied in the context of state intervention to protect children. The applicability of the model is then examined through the use of two case st