ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on empirical research, facts and figures about actual children, about all areas of their lives, health, education, social behaviour, family relations and living situations – which tell something about their circumstances, how the state typically responds and importantly what kinds of interventions appear to be effective. Effective institutions demonstrate some consensus amongst staff, children and parents about what these goals should be and how they should be achieved. Much of the research in the 1980s and early 1990s in England focused on patterns of need and interventions for children looked after by social services departments. Needs should be explored in all areas of the child’s life and, for children looked after the Department of Health, Looking After Children tools are ideal for the task. D. Whittaker and colleagues at York, along with E. Brown and colleagues at Dartington extended a long tradition in residential care researched by scrutinising the culture of children’s homes.
