Introduction

There has been a growing recognition, in recent years, of the significant and varied needs of families for support, both emotionally and psychologically, and in material and financial terms, when they take on care of other people's children. It is self-evident that children living in birth families always have some key relationships that have been created biologically. But as a result of the high rate of divorce, separation, and re-constituted families, a significant proportion of children and young people in our society are also living with one parent and with siblings to whom they are not related biologically. There have been a number of important recent studies, which have clarified the current state of child mental health in Great Britain, in both the general population and in looked-after children and young people. Children adopted in infancy and not subject to neglect and abuse have only moderately increased, if any, rates of difficulties in comparison to children raised by birth families.