This book provides an interdisciplinary projection of the factors affecting the lives of Europe's children in the coming decades. It is a sequel to a volume of the same name, published in 1979. Europe is undergoing dramatic changes, demographic, political and technological, which will influence the health, well-being and potential of children. Children are an ever diminishing proportion of the population and their interests rank low on the agenda of most countries. Efforts to improve the quality of their life tend to be uni-dimensional, focusing on a specific group or undertaken by a specific discipline. The absence of co-operation, coordination or even communication between professionals involved with children and families results in inappropriateness, inaccessibility and ineffectiveness of programmes for children and their families. Lack of advocacy for children results in priority being given to other groups.
This book brings together professionals and researchers from a wide range of disciplines (maternal and child health, genetics, psychology, psychiatry, social sciences, epidemiology, city planning, education, law etc.), who participated in a conference, discussed the issues and contributed chapters on topics which appear to be of greatest importance, or to present new challenges, for the healthy development of Europe's children and their passage into a satisfying and productive adulthood. The chapters are arranged in five sections dealing with family, environment, health, education and state, with a final section covering the overall projections. Reference is made to the predictions made in the earlier volume, and the success or failure in basing action on those predictions, and special emphasis is given to children with special needs.