Dorota Iwaniec 
The Child’s Journey Through Care 
Placement Stability, Care Planning, and Achieving Permanency

This book focuses on children’s journeys through the care system,
from voluntary admission into care, through complicated and often
long court proceedings, in pursuit of Care or Freeing Orders.
Problems that arise from taking cases through the courts are
examined, together with tensions that may arise between judicial
and social work decision-making.

The Child’s Journey Through Care discusses in
full:

* the emotional and behavioural problems of looked-after children
and elaborates on care-planning and helping strategies;

* children’s rights whilst in State care and their participation
in decision-making about their future, including preparation for
appearances in court;

* the importance and ways of building new attachments and
relationships with substitute carers, with emphases on resilience
and children’s strengths;

* pitfalls and successes when seeking permanency of care and
emotional stability.

The book also includes considerations of the European Convention
of Human Rights (1998) and describes many of the dilemmas arising
in meeting the rights of children and parents, without jeopardising
the welfare of either. The importance of openness, consideration,
and straightforward dealings with parents is given due emphasis,
especially where preparations for taking cases to court are
involved.

The Child’s Journey Through Care will be a valuable
source of information for field and residential workers, social
work supervisors, resource managers, policy makers, and those
working in the legal profession.

Table of Content

List of Illustrations.

About the Contributors.

Preface.

Acknowledgements.

Part I: The Need for a Good Start in Life – Attachment, Bonding, and Children’s Rights.

1. Introduction: An Overview of Children in Public Care (Dorota Iwaniec).

2. Ordinary Children in Extraordinary Circumstances (Jane Aldgate).

3. The Importance of Developing Emotional Bonds Between Parents and Children (Emma Larkin).

4. Children in Alternative Care: Are Their Rights Being Met?(Rosemary Kilpatrick).

Part II: Pathways to Permanency.

5. Outcomes of Long-Term Foster-Care: Young People’s Views (Colette Mc Auley).

6. Kinship Care as a Route to Permanent Placement (Una Lernihan and Greg Kelly).

7. Exploring Regional Trends in Pathways to Permanency (Dominic Mc Sherry and Emma Larkin).

Part III: Residential and Mixed Care.

8. Developments in Residential Care in Northern Ireland (Dominic Mc Sherry and Emma Larkin).

9. The Mental-Health Needs of Looked-After Children (Tom Teggart).

10. Changing Lives or Just Changing Location? Planning for Adolescents in Substitute Care (Helga Sneddon).

11. Making Use of Positive Psychology in Residential Child Care (Stan Houston).

Part IV: Court and Family Support Pathways to Substitute Care.

12. Pathways to Permanence: Accommodation, Compulsion and Permanence under the Children (NI) Order (1995) (Theresa Donaldson).

13. Care-Planning in Care Proceedings: A Case-Study Perspective on Achieving Permanency (Dominic Mc Sherry).

14. The Participation of ‘Looked-after’ Children in Public Law Proceedings (Karen Winter).

Part V: Messages from Research.

15. Messages from Research (Dorota Iwaniec and Helga Sneddon).

Concluding Remarks.

References.

Index.

About the author

Professor Dorota Iwaniec is Director of the Institute of
Childcare Research at Queen’s University, Belfast. She is a
world-renowned expert on childcare and emotional abuse and is the
author of several books, including three published by Wiley.