Perspectives in child care policy - Lorraine Fox Harding

The idea for this book originated in an article published by the author under the name of Lorraine Fox in 1982 in the "British Journal of Social Work" (reprinted in the Open University reader "Children and Young People in Care" (1989)). The article sets out two schools of thought or "value positions", which may be adhered to in relation to child care policy, and it has been quite widely referred to. This book develops the ideas in the article further, in exploring a four-fold division of positions or "value perspectives" which builds on and elaborates the original two-fold classification.;A note on the national focus of the book - this book is written mostly with child care law and policy in England and Wales in mind as a context (referred to usually as England/English policy for shortness). References to British policy are on the whole not made, as it is recognised that Scotland, while it shares some of the English child care legislation, also has some Acts of its own, and in particular has a very different system, based on informal children's hearings, for children in need of compulsory care. Scotland, it is felt, is worthy of study in its own right, as indeed is Northern Ireland. While to illustrate the different perspectives in practice reference is made mostly to actual child care policy in the English/Welsh context, short sections are also incorporated referring to policy in the United States, Australia and Scandanavia.