Redesigning children's services: mapping interprofessional social capital

This paper presents an analysis of the policy themes of service integration, social justice and social inclusion which underpin the integrated community schools policy initiative in Scotland. That initiative is identified as an important vehicle for the Scottish Executive Government's aim of integrating children's services with the overarching goal of creating greater inclusion and social justice. The main argument in the paper is that it is at the level of the school ‘hub’ that integrated work amongst practitioners and across children's public services needs to be effective if the policy aims of social justice and inclusion are to be achieved. The concept of social capital is applied to the issue of how practitioners from other agencies, now charged to work in schools, construct new professional ties and networks. The conclusion suggests that a mapping of types and levels of social capital offers a fruitful conceptual framework to examine changing interprofessional ties.