Observation and Assessment Centres for Children: A National Study of the Costs of Care

The present range and character of child‐care services in Britain have evolved erratically over a long period of time. Structured by a succession of Acts of Parliament, shaped and re‐shaped by the changing pattern of social values, needs and expectations, current provision is both complex and comprehensive. Statutory and voluntary bodies now provide preventive services, shelter and treatment for both the deprived and the delinquent, for the able‐bodied and the handicapped, for infants and for adolescents. Often this care will be provided in the child's own home or in a foster home, but at any one time roughly 40 per cent of the 120,000 children and young persons that are today the responsibility of local authorities will be resident in a children's home.