Child protection work with mentally ill parents largely involves collaboration with parents who are concerned about their children's well-being but are unable to ensure it adequately due to their mental health conditions. Using case studies from child and youth welfare, this work illustrates how successful child protection can be achieved with this target group. Child protection involving mentally ill parents occurs at the intersection of child and youth welfare and psychiatry. So far, this target group has received little attention in professional circles, despite the fact that these children face an increased risk of being placed in care during their early years. This pattern of action is currently symptomatic, as shown by the ethnographic study of child protection cases from Germany and Austria, based on reconstructed case examples.