ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some of the basic features of shared care which were to be found amongst the families interviewed. It examines the particular experiences of a small number of individual children. The chapter illustrates the diversity and complexity of care patterns and to identify some of their key elements. It considers more systematically the range, variety and combinations of those elements for the whole sample. The chapter provides the brief details of seven children’s experiences of shared care up to the time that their parents were interviewed. The vast majority of carers were women. That was true of relatives and non-relatives, of daytime and evening care. Except for a few children with working mothers, group care frequency was greater than frequency of non-group sharing care. For the sake of clarity this exposition of care patterns has not incorporated the circumstances and reasons which gave rise to them.
