Children In Need

How do you apply the principles, structures and processes of the law to everyday practice? Drawing on a wealth of contemporary case examples, this handy pocket book demystifies the legislation on children in need and demonstrates the practical duties and responsibilities of professionals within both the statutory and voluntary sectors.

Need is a popular but controversial concept in social policy. 'Needs-led' has become a mantra in children's services in recent years, yet theorists still argue about the meaning and value of the concept of 'need'. There are lots of needs assessment at the individual child and population levels, but case files vary enormously in quality and reports of need analyses frequently gather dust on shelves. How, then, should we define and measure children's needs, and how should this influence the design of services? This edited collection answers these questions in order to help policy makers, managers, practitioners and researchers with identifying and serving children in need. It offers a critical appraisal of the state of play regarding the theory of need, the needs that children have, methods for assessing children's needs at the individual and group levels, and approaches to designing services to meet identified needs.

This book sets out the current state of knowledge about what works in reducing impairments to children’s health and development. Little and Maughan’s book applies a high standard of proof and reproduces only the work of the leading intervention scientists from around the world. After discussing the real world challenges to more effective children’s services, the book goes on to cover policy and practice proven to change the lives of all children, and extends also to effective programmes targeted at children with specific disorders. Examples include changes in household income, early years support, moving families to less disadvantaged communities, improving parenting and using schools to better mental health. The benefits of evidence-based programmes are specified, as are the costs to society of not intervening. The evidence is used to make recommendations about getting effective policy and practice into routine use, and includes illustrations of successful applications of these ideas.

First published in 1999, this volume examines how, in the middle of the nineteenth century, Dr John Snow is reputed to have wrenched the handle from a street pump in central London, forcing people in the neighbourhood to change their drinking habits and so preventing them from contracting cholera from the dirty water. Aspects of the story may be apocryphal, but the general drift of Snow's assault on disease has enormous appeal for health, education, social services and police professionals working with children in need. Why spend so much time struggling to find strategies to cope with the more intractable problems among adolescents, when the problems might be prevented from occurring in the first place? This book tries to untangle some of the complex ideas that underpin effective prevention and early intervention activity on behalf of children experiencing social or psychological difficulty. It describes twenty programmes from Europe and America that have made an impact and where there has been an attempt to evaluate their usefulness. On this basis it suggests some principles for more effective preventive practice.

This book illustrates how social workers approach their work, the responses they receive, the children's and parents' experiences and reactions, and the stresses involved for all parties. It illustrates the skills needed in direct work with young children and in assessing the nature, outcomes and unmet needs within abusive situations.

What do children need to grow and develop? And how can their needs be met when parents work? Emphasizing the importance of parental choice, quality of care, and work opportunities, economist Jane Waldfogel guides readers through the maze of social science research evidence to offer comprehensive answers and a vision for change. Drawing on the evidence, Waldfogel proposes a bold new plan to better meet the needs of children in working families, from birth through adolescence, while respecting the core values of choice, quality, and work:,Allow parents more flexibility to take time off work for family responsibilities;,Break the link between employment and essential family benefits;,Give mothers and fathers more options to stay home in the first year of life;,Improve quality of care from infancy through the preschool years;,Increase access to high-quality out-of-school programs for school-aged children and teenagers.