Co-ordinating Services for Children and Youth at Risk : A World View

Some 15 to 30 per cent of our children and youth are at risk of failing in school where learning and behaviour problems touch ever younger children. In many countries with very different political and cultural backgrounds, these challenges are being met by increasing the co-ordination of education, health and social services, a process often galvanised by a broader involvement, extending to business and senior citizens. This is more than merely tinkering with statutory systems of service provision. Current services are mismatched; our vision of the family and its needs is changing along with the balance between prevention and remediation, and the ways that professionals work together. This book provides the detailed stories of how this process has developed in seven OECD countries: Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States. It looks at system change from the points of view of policy-makers, managers, practitioners and service users. It provides information on the background to the changes, highlighting what was provided to help the changes happen and investigating the process of change and the outcomes of the reforms. The scope of the work is broad: it covers pre-school, school age and transition to work.