The importance of maintaining contact between children temporarily or permanently looked after away from their birth parents is now believed to be so important to their psychosocial development as to be written into the Children Act. This position has been argued both on the basis of the rights of children and birth parents and on the claimed strength of the research evidence concerning the positive effects of contact and the negative consequences of its absence. The quality of the research evidence is reviewed. It is concluded that evidence on either the beneficial or adverse effects of contact is not strong and that the design and/or analysis of existing studies contain a number of weaknesses that preclude clear research-based guidance to practitioners.

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Older age at placement was associated with poorer outcome, but only significantly so among those children not classified as false in their displays of affection.

Social care practitioners regularly encounter problematic substance use among their service users. However, most social care practitioners do not specialise in substance use and there is limited evidence on their practice with it. Aims: This study aimed to explore the practice of social care professionals when they encounter substance use in the course of their work. This article focuses specifically on how they identify and assess substance use. Method: A web-based survey was disseminated to 3164 practitioners in adults' (AS) and children's (CS) social care in 11 different local authorities in England. Twelve focus groups were also held. Results: AS and CS practitioners identified substance problems by their impact on their service user's ability to fulfil their responsibilities or perform daily functions. Differences in relation to assessment were found between AS and CS practitioners. CS practitioners asked questions more frequently and were more likely to state that asking about substance use was a legitimate task. Very few practitioners had practice guidance or tools to help them assess substance use. Conclusion: Substance use is being identified and assessed in social care but often at a late stage with little to no guidance on how to do so effectively.

The recruitment and preparation of adoptive parents is currently high on the UK Government's agenda and a number of far-reaching changes in policy, processes and guidance have been introduced in recent months. The fundamental aim of adoption from care remains to provide, hopefully, stable and loving families for children whose parents cannot care for them, but the experiences of adoptive parents in this process have recently moved from the wings to centre stage. This article introduces the reflections of a group of adoptive parents (n ¼ 27) about their experience of becoming adopters. The impact of delays in the process and experiences of the preparation and assessment period are discussed. There is a particular focus on adopters' thoughts about the sorts of children they felt they could parent and how these changed in the course of their approval journey.