Nicola Sheldon was awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out this research project with two elements which built upon her doctoral thesis covering the policy and practice of local authorities in the areas of truancy and school attendance.

The first element supports the communication of the key conclusions of the doctoral work to the contemporary policy community, that is to professionals working in the area of education welfare and to local authority and national policy-makers tasked with improving school attendance in state schools. This will be pursued by both personal networking and the contribution of articles to policy forums and journals read by those working in the education sector.

The second element focuses on further historical work charting the development of policy and practice in the local authority care of children at risk in the period 1880-1939. This will be pursued using archive evidence and will result in the presentation of papers at two key academic conferences in 2008 (Social History Society of the UK and History of Education Society of the UK).