The Intersection of Education and Formal and Community-based Children’s Services

The Journal

The Journal of Children’s Services (JCS) encourages the development of research-based, outcome-focused services to better safeguard and promote the well-being of children and their families locally, nationally and internationally. JCS improves understanding of the way that applied social research can contribute to the evidence-base and promote the development of children’s services. This includes services delivered by health, education, social care, police, youth justice and voluntary/independent agencies.

The Special Edition

Most children spend a significant amount of their time in educational settings, and the role of these settings in keeping children safe and promoting their wellbeing is increasingly recognised. Until recently, there was relatively little research that explored the intersection between education and wider children’s services delivered by health, non-formal education, social care, youth and voluntary/independent services. We know that children with experience of formal children’s services tend to have poorer educational attendance and attainment, and are less likely to go on to further and higher education. But we know less about how this affects children who access informal children’s services or those with certain characteristics or from different groups. There are gaps in our understanding of ways to tackle these problems, particularly with regard to wider and informal services that support children in their education. Similarly, the challenges of interagency working and co-operation between voluntary organisations and schools are well established. Ways of improving co-operation between formal and community based children’s services and education are less well understood.

In order to increase our understanding of this complex area, the Editorial Board of the Journal of Children’s Services are inviting papers for a special edition on ‘The Intersection of Education and Formal and Community-based Children’s Services’, with a particular focus on how practice can be improved. We invite both research and practice-based papers, and value the insights of practitioners and researchers working in this field. Papers that focus on innovative ways of supporting children’s education, improving educational outcomes, enhancing safeguarding and family approaches are particularly welcome. We are delighted to welcome Dr Angela Daly (Reader in Education and Global Learning, and Programme Leader, Education Studies, at Liverpool John Moores University) to the Editorial team, and she will join outgoing Associate Editor David Westlake as editors for this Special Edition.

Call for Papers

We encourage abstracts from a diverse body of authors, spanning all children’s services disciplines, representing different geographical locations and emanating from academia, policy and practice. We welcome papers that offer practical, theoretical or ethical insights on any of the following themes:

• Educational issues for children who have experience of children’s services including community based services and/or formal children’s services and care
   
• Interventions which aim to improve the life chances of children with experience of accessing support from children’s services, including their educational outcomes
   
• Practitioner insights and experiences of working in this area
   
• Interventions designed to enhance support to children and their families in educational settings
   
• Multi-agency working between education and other agencies involved with safeguarding, including information sharing, and innovative approaches to working together
   
• Collaborative working between education and wider community based children’s services including school-community services links and innovative approaches to working together
   
• Methodological or practical issues associated with researching this area

Abstracts should be 400-500 words and should include:

• Authorship information
• Focus of article
• Basis of data/argument
• Reflections on practical relevance

Papers will be between 5000 and 8000 words, and should follow the normal author guidelines available from: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/author_guidelines.htm?id=jcs

Next steps

If you wish to discuss a potential abstract, please contact David Westlake or Dr Angela Daly before Monday 31^st November at [email protected] or [email protected]

Abstracts are due by 5pm on Monday 14^th December 2022 and should be sent to David Westlake (Associate Editor) at:  [email protected].

The two guest editors and another Associate Editor at JCS will review abstracts. Papers will be subject to the Journal of Children’s Services’ normal peer review and revision processes.

Important Dates

• Submission of Abstracts: 14^th December 2022
• Decision notification: 5^th January 2023
• Submission of Full Papers: 17^th April 2023
• Decision on papers: 9^th June 2023
• Anticipated publication date for special edition: Autumn 2023