This article describes one agency’s strategies in developing benchmarks for best practice outcomes in fostering. Workers have used current literature, research and reports to identify optimum outcomes, and have then compared the performance of their own foster care program to these points. Future directions and current needs in research in this area are identified.

This article offers a brief notation on the First International Conference on Child Access Services, held in Paris on 4–7 November 1998. The author raises some questions which took shape at the Conference and notes the contrasting representations in different countries of the disciplines involved in establishing and running Child Contact Centres and how these may contribute to the contrast in ideology and philosophy in the setting up and running of these centres and the services they offer. The author’s knowledge of the French contact centre models provides a basis for looking at the establishment of Australian centres, both government and non-government funded. The French centres’ paramount goal to develop respect for the child as a person and uphold his legal position by equipping him with a sense of his history and roots, and by fostering respect between the parents, is seen as a more comprehensible concept than the ambiguous ‘best interest of the child’ goal upheld in Anglo-Saxon countries. Moreover, the length of involvement with families in the French centres is contrasted with the shorter period needed to secure the child’s physical safety. The article concludes with the hope that Australian centres are at the threshold of developing an adjunct facilitative structure that would allow progress within the families referred to them and offers as a parting note some recent American research findings on the profile of families using visitation services and of the providers of such services.

In response to concerns within the Children’s Welfare Association of Victoria (CWAV) about the difficulty of recruiting foster parents, a study of the recruitment process experienced by Victorian inquirers was conducted. The literature consistently reports a low rate of conversion of inquirers into foster carers. This study was concerned with finding out the cause of this low rate, what happens to the inquirers after making a call and why they decide to continue or not continue with foster care?

Telephone interviews were conducted with 91 inquirers about their experience of the recruitment process. Only 4 per cent of these inquirers had become carers. The rest were split evenly between those who decided not to continue because of personal circumstances, and those who were discouraged in some way by the response to their contact received from the allocated agency. This result was surprising and disappointing, and we suggest that these callers may be a more valuable resource than agencies suspect. Ways of giving these callers more effective follow up, while recognising constraints on time and resources experienced by workers in this field, are needed to take full advantage of the opportunity to recruit the potential carers among them.

This article, the final in a series of three, looks at how and why children are referred for psychiatric help, and then presents an analysis of referrals which occurred during the period, 1.7.1991–30.6.1993, at Alfred Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in Melbourne.

Analysis of the referral sources for two groups of children (those who had experienced non-biological care and those who had not) showed very different patterns, the implications of which are discussed. In contrast, analysis of the presenting problems showed that the difference between the two groups of children was not as marked as had been expected. Possible explanations for this, involving systemic issues, are explored.

This paper critically examines Marxist and feminist literature on child protection, and identifies both their strengths and weaknesses. The author concludes that, while both ideologies call for broader policy reforms to address the prevalence of poverty and male violence, the core responsibility of statutory systems remains the protection of children and their rights.

As the number of male sole parents in the community increases, it is not uncommon for professionals to be faced with requests for counselling and parenting support from men who are single fathers. Issues and challenges that face sole fathers are many and varied, including cultural aspects, gender issues, age and personal factors such as the capacity as a father to be therefor the child.

Many issues which need to be addressed when working with single fathers are not dissimilar to those experienced by single mothers. However, there are salient issues which appear unique to the sole father population. These include the lack of support for male sole parents and the father’s self concept. A dilemma that may confront professionals is how to be mindful of the protective needs of children in these families (in order to prevent the emergence of ‘high risk’ concerns), while providing effective and innovative support.

Case studies will be drawn upon to illustrate the issues confronting sole fathers, and the kinds of outcomes that may result from providing counselling and support to this target group. (Names and identifying features have been changed to ensure client confidentiality.)

Most of the offences committed by children are of a minor nature. Such petty crimes rarely, if ever, feature in media coverage as it is more concerned with the most extreme cases. The awful death of two-year-old James Bulger, killed by two ten-year-old boys, appears to have been used as an excuse in the UK to ‘get tough’ with all young offenders and change their treatment before the courts. Most children who come to the attention of the police and social workers were victims before they became villains. The need to exact retribution should not be used to obscure the lack of care extended to them early in their lives, nor used as an excuse to treat them as adults or, in some cases, more harshly than adults.