This reader provides a critical perspective on work with children and young people at a time of change. It examines the ways that ideas inform practice, explores recent changes in the organisation of services and addresses what it means to be a critical, reflective practitioner.

Introduction - Martin Robb and Rachel Thomson; Section one: The conceptual context: Children's perspectives informing professional welfare practice - Maria Eriksson and Keith Pringle; The impact of devolution on policies for children in Scotland - Jane Aldgate; Walking on egg shells: multiculturalism, gender and domestic violence - Heidi Safia Mirza; Theorising development, constructing normal childhoods - Lindsay O'Dell; Meeting the needs of pregnant and parenting teenagers using research: pointers for practice - Lisa Arai; Children and 'green well fair' - Jane Franklin; Section two: The organisational context: Integrated services, inter-professional working and the development of effective practice with children, young people and their families - Barry Luckock; Multi-agency practice and professional identity - Anna Souhami; Leadership, management and managerialism - Adrian Kelly; Professionalism and professionalisation - Andy Rixon; Men wanted: gender and the children's workforce - Martin Robb; Section three: The personal and professional context: Identities in context: the professional identities of early years workers - Jayne Osgood; The making of a good teacher in the twentieth century - Jane Martin; Shifting the goalposts: researching pupils at risk of social exclusion - Val Gillies and Yvonne Robinson; The personal is political: feminist youth work and intergenerational exchange - Janet Batsleer; Crossing and defending boundaries: teachers becoming mothers - Rachel Thomson; An alternative holistic practice? Reflection as a tool for understanding the whole self in children and young people's nursing - Sue Higham.

"This is an exciting and challenging collection of papers which will really help the reader to consider key contemporary issues of integrated services. It clarifies core issues for all those working with children and young people at a practice and policy level and it will help them to identify the relevant questions to ask before working out what needs to be done and how." Gill Frances, OBE, former Director of Children's Development at the National Children's Bureau "This is an important collection that takes a welcome critical stance on service integration and raises difficult questions about the costs and benefits of integration for policy-makers and practitioners alike. The book presents the arguments in an accessible and readable fashion and is well written, thoughtful and challenging." Dr. Simon Bradford, Reader in Social Sciences, Brunel University