A new protocol between Ofsted, police, local authorities and the Office of the Children's Commissioner on sharing information about children's homes gives opportunity to a new good-faith collaboration characterised by transparency.

The UK government is pushing ahead full steam with Clause 1 of the Children and Families Bill. If implemented it could result in some children being placed with potential adopters despite there having been no court proceedings, no court decision that the child should be permanently removed from their parents and no legal advice given to the parents.

If we are to succeed in our current rethinking of how we meet the needs of young people in need we should adjust our thinking about children's homes, fostering and adoption.

The prospects for young people starting out in the world today are already bleak with nearly one million young people currently unemployed - and now life is about to get even harder for them. The reckless proposal to remove housing benefits from under-25s risks leaving some of this country's most vulnerable young people out in the cold. What makes this proposal particularly distasteful is that in reality only a mere eight per cent of total housing benefits are claimed by under-25s, making this a policy which risks causing long-term harm to the lives of young people for the sake of a few headlines.

Children in care are amongst the most disadvantaged and marginalised young people in the UK - and financial support is vital if care leavers are to have the same chances in life as other young people.

If we are to challenge a culture of abuse, we must listen to our children. We must also create a society where all are listened to, regardless of gender, class or race. Only then might such systematic abuses become a thing of the past.

Children's homes can provide the upbringing a young people deserves. Opportunities struggled for and achieved despite a system that actively undermines such success deserves national public recognition. Imagine the self-esteem that would be shared by young people and staff. Imagine the change in public perception.

How could a 10 or 11-year-old girl be expected to tell the police that she went shoplifting as a cry for help or act of desperation to get food because she is living rough and last night she was raped by eight men? When we are dealing with child sexual abuse it is never, never up to the child to deal with it and quite wrong that they could face punishment if they fail to reveal.

On average, 23 babies a year die from abuse and neglect, and thousands more grow up without the care they need to help them to thrive. I believe we have a moral duty to invest in services that can stop this from happening, but if that doesn't convince politicians, I hope the economic case will.

The philosophy of social pedagogy is largely alien to the UK's care system, yet as social workers mark World Social Work Day, it is a good time to consider how much we could learn from how the profession operates overseas.

Just imagine being removed as a child from your parents, into a stranger's home, and split up from your brother or sister. Moreover, there are delays in care proceedings and an estimated 10,000 shortage of foster carers.

Just because education secretary Michael Gove MP was adopted, doesn't mean that every child in care should be.

Last week Michael Gove gave a speech on the future of adoption. He challenged head on the belief that taking children from damaging home situations into care was itself damaging. As a foster carer myself I strongly welcome this clear and unambiguous statement. It is great to hear him say that care is a positive outcome for some children. Over the years, my wife and I have cared for significant numbers of children where we strongly felt that the rights of parents had come first, when decisions over whether to take children into care were being made.