Safeguarding Children-Everyone's Responsibility
T his first issue of 2008 opens with a welcome and a farewell.
First, we are delighted to welcome Jane Appleton who joins the Editorial Team as Co-Editor. Jane is Reader in Primary and Community Care at Oxford Brookes University. Her professional background is in nursing and health visiting and she has researched and published widely on safeguarding children in primary care settings. However, we also say farewell to David Gough who has been Co-Editor of Child Abuse Review since 2000, starting as Book Review Editor on the first volume of the journal in 1992 and then taking on the responsibilities of Co-Editor alongside Margaret Lynch and then Nicky Stanley. He has played a key role in ensuring that the journal continues to take on new themes and extend its remit as well as contributing to the business of editing a journal. His advice and support have been invaluable and greatly appreciated by BASPCAN, Wileys, the Editorial Team and Board.
Since the publication of Lord Laming's Inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié (Lord Laming, 2003) a plethora of policy guidance and procedures has been issued by UK government departments with the intention of improving professional practice around safeguarding children. There has been a marked change in policy focus with early identification of harm and the provision of support to vulnerable children and young people specified as key priorities. Yet recent developments are not without their critics, with some practitioners feeling that they are drowning under a sea of bureaucracy, documentation and guidance, while others remain sceptical about whether recent legislative changes and practice developments really are helping to improve outcomes for all children and young people.
The first paper of 2008 takes up this latter concern by considering the extent to which the new UK legislation and child welfare reforms specifically address the needs of minority ethnic children and their families. Ashok Chand (2008) reports on a critical review evaluating the extent to which research evidence from the early 1990s that highlighted the disadvantages and discriminations that