Welfare states provide a spectrum of services, expertise, programmes and practices in child protection and the mental health sector to facilitate inter-professional collaboration. However, it is widely known across Europe that collaboration between child protection services and mental health services is not working well and outcomes for looked after children are poor.

The RESME international research and development project 2012–2015 (www.resme.eu), coordinated by Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland, has embraced this problem. The articles in this publication provide knowledge about current national issues and challenges in collaboration between the child protection and mental health sectors in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, UK (Scotland) and Spain. An inter-professional on-the-job training course “On the borders between residential child care and mental health treatment” was also developed and evaluated within the RESME project.

This publication will enable child protection and mental health professionals, researchers and policy makers to develop a better understanding of this issue. This publication will also offer concrete examples how to improve collaborative practice and joint training between these two sectors.

(pdf file, 1,35 MB)

The publication can be downloaded for free. This copyrighted material can be downloaded and printed for private use. Commercial use prohibited.