ABSTRACT
This chapter will review some of the debates and look at key actors in the field of childhood need. I shall argue that we must understand policy as an outcome of political pressure and manoeuvring by interested groups (philanthropic organizations, professions, and pressure groups) rather than as the expression of humanity, and that the real agenda of campaigns for children is not so much children's own needs as the continuous process of shaping and reforming the family, the supposedly pivotal institution in social reproduction and social order. I shall look at the campaigns of organizations such as the NSPCC, and thus the politics of child abuse and childcare, culminating in the implementation of the 1989 Children Act in 1991. This Act enshrines much of the thinking behind family centres and, like them, blends a certain traditionalism as to family responsibilities and privacy with a commitment to child protection. Chapter 4 also looks at children's policies and services but focuses on those that stress parental and maternal involvement, such as play-groups. In Chapters 5 and 6 I shall look at the practice implications of this contemporary policy: here we are concerned with politics and history.
