Children, Families and Social Exclusion - New Approaches to Prevention

This book explores preventative services and partnerships that are currently improving support for those social groups seen to be most at risk of social exclusion. As well as providing readers with a detailed understanding of the Children's Fund and how it seeks to assist these preventative services and policies, the book also gives an insight into the research that has taken place to evaluate current practice, and the public's perception.

It not only outlines some genuinely thought-provoking facts, drawn from sources such as Unicef and targets set by New Labour. It also covers more recent legislation such as Every Child Matters: Change for Children and highlights the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign. It also incorporates a study conducted by the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund, which considers the four social groups recognised to be most in need of preventative services: disabled children, black and ethnic minority children, gypsies and Travellers, and refugee and asylum-seeking children.

The authors clearly state that early intervention hasn't had enough impact on those families classed as hard to reach or at risk. This resulted in the introduction of the Children's Fund, to provide an extension of the services offered by Sure Start and thus filling the gap for children aged five to 13. The authors then set about proposing changes for children, young people and their families, acknowledge how current legislation can affect future practice, and set out how any future legislation or policy must consider prevention.

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