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ABSTRACT Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) were established under the Children Act 2004 and have responsibility for coordinating and ensuring the effectiveness of the work of partner bodies to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Drawing on data from a Department for Children, Schools and Families and Department of Health-funded evaluation, the paper examines the development of LSCBs and the challenges and issues that have been encountered by Boards in implementing new arrangements. In doing so, the paper contributes to current debates about some of the limitations of New Labour's safeguarding reforms as a vehicle for improving outcomes for children and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether the Human Rights Act 1998 has influenced the approach a range of professionals, including social workers, managers and children's guardians adopt when they examine and seek to balance the potentially competing rights of parents and children involved in care proceedings. Drawing on findings from an empirical study of the decision-making process that influences the life pathways of very young children in care, it also explores some of the dilemmas professionals face in their day-to-day practice and examines whether parental rights are prioritized over children's rights in certain instances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is much evidence of instability in the care system and poor developmental outcomes for looked after children, but looked after children are far from being a homogenous group. Their lives, needs and experiences vary immensely. Harriet Ward, Tricia Skuse and Emily R Munro present the findings from a recent study of children's views of the care system in England (Skuse and Ward, 2003). They explore what children and young people did and did not like about being looked after, why some found it a beneficial experience while others did not, and discuss the reasons for their largely positive responses. Ordinary features of everyday life that peers would usually take for granted, such as having someone to talk to or doing ordinary family things like going to the cinema, were identified as benefits of the care system. These views and the expectations of looked after children need to be considered in the context of their past life experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]