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While there is a substantial body of leaving care research, the theorization of care leaving has been more limited. Only a few studies have incorporated a life course perspective, mainly in Global North contexts where life course perspectives may differ significantly from those in the Global South, including Africa. Drawing on findings from a feasibility research study, this paper contributes to the emerging international literature on theorizing care leaving by applying a life course perspective to the experiences of youth leaving care in four African countries. The paper highlights how life course can be a useful conceptual framework for understanding the experiences of care leavers with an emphasis on four core concepts: biography, linked lives, waithood, and agency. Implications for policy and practice are outlined with a focus on interdependence, participatory practice, biography, and cultural transition planning alongside efforts to redress systemic, oppressive barriers facing care leavers in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws attention to the importance of routinely collected administrative data as an important source for understanding the characteristics of the Northern Ireland child welfare system as it has developed since the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 became its legislative base. The article argues that the availability of such data is a strength of the Northern Ireland child welfare system and urges local politicians, lobbyists, researchers, policy-makers, operational managers, practitioners and service user groups to make more use of them. The main sources of administrative data are identified. Illustration of how these can be used to understand and to ask questions about the system is provided by considering some of the trends since the Children Order was enacted. The "protection" principle of the Children Order provides the focus for the illustration. The statistical trends considered relate to child protection referrals, investigations and registrations and to children and young people looked after under a range of court orders available to ensure their protection and well-being.

For too many years the phrase "after care, an after thought" summed up the lack of attention given to preparing young people in care for adult life and to the development of leaving-care and aftercare services. That stance has changed in the United Kingdom, however, and indeed has shifted positively and dramatically over the last decade. In 2010 when the British social policy "think tank" Demos published its report on children in state care it highlighted three factors that made for positive experiences of care and best outcomes for looked-after children (Hannon et al., 2010, p. 9). Two of the factors were "stability during care" and "early intervention and minimum delay". The third was "supported transitions to independence". To illustrate best practice in that third area, the Demos report drew attention to what was being done in Northern Ireland (Hannon et al., 2010, pp. 213-219). In this article, the authors agree that "supported transitions" should be regarded as fundamental to the success of any out-of-home care system--although they see that as requiring appropriate forms of "interdependence" not "independence". They also agree that the advances that have been made in Northern Ireland to improving the leaving-care experience deserve recognition. The challenge now for the leaving-care system in Northern Ireland is to demonstrate that measurable effectiveness and improvements in outcomes in the lives of care-leavers is being achieved through best use of current resources. That will be crucial to defending achievements to date as harder choices come to be made over what to fund and what not to fund because of the British Government's austerity programme and its increasingly important, although narrowly conceived, early intervention/prevention agenda. Constant review and critical reflection on practice will be essential. That will require not only scrutinising what is happening in the local system, but also what is going on elsewhere in the world (Pinkerton, 2011). This special issue provides some fascinating glimpses of that and helps make essential international connections. (Contains 1 figure and 2 notes.)

Prompted by Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, there is a growing number of examples of children and young people being involved in the policy process. To date this had not been matched by evaluation of the practice. This situation needs to change to ensure that existing experience provides learning for more widespread and more effective involvement. Using the development of the Irish National Children's Strategy for illustration, this article argues that the evaluation required must be more than monitoring. There is a need to get below the formal documented surface of participatory initiatives through developing analysis based in a critical perspective on both policy and evaluation.

Describes the launch of Ireland's National Children's Strategy: Our Children -- Their Lives. Examines specifically the process and mechanisms for developing the strategy; the content of the strategy, which includes the vision, an understanding of contemporary childhood, and three national goals including their central policy objectives and key measures; and a framework for driving the strategy forward. (SD)