Change and Continuity in Children's Services

✍ Scribed by Roy Parker

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 226
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This collection of 12 new and revised essays on child care and children’s services, written by leading child welfare historian Roy Parker, draws on his lifetime of research in this area. By exploring various topics these essays explain significant political, economic, legal and ideological aspects of this history from the mid-1850s. This unique and lasting review of child care services allows readers to understand how the services for some of society’s most vulnerable children have become what they are, how well they have met and now meet the needs of those children. The collection provides a high-quality, historical reference resource that will inform and capture the interest of social work and social policy students as well as social and legal historians, political scientists and those involved in administration and government, struggling with the issues of the day.

✦ Table of Contents

CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN CHILDREN’S SERVICES
Cover illustration
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Introduction: patterns of change and continuity
I Legislation
II Policy
III Making progress
IV Problems and issues
2. Residential child care: an historical perspective
I The Poor Law influence
II The quest for control
III The influence of the voluntary children’s organisations
IV The inter-war years
V The post-war years
VI What of the future?
3. From boarding-out to foster care
I Boarding-out and the Poor Law in the nineteenth century
II The inter-war years
III The war years and after
4. The evolution of landmark legislation
I The ‘Children’s Charter’ 1908
II Dismantling the Poor Law
III Taking reform further
IV The process of reform
5. Getting started with the Children Act 1948: what do we learn?
I A starting point
II The lucky dip
III Women in higher places
IV Getting established
V Assessing performance
VI Improving the services
VII Lessons?
6. Child care in the melting pot in the 1980s
I Narrowness
II The lack of differentiation
III Static images
IV Imitation
V So, what’s to be done?
7. Trends, transitions and tensions: children’s services since the 1980s
I Looking at some statistics1
II Policies and politics
III And some continuities
8. Reflections on the assessment of outcomes in child care
I The stability of outcomes over time
II The relationship between individual and aggregate outcomes
III How comprehensive should selected outcomes be?
IV The categories of children for whom outcomes are assessed
V The evaluation of outcomes
VI Attribution, prediction and explanation
9. The role and function of inquiries
I Variety, scope and classification
II Inauguration, form and procedure
III So, what next?
IV The call for lessons to be learned
V Inquiries: change or continuity?
10. Evidence, judgement, values and engagement
I Evidence
II Judgement
III Values
IV Engagement
11. Emerging issues: looking ahead
I The private provision of services
II Emerging trends
III The quest for prevention
Notes and references
Bibliography
Index