This briefing paper reports key findings from a recent study of direct contact between adoptive families and birth relatives within the four nations of the UK.

"Is the local authority care system in England failing children who run away and what happens to those who go missing?" asks this article. "The BBC has uncovered evidence of young people disappearing off the radar for weeks, months and, in some cases, years."

The goals of this article were to (a) examine the changes in educational achievements of children in care from preschool through the end of primary school; (b) identify subgroups exhibiting distinct educational trajectories; and (c) explore key predictive individual, care, and school characteristics.

This paper argues that whilst statutory services have expanded then contracted, children’s charities have remerged as the most influential voices that have shaped twenty-first century child protection policy and practice in the UK.

The current study employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to guide the analysis of semi-structured interviews with eight young people with a range of care experiences, looking at the topic of confiding in others.

The current study employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to guide the analysis of semi-structured interviews with eight young people with a range of care experiences, looking at the topic of confiding in others.

This article summarises the Narrative Model and shows how it supports placement stability for children.

This article describes a major development in child care practice in Wales that has occurred over the past two years. The Adopting Together Service (ATS) involves a unique, innovative and multi-layered collaboration between the voluntary adoption agencies (VAAs – non-governmental charities) and regional adoption teams (statutory agencies) to secure permanence for children who wait the longest to find families.

This article charts the UK history of contact in fostering and adoption as it relates to children in care and their birth relatives.

This research set out to capture the ways in which adaptations were made by UK local authorities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This report is based on the experiences of 15 local authority children’s social care (CSC) departments that volunteered to participate in the research and whose views were captured between late May and early June 2020.