Integrating children's services to promote children's welfare: early findings from the implementation of children's trusts in England

As part of the reform of English children's services, children's trust pathfinders were launched in 2003 by the British government to promote greater inter-agency co-operation between children's services and professionals. This paper reports on early findings from a multi-method, longitudinal national evaluation of the implementation and impact of all 35 children's trust pathfinders. Using data from a 2004 survey of 35 children's trusts managers and in-depth interviews with 107 professionals conducted in 2005, results show strong endorsement of an integrated children's service vision. However, arrangements for co-operation on governance and strategic developments were more advanced than for procedural or frontline professional practice. In this transitional period, professionals were negotiating a balance between targeted and universal service provision and, concurrently, establishing the scope of formal strategic partnership bodies (including local safeguarding children boards) with potentially overlapping remits.