New directions for the UK and beyond

This closing chapter reflects on the implications of the framework produced through this review for improving responses to extra-familial risks and harms in the UK and other countries with a sufficiently comparable framework for understanding and responding to child welfare, safeguarding and youth justice. Questions are posed about what the integrated definition of extra-familial risks and harms presented in this book signals for existing policy and practice, and whether transformation, rather than improvement, of systems and interventions might be necessary. Knowledge gaps that future research needs to address are outlined. The book closes by proposing an ethical approach to innovation and development, which prioritises human rights, social justice and the voices of young people.