• Summary: A concern amongst policy-makers to identify high cost and low productivity populations has created a new interest in identifying those who experience adversities across the life course. This article outlines the development of conceptual understandings of families whose children experience multiple adversities and links this with later poor outcomes in adult life and examines some of the research challenges in establishing such linkages.
• Findings: It is argued that current thinking with regard to these issues reflects historical domains within which services to children and to adults are located. The challenge to domain thinking is both horizontal and vertical, policy being required to address the horizontal axis by co-ordinating planned approaches to multiple needs across services, and policy being necessary to address the vertical cleavage between children’s and adult services in ways which join up services across the life path; conceptually and practically acknowledging the links between child and adult experiences.
• Applications: Such policy developments will inevitably require social work to develop alternative paradigms for understanding the needs of children and adults and designing services to effectively meet these.
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