The Future of Children’s Care: Critical Perspectives on Services Reform

Bringing together a range of perspectives from practice, lived experience and academia, this is an accessible and timely guide to children's services reform. Critically considering the impact of the MacAlister Review, the book highlights both the positive and negative aspects of reform, before setting out alternative policy and practice directions. Over the last decade there has been a series of Government policy initiatives in respect of children’s services and social work education in England, many of which aim to de-regulate or privatise aspects of these services. Critically considering the impact of the MacAlister Review, this book explores the past, present and future of children’s services in the UK from a range of perspectives – lived, professional and academic. This accessible guide provides a timely and incisive overview of the current children’s services reform agenda in the UK. It identifies current challenges, analyses both strengths and weaknesses in the current policy agenda and sets out alternative policy and practice directions for a system that can meet families’ needs.