The study described in this thesis investigated beliefs about what represents 'good' parenting amongst social workers, psychiatrists, paediatricians and clinical psychologists. It is argued that because parenting is a socially constructed concept and because there is no universal agreement as to what makes a 'good enough' parent, practitioners' judgements about parenting are likely to be influenced by their personal beliefs. Only two studies have directly investigated beliefs about parenting amongst professionals (Daniel, 2000; Woodcock, 2003) and both of these involved social workers only and investigated beliefs related to the assessment of children on the child protection register.