Are Looked after Children Socially Excluded?

The concept of social exclusion has become ubiquitous in the discourse of children's services in the UK over the last ten years. But is it a useful concept? Nick Axford sets out a definition of social exclusion and examines the extent to which it applies to looked after children, since they are commonly referred to as being ‘excluded’ or ‘vulnerable to exclusion’. He discusses the implications for how service providers define and help these children and for how childhood social exclusion is studied.