The Art and science of child care - Matthew Colton

This is the first volume in an international series on child care designed to explore the field of child care from a wide variety of national and professional perspectives. The book focuses on the existing gaps between research, policy and practice, describing why the gaps exist and what can be done
and already has been done
to close them. Nineteen experienced authors from six European countries have pooled their talents to bring to the reader a selection of important advances in research and practice, with a focus upon the application of these advances to policy. - - The underlying theme in every chapter is integration between the human creativity which we call art and the logical, expanding cycle of observation, inference and verification which is the heart of science. The plan of the book takes us from the general to the particular, beginning with a discussion of childhood itself and moving on through an exploration of the ways in which research, policy and practice might be linked to specific studies in which they have been linked. - - The book describes these linkages in the areas of developmental research, evaluative research, residential care and foster care, focusing on keys to integration such as the application to practice of theoretical models, the dissemination of research findings to a wide variety of actors, the utilisation of the results of research studies by practitioners and policy makers and the involvement of practitioners in research endeavours. - - These integrative keys are placed in the context of issues important in the child-care field, such as the outcomes of short-term and long-term extrafamilial care, the design of evaluative studies, the treatment of delinquency, the return home of separated children, the affective relationships between children and carers and the educational attainment of children in care. - - Together, the chapters integrate the physical with the spiritual, the abstract with the actual, the empirical with the contemplative. All of the authors are experts in their different fields. They come together here to show us how we can merge the art and science of caring for the betterment of our children and ourselves.