ABSTRACT
The study design combined both quantitative and qualitative research strategies and both retrospective and prospective stages. First, the return process was closely scrutinised in a study of 24 families containing 31 children where parents and children had been separated and where the professionals involved anticipated reunion at some stage. Second, existing data on the experience of 875 children looked after in the 1980s was re-analysed to identify factors associated with a successful return home. Third, predictive factors identified and theory developed from the first two studies were tested prospectively on a second cohort of looked after children. The intensive study of the return process began with the identification of the child. The exercise allowed the identification from a large study population of issues surrounding the management of return and the problems experienced by families and children, and enabled correlations between these and known outcomes to be made.
