This paper draws on an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Nurturing Attachments groupwork programme provided by AdoptionPlus for adoptive families in England. The Nurturing Attachments programme, informed by Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (Hughes, Golding & Hudson, 2015), was developed to help foster and adoptive parents strengthen their relationships with the child and support children who had experienced developmental traumas.

The primary aim of this study is to summarise research findings about the use of assessment frameworks, that is, structured models that guide information collection and decision making in child protection services, by reviewing the literature.

This article explores the history of strained relations between the Norwegian Child Welfare Services (CWS) and various migrant groups.

The Spring conference will focus on home, connection and felt security.

This paper reports on a qualitative study that aimed to understand children’s experiences of private fostering and social work practice.

The paper presents findings from a study of centre-based supervised child-parent contact. The purpose of the research was twofold; to ascertain the views and experiences of birth fathers on all aspects of the supervised child-parent contact they experienced in a centre; to find out from centre supervisors their views of engaging fathers and supervising contact, and from key stakeholders and referral agents (a community project worker, a child protection social worker, Guardian ad Litems, a family law solicitor) their perceptions of the supervised contact provision in the centre.

This report is about the use of ‘family orders’ to support family reunification and placement with family and friends as outcomes of S31 care and supervision proceedings brought under the UK Children Act 1989. The over-arching aim of this study is to understand the opportunities, challenges and outcomes of these orders, and their use at national and regional level.

This opinion piece from the Irish Times explores the high rates of children and young people with care experience within the criminal justice system in Ireland, the factors that contribute to this overrepresentation, the policies (or lack thereof) addressing this issue, and the need for more information and data collection on outcomes for children and young people in care. 

The Senior Adviser and Head of Unit assists the CBSS Expert Group on Children at Risk with technical and administrative support and manages the budget and staff of the unit.

This article is based on the author’s keynote presentation given at the Irish Foster Care Association (IFCA) conference in November 2018. It outlines an ‘ecological’ model for promoting foster care stability in Ireland.