Recent years have seen a welcome series of government measures aimed at meeting the mental health needs of looked after children. However, as Eddy Street and Mike Davies argue in this paper, there remains a clear lack of integration of models of ‘good practice’ among childcare and mental health professionals. Taking into consideration the ‘tiered model’ recommended by the NHS Health Advisory Service report (1995), the authors advocate a developmental approach through the implementation of a multi-disciplinary service that combines the best of psychiatric, psychological, social work and childcare perspectives.
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