ABSTRACT
A context in which return has achieved salience during the past generation concerns the closure of psychiatric hospitals and the return of their patients to the care of the community. Many more children return home each term from boarding schools and many other young people spend time away in hospital. Studies of children outside the child welfare system throw additional light on the return process. A group more likely to experience return difficulties are those children in residential schools, particularly those for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. A young person’s return from prison as a parent, however, is perhaps less important for purposes than their return to family as a dependent. The returns of many of the young people studied were seriously impaired by the consequences of offending so that remands in custody frequently disrupted living patterns, social relations and employment prospects.
