The study reported in this book has looked at child well-being in terms of unmet need, violated rights, poverty, poor quality of life (QoL) and social exclusion. Owing to a confluence of several factors, including moral imperatives, legislation and scientific evidence, all five concepts appear currently as policy objectives in children's services in the UK and other western developed countries. In many respects this is welcome; it should be evident by this juncture in the book that there is value in looking at children's lives through different lenses. At the same time, varied terminology and multiple initiatives bring with them the danger of confusion. There is a risk of using different words to refer to the same phenomenon, whether in discussions between researchers, policy-makers and practitioners, or across administrative and disciplinary divides. There is also the potential for policy-makers to speak with a forked tongue; that is, of devising and enacting initiatives that are inherently contradictory. Moreover, unless a concept is properly understood, how can its empirical formulation be measured and addressed? And unless the objective of services is made explicit, how can their effectiveness be assessed?

There is considerable research into each of the concepts individually, showing that although some broad consensus has been reached concerning the contours of each, their definitions remain contested and they continue to be measured in numerous ways. Partly because of this, however, conceptual and empirical research into the links between them, and the implications of this for services, is scant by comparison. In particular, it has not been possible to find an epidemiologystyle survey that examines different perspectives on the well-being of normative samples of children living in the community. More specific gaps in the literature were identified in Chapters Two to Six.

Given this context the contributions of the book can be grouped under three headings corresponding to the study's aims: first, the clarification of how the concepts are defined and measured, and an exploration of how they are related; second, an empirical analysis of the prevalence of the conditions among children representative of a particular community, and an elucidation of the patterns of overlap between them; and third, an attempt to chart theoretically and practically the implications of the ideas and findings for children's services.