I wasn’t born a Commissioner for Equal Opportunity. I spent my formative years as a child, and my re-educative years as a lawyer, a teacher of law, and a law reformer.

As a child I swore that I would never be as insensitive to children’s needs and desires as adults were being to mine. As I became an adult I realised the seductive truth that it is much more reasonable, and pleasurable it was, to assert my assessment of children’s best interests over their own.

Child welfare workers express criticism of the child-in-isolation model of child welfare practice. At the same time, however, they often persist with a “foster mother-in-isolation” model of fostering. The authors of this paper were conscious of an increasing interest in fostering by policy makers who however, often seemed to see little difference between the “staffing” implications of fostering and of family day care. This way of thinking about fostering is at odds with practitioner’s experience. A small scale empirical study was initiated which posed the question “Who are foster families”. The findings from this study make it clear that foster families have qualities and methods of functioning which become evident only when the foster family is understood as a whole and not merely as a foster mother who has connected to her various dependents beside the foster child. An appreciation that there are “foster families” and not just foster mothers actively engaged in the fostering process can make for more sensitive welfare policies and more appropriate service delivery models.

A sample of 1,146 children ranging in age from 5-13 years was assessed for stressful life events across the lifespan. Children reported experiencing, on average, seven events during their lifetimes. Boys reported more such events than girls. The impact of multiple life events on children’s adjustment is discussed in the paper.

The following article by Professor Brian Wharf is based on programs operating in the USA. There are some signs of placement prevention programs being embraced by government bodies and non-government child welfare agencies in Australia and in Canada. His experience of developments in Australia, during a recent visit, prompted him to put forward this article for publication in Children Australia. There appears to be a remarkable similarity of interests between child welfare issues in Australia and Canada, particularly round the question of whether protection and prevention services should be integrated or provided by separate agencies or departments. Children Australia hopes this will be the first in a series of exchanges between Australia and Canada.

‘From childhood on, women’s moral sense emphasises caring for others. This orientation to the experiences, needs and wishes of others leads women to attend to and nurture other human beings and to provide them with what has become known as “social support”’ (Belle, 1982). This provision of crucial support is often at a cost to the women involved. This paper describes a community outreach project which has been running for nine years with the primary aim of renewing and reinforcing women’s feelings of self worth. The project involves twice-yearly residential weekends attended by an average of one hundred and twenty women. The history and evolution of the groups and some possible reasons why they work will be discussed.

THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE is very proud of his branch line. He thinks it is the most important part of the whole railway. He has two coaches. They are old, and need new paint, but he loves them very much. He calls them Annie and Clarabel. Annie can only take passengers, but Clarabel can take passengers, luggage and the guard.

(Awdry, 1986: 4)