Russell House Publishing Ltd

This book is about more than safeguarding children. It is an exploration of the interagency, collaborative nature of that safeguarding task. It is accessible, understandable and promotes a positive, collaborative agenda.

In the period after Lord Laming's inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie, the government is changing boundaries in childcare, to foster collaborative interagency work. But this reorganisation can only address part of the interagency problem. This book takes several further steps by examining :

• why collaborative work in childcare is so difficult to achieve
  
• what can individual practitioners and agencies do to promote collaboration
  
• in perspectives, roles and training of key groups of practitioners
  
• how we can all move towards a model of positive collaborative practice
  

This work was inspired by government advice and guidance about interagency child protection work, which always seemed to presume too much. This book does not presume too much 0 it exposes, it explains and it attempts to be helpful and relevant to practice.

Originally published as Working Together in Child Protection (Ashgate 1995), that fist edition was informed by all the changes that the Children's Act 1989 inspired. This second edition has been made necessary by the plethora of changes introduced subsequently into childcare practice.