Collaborative Practice with Vulnerable Children and Their Families

1. Collaborative practice: An essential component of the service to vulnerable children and their families 2. Who are the children and families most likely to need additional supportive and protective services? 3. Working collaboratively within legal mandates and statutory guidance 4. The value base for working collaboratively with vulnerable children and families 5. The knowledge-base for collaborative practice 6. Towards effective collaborative practice

June Thoburn, CBE, LittD, is an emeritus professor of social work at the University of East Anglia (UEA). She qualified as a social worker in 1963 and worked in local authority child and family social work and generic practice in England and Canada before taking up a joint appointment at UEA in 1979. As a founding director of the UEA Centre for Research on the Child and Family and of the Making Research Count collaboration, she has a particular interest in finding innovative ways of helping social workers to use knowledge from a range of sources in their practice.

Julie Taylor, PhD, FRCN, RN, MSc, BSc (Hons), is a nurse scientist specializing in child maltreatment. She is professor of child protection in the School of Health and Population Science at the University of Birmingham, with previous chairs at the Universities of Edinburgh (NSPCC Child Protection Research Centre) and Dundee (School of Nursing and Midwifery). For three years (2010-2013) she was Head of Strategy and Development (Abuse in High Risk Families) with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). She is the author of eight books and over 100 academic articles.