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The appropriate use of secure accommodation for very difficult adolescents continues to cause concern. Research in the 1970s highlighted the variety of young people admitted to secure units and the difficulties of fashioning treatment programmes. As a result, gate‐keeping and admission criteria have been tightened. Recent research has further clarified the needs and problems of young people in secure units and has highlighted the relationship between provision offered in child‐care, penal and health services. New research findings, particularly those arising out of studies of young people in Youth Treatment Centres, are discussed in the light of these issues.

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This paper highlights some sign#cant issues regarding the family links of children absent in local authority care raised in recent child-care research. It shows how research and legklative change can be linked constructively. The relevant sections of rhe Children Act 1989 reflect the successive efforts of the Department of Health to incorporate research messages inro child care policy and practice with regard to providing a satisfactory legal framework for managing the family links of children in care.

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