The chapters in this book discuss the complexity immediately encountered when approaching the task of improving the lives of Looked After Children (LAC).

This paper presents findings from the first-ever study of kinship care in the UK using census micro data.

This document provides an outline for the competencies, training and skills needed by healthcare staff to work with looked after children at different professional levels in the UK. It recognizes that all health staff should have access to appropriate training, learning opportunities, and support to fulfill their roles and responsibilities, particularly when it comes services provided to looked after children.

This report presents findings of a study on the childhood and family backgrounds of 1,435 participants who were newly incarcerated in 2005 and 2006 in the United Kingdom. The report has a special focus on the experiences of abuse and care placement in childhood.

This Charter lists the promises that care leavers want the central and local governments to make. The Charter for Care Leavers is designed to raise expectations, aspirations and understanding of what care leavers need and what the government and local authorities should do to be good “Corporate Parents.”

This document is an English language summary brochure of the Manual of Best Practice titled ‘Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe,’ specific to child abandonment in the UK.

This comprehensive manual provides an overview of child abandonment and its prevention in Europe, exploring the extent of child abandonment, possible reasons behind this phenomenon, the consequences of abandonment, and good practices in terms of prevention. For the purposes of the EU Daphne-funded project, child abandonment is defined in two ways, namely open and secret abandonment. Country specific in-depth reviews of child abandonment and its prevention are provided for 10 countries and results from an EU-wide survey analyzed.

This paper explores the research evidence from England and France on the mental health of young people aging out of care and into adulthood.

A comparative analysis of child welfare systems in 10 countries identifies three broad functional orientations – child protection, family service and child development.

The first comparative study of young people who have been in state care as children and their post-compulsory education, was undertaken by a team of cross-national researchers.