ABSTRACT
The working party identified seven developmental dimensions along which all children need to progress if they are to achieve long-term well-being in adulthood: health, education, identity, family and social relationships, social presentation, emotional and behavioral development, and self-care skills. It is therefore unsurprising that the first initiatives to introduce outcome-based evaluation measures have concentrated on the assessment of the effectiveness of services for children placed in care or accommodation. The Department of Health initiative on assessing outcomes for children looked after away from home is known as the Looking After Children project. In many ways the performance management program being introduced into children’s services at a macro level adopts an approach that complements that of the Looking After Children program at the micro level. Implementation of the performance assessment framework has raised many issues similar to those highlighted at an individual level by the implementation of Looking After Children.
