Many areas of the law with which social workers are required to deal are particularly dynamic and, in order to meet the challenges they present, it is necessary to look ahead. Developments in the United States often provide a useful means of predicting developments in Australia. The paper examines three areas, proceedings, social security law, and mental health – where change is becoming, or likely to become, apparent, in the first topic, there has been a marked change in both the issues with which the courts have had to deal and the methodology which they have adopted to attempt to resolve them. In social security law, decisions of the Administrative Tribunal have illustrated anomalies and deficiencies in the legislation, and social workers in their daily practice may notice others. All of that might well lead to a necessary review of the legislation. In the area of mental health legislation, a draft bill in Victoria contains a number of disquieting features which should cause social workers, as well as lawyers, concern. The paper concludes by noting that the legal relationship between social workers and the law has never been more subject to scrutiny in a wide variety of situations, and mutual respect between the two disciplines must continue to increase.

This paper deals with the Danish Child Welfare Law, which was passed in 1974 as part of an integrated welfare law aiming at decentralization of decision making in local government, and maximum citizen participation.

The law provides for counselling, recommendations and injunctions in connection with counselling, appointment of personal guidance officers, and taking children into care. The greater part of decision making is made in co-operation with parents. The few cases of removal of a child from the home without parental consent are conducted under the auspices of the local council welfare committee, presided over by a judge. Parents are given access and must be heard. Parents have wide rights of appeal.

The great challenge in the mid 1980's is to find ways to insulate children from the lingering political and economic malaise which has overtaken many families in Australia.

Family poverty, as many of you will know, has overtaken the poverty of the aged with which Australian society and welfare organisations were so familiar until the 1970's.

Nevertheless it came as a shock to me to see in black and white from the Social Security Department the figures which showed that the number of children living in poor families had quadrupled between 1973 and 1983 to the point where nearly one in five children in Australia is being raised in poverty.

The idea that children whose parents are unable or unwilling to care for them within the familial home should be cared for by the state or voluntary organisation, in small groups by adults who share their lives with the children, has gained considerable currency in the last two decades. (Ainsworth and Fulcher, 1981). However, although now widely accepted in principle, a uniform implementation of group care for children has been slow due to a number of factors.

PEACE is both an International and local issue which….

…. should also confront basic problems in society like inequality, unemployment, homelessness and racial discrimination .…requires society to be tolerant and flexible so people can be at peace with one another. (IYY 85 Brochure) PEACE .… the Pocket Oxford Dictionary refers to peace as being freedom from or cessation of war; civil order as secured by law; quiet, calm, harmonious relations. To be at peace is to be untroubled. For the present generation of young people issues relating to peace are of critical importance. International brinkmanship and possession of arsenals with unprecedented destructive power underscore age old questions of human relations concerning aggression and the management of competition and conflict. The daily news almost inevitably dreaws attention to conflict between individuals, between large groups of people and between nations. The slogan “Peace in our time” carries a note of urgency yet the daily experience of human conflict both real and simulated on TV screens points to the possibility that potential for conflict is deeply rooted in human nature.