Volume 1 "Policy Changes and Challenges" takes as its central theme the ongoing and challenging issues which child protection agencies have to address and the policy and practice initiatives that are developed to try and address these. The volume includes papers on: the relationship between the decline in the rate of 'unnatural' deaths and the growth of concern about child abuse in the USA between 1940 and 2005; mandatory reporting; the balance between providing urgent intervention and meeting chronic need; risk and the Public Law Outline in England; the nature and implications of 'child...

Volume 3 "Broadening Challenges in Child Protection" takes a somewhat broader brief and reflects many of the changes over the past twenty five years in terms of the broadening of concerns from maltreatment within the family to maltreatment in a variety of extra-familial contexts, including: sport, the internet, various institutional settings and is much more concerned with sexual abuse and the challenges for criminal justice and public protection.

Volume 2 "Issues in Child Welfare" is primarily concerned with how best to respond to maltreatment 'within' the family and hence has a range of papers which are much more concerned with the area of policy and practice more traditionally framed in terms of 'child welfare' and social work with children and families. It also includes a paper on how to respond to child maltreatment and neglect in a large hospital context.