Looking after Children: A case of individualised service delivery

Abstract

This is a discussion of the debate in the literature on the new Looking After Children system of managing out of home care for children. This is an important program initiative in results-oriented government that takes an individualised approach to children in care. The literature generally falls into the two categories of either relatively uncritical advocacy of LAC or its wholesale critique. These two camps pass as ships in the night and echo polarised epistemologies within policy analysis. There is very little analytical attention to LAC as an instance of the wider human service trends of individualised planning and case management.