Service Unifié de l'Enfance: Prise en charge de l'enfance inadaptée entre morcellement et tentatives d'unification.

This article on the history of the community child and adolescent psychiatry in France aims to investigate an ambitious project that never developed to its fullest potential: the "Service Unifié de l'Enfance" ("Unified Childhood Service"). This organization, which was created by child psychiatrist Michel Soulé in Paris 14th arrondissement, became a political project supported by Simone Veil when she became the French Health Minister. How, and in what context, was this project built? Who were its major players? How did it evolve, and what were its limits? And above all, why has the Service Unifié de l'Enfance seem to have been all but forgotten? At a time when the organisation of psychiatric care – under the guise of merging and uniting – is increasingly fragmented, the history of dividing up child and adolescent's institutions is more topical than ever. The starting point for this essay has its roots in a larger-scale research project currently being carried out at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris on the creation and history of community child psychiatry in France from the 1960s to the present day, under the direction of Nicolas Henckes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]