'pbThe social care for children involves 400 000 children, or about one and a half million people if families are properly included. With more than EUR 6,890 million in annual cost, it is the main expenditure item of the departments. More profoundly, in human terms, it still marks the people concerned on a lasting basis. ‘/PB 'pbThe system inherited from public assistance has been significantly amended by the decentralisation laws which have conferred responsibility for it on the departments, and then by a multitude of texts such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, reforms of parental authority, adoption, parenthood, family care and educational assistance... In 2007, the child protection reform defined the objectives, initiated new practices and clarified their functioning and links with judicial protection and other actors in the child sector. Since then, the reform has been implemented: other texts have changed the very organisation of the initiative for the creation of structures or endorsed the substantive changes in human relations and, consequently, the place of the child. It is an indispensable tool for administrations, social actors and families.’/DB