Making better sense of children's trajectories in child protection in France

In France, the child protection system – as well as family-related policies in general – links specific interventions and schemes to the recognition of a particular situation: this is usually called the status-based approach. But in child protection, the status-based approach has severe limitations that may affect the quality of care. Piling up a number of statuses does not promote an overall vision of the child, and the evolving, dynamic nature of a child's development and history tends to disappear in a framework that relies heavily on ascertained, stable situations. Practitioners have started to develop tools to work with the children and families over time and in a more holistic manner, but these developments need to be mainstreamed and to be mirrored in administrative practices and at policy level to really take into account life trajectories.