Prevention And Early Intervention In The Social Inclusion Of Children And Young People

Many policy and practice initiatives that aim to prevent social exclusion focus on children and young people. This book seeks to consider new approaches to understanding the complexities of prevention, and how these new understandings can inform policy and practice. The authors use evidence from the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund to illustrate and explore the experiences of children and families who are most marginalised. They consider the historical context of approaches to child welfare, and present a new framework for understanding and developing preventative polices and practice within the context of social exclusion. Preventative initiatives such as the Children's Fund have supported large-scale complex evaluations that have generated rich and important data about strategies for addressing social exclusion and what they can achieve. The findings of this book have direct relevance for all those engaged in developing preventative policy and practice and will therefore be of interest to policy makers, practitioners and students of child welfare and social policy more broadly, in providing a timely discussion of key debates in designing, delivering and commissioning preventative services.

Mentoring Children and Young People for Social Inclusion critically analyses the challenges and possibilities of mentoring approaches to youth welfare and equality. It explores existing youth mentoring programmes targeted towards youth in care, immigrant, and refugee populations, and considers the extent to which these can aid social inclusion. The book compiles works by scholars from different countries focused on how child and youth mentoring has been changing globally in recent years and how these changes are identified and approached in different contexts. The book seeks to address what empowering youth means in different socio-political contexts, how mentoring is approached by governments and NGOs, and how these approaches shape mentoring relationships. It provides insights on how mentoring can tackle structural inequalities and work towards child and youth empowerment. This book will be of great interest for academics, scholars, and postgraduate students in the area of inclusive education and mentoring. It will also be useful reading for social workers, community developers, and practitioners working in NGOs, as well as for governments looking for innovative ways to generate interventions in the educational and social arena.

Following a decade of radical change in policy and funding in children’s early intervention services and with the role of the third sector under increased scrutiny, this timely book assesses the shifting interplay between state provision and voluntary organisations delivering intervention for children, young people and their families. Using 100 voices from the frontline, it provides vivid accounts of the lived experiences of charitable groups and offers crucial insights into the impact of recent social policy decisions on their work. Telling the story of how the landscape of children’s early intervention services has changed over the last decade, the author highlights important lessons for future policy while demonstrating the immeasurable value of voluntary organisations working in this challenging terrain.

The authors draw on their own experiences and those of practitioners, service users and carers to understand issues of power and oppression, demonstrating how the law can be used to inform the development of critical anti-oppressive practice. The book therefore points the way to practice that is both empowering to service users and ultimately liberating for practitioners.

Congenital Heart Disease and Neurodevelopment: Understanding and Improving Outcomes brings together the work of leading researchers from the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. to provide a comprehensive examination of the causes, risks, and neurodevelopmental and psychological outcomes in children with congenital heart disease. The book includes longitudinal studies which have tracked outcomes from birth through late childhood and explores the emergent phenotype and etiologies, risk, and protective factors that strengthen proposed models. Medical and surgical advances have meant that greater numbers of children with even the most severe congenital heart disease (CHD) now survive well into adulthood. Studies over the past 20 years have suggested certain neurodevelopmental and psychological features are common, with clinical interventions being internationally articulated. The U.K. Belfast Center has developed and evaluated unique early intervention programs to circumvent the common problems discerned and promote optimal adjustment and outcomes. The first edition of Congenital Heart Disease and Neurodevelopment: Understanding and Improving Outcomes describes these programs in detail and outlines promising results obtained by researchers worldwide. Such interventions, together with the U.S. consensus statement (Circulation, 2012) on neurodevelopmental screening, hold great promise for clinical interventions. Features input from leading research experts in the field Describes cutting-edge research on longitudinal studies that link neurodevelopmental phenotypes with cutting-edge neuroimaging studies Discusses the first series of early intervention studies developed in Belfast targeted at key developmental transitions—birth and diagnosis, early childhood, and adolescence Includes clinical implications and action points in each section Features generalizable potential of interventions across other pediatric populations

Ireland has shown a strong commitment to addressing child poverty and improving outcomes for children and young people. Responding to the needs of children and young people, particularly those most vulnerable, requires integrated policies and services. This report is part of a joint project between the OECD and the European Commission to strengthen policy and governance arrangements for tackling child poverty and improving outcomes for children and young people based on a whole-of-government approach. The report assesses recent policy, institutional and legislative developments in Ireland and compares outcomes for children and young people with those in other EU and OECD countries. It finds that despite progress, Ireland still has room for improvement on child poverty reduction, and more can be done to address the trust gap between young people in Ireland and their government. The report recommends Ireland to adopt measures to enhance inter-departmental and inter-agency co-operation, strengthen evidence-informed approaches, reinforce policy monitoring tools, and improve accountability mechanisms. It also recommends measures to support the effective implementation of Young Ireland, the National Policy Framework for Children and Young People (2023-28), and to ensure policy coherence.

Social inclusion and participation have become policy mantras in the UK and Europe. As these concepts are being translated into policies and practice, it is a critical time to examine their interpretation, implementation and impacts. This book asks how far and in what way social inclusion policies are meeting the needs of children and young people.