About the Contributors.

Preface.

Acknowledgements.

Part I: The Need for a Good Start in Life – Attachment, Bonding, and Children’s Rights.

1. Introduction: An Overview of Children in Public Care (Dorota Iwaniec).

2. Ordinary Children in Extraordinary Circumstances (Jane Aldgate).

3. The Importance of Developing Emotional Bonds Between Parents and Children (Emma Larkin).

4. Children in Alternative Care: Are Their Rights Being Met?(Rosemary Kilpatrick).

Part II: Pathways to Permanency.

5. Outcomes of Long-Term Foster-Care: Young People’s Views(Colette McAuley).

6. Kinship Care as a Route to Permanent Placement (Una Lernihan and Greg Kelly).

7. Exploring Regional Trends in Pathways to Permanency (Dominic McSherry and Emma Larkin).

Part III: Residential and Mixed Care.

8. Developments in Residential Care in Northern Ireland (Dominic McSherry and Emma Larkin).

9. The Mental-Health Needs of Looked-After Children (Tom Teggart).

10. Changing Lives or Just Changing Location? Planning for Adolescents in Substitute Care (Helga Sneddon).

11. Making Use of Positive Psychology in Residential Child Care (Stan Houston).

Part IV: Court and Family Support Pathways to Substitute Care.

12. Pathways to Permanence: Accommodation, Compulsion and Permanence under the Children (NI) Order (1995) (Theresa Donaldson).

13. Care-Planning in Care Proceedings: A Case-Study Perspective on Achieving Permanency (Dominic McSherry).

14. The Participation of ‘Looked-after’ Children in Public Law Proceedings (Karen Winter).

Part V: Messages from Research.

15. Messages from Research (Dorota Iwaniec and Helga Sneddon).

Concluding Remarks.

References.

Index.