We could say that social work for children is at the crossroads. Perhaps it has always been thus. At least in England. Here there is a lot of despondency about the profession, indeed there is much despondency about all of the professions. The challenges are well charted in the pages of this ebook. But there is also much innovation and development, and some commentators are highly optimistic about the future. We felt, therefore, that it was time to catch our breath, take stock and bring together a broad spectrum of social workers, their managers, government policy makers, and academics to report on their innovations, thoughts, research and other experiences. Most but not all of the contributors to this ebook are from the UK, and in the main they write about the situation in England. But the opportunities and challenges about which they write are, we know, alive internationally, even if they play out in different ways in different countries.