Book excerpt: This ebook reports on the unprecedented and radical step taken by Warwickshire Social Services Department when, in 1986, it closed the last of its children's homes. This book examines the background to these developments, the reasons for them and their consequences. The findings are set in the context of the crisis of confidence in residential child care that occurred in the early 1990's culminating in the Pindown Report on Staffordshire which revealed an alarming catalogue of inhuman and degrading treatment of children in residential care. This research, undertaken by NCB, reports findings that have major national and international significance. The future role of children's homes is in question and this study examines whether foster care, in particular, is more effective at meeting children's needs than residential care. Young people's own views are included and the work is presented very much in the context of the Children Act 1989.