Networks, Connectedness and Resilience: Learning From the Children's Fund in Context

Abstract

During the past decade, expectations placed on child welfare services in the UK have moved away from individualised provision geared to meeting the needs of specific children at risk, to consideration of the broader context for children. The introduction of a series of national programmes aimed at addressing social exclusion and tasked with stimulating new approaches to enabling better outcomes for children formed the background for the recent legislation and guidance for local children's services. The Children's Fund was one of a raft of New Labour social policies promoting partnerships between statutory and voluntary organisations in order to address the cross-cutting issue of social exclusion. It was announced following the UK 2000 Spending Review and drew from the Policy Action Team12 (PAT12) Report, ‘Young People at Risk’ (SEU, 2000). Funding started in January 2001 and continues until 2008 with a total allocation during this period of £960 million. Like most special policy initiatives instigated following 1997, the establishment of the Children's Fund was accompanied by both national and local evaluation requirements. The National Evaluation of the Children's Fund (NECF) was undertaken by a team from the Universities of Birmingham and London and this themed section draws on selected findings from that evaluation. Overall results are reported in Edwards et al., (2006).