ABSTRACT
When children have two parents it is possible and usual for them to combine their separate perspectives when thinking about current management or future planning in a complementary way. ‘Two heads are better than one’ is folk wisdom that probably derives from a parental model. When children are in care or under supervision orders, the two heads can quickly become legion: lengthy hierarchies of field and residential social work, the courts, schools, clinics all have their caring perspectives, their specific experience of a child and their anxieties about which responsibilities they must be accountable for. To add to the confusion, liberal ideas about children's rights to participate in decisions about themselves can, in some cases, be applied without discrimination as a way of avoiding adult responsibility.
