Current practices in the field of children’s services are heavily influenced by the approach centered on the family. This approach maintains that the family is the natural living environment most likely to ensure the harmonious development of the child, hence the need for social services to recognize and support skills of the family. The design of the intervention differs from the vision who leaving implicitly understood that situations of abuse and neglect require the contribution to alternative resources for parents. This transformation of how to design interventions to be implemented to ensure the protection of children is not strictly due to recent developments in theoretical or ideological references, but also the result of changing attitudes regarding the role of the family. This article present the family in Quebec in the last century, the evolution of social policies that address family and changing practices in social services to children.