The Team Around the Child : Multi-Agency Working in the Early Years

The most important changes to children's services in Britain in the last 20 years are set to improve the outcomes of all children from their early years on. The overall aims are to tackle child poverty, improve child protection and the education and childcare for young children, to raise standards, and to provide greater support for parents in bringing up their children. Multi-agency approaches will be developed to serve the needs of local children and families.

This massive program of change to children's services follows the Government's publication of the Children Bill and Every Child Matters: Next Steps. It presents immense challenges and these rest with local government. Key to achieving the declared goals will be the 3500 Children's Centers set up across the country that will integrate provision of education, care, family support, child protection and health services.

With its multi-agency focus and underpinning theoretical perspectives, this book will be of special interest to everyone involved in Children's Centers and to the increasing numbers of early years staff involved in multi-agency working and strategies: social workers, child care staff, teachers, health managers, policy makers and advisers, and the people working directly with children and their families. It will be a useful resource for academics and students in higher education.

Iram Siraj is a Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London, and a visiting Professor at the University of Wollongong. She co-led on the Effective Pre-school, Primary, and Secondary Education (EPPSE) longitudinal study, and the highly influential Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) study, which first developed the concept of Sustained Shared Thinking (SST). She is a co-author of the ECERS-E and has published widely on quality, pedagogy, and curriculum.

Karen Clarke is Principal Lecturer in the School of Education, University of Wolverhampton.

Martin Needham is Senior Lecturer and leads the Childhood Studies degree in the School of Education, University of Wolverhampton.