This talk provides a history of children’s services in Cheshire from their creation under the 1948 Children Act until their abolition with the establishment of unified social services departments in 1970. Created to serve the best interests of the child, it explores the rise and fall of specialised social work practice for children in a local authority marked by extremes of poverty and affluence, divisions between urban and rural areas, reshaped by slum clearance and overspill from Liverpool and Manchester, and underlying tensions between elected politicians and senior officials. Using individual social work case files, local authority records, and central government reports and correspondence, this talk offers a perspective of social work with children and families during the height of the post-war welfare state.