This cross-national study provides a comparative analysis of different understandings of errors and mistakes and approaches to dealing with them in child protection practice, using research and knowledge from eleven countries in Europe and North America. Divided into country-specific chapters, each examines the pathways that lead to mistakes happening, the scale of their impact, how responsibilities and responses are decided, how practice and policy subsequently change and the lessons that we can learn.

How we distribute our assets after death is no longer a question for a small wealthy section of society: increasing numbers of people must now decide how to structure wills and to bequeath money and possessions across generations: not only to family and kin but to charities and institutions also. This path-breaking study offers an empirical study of 800 English wills and uses the material to reflect upon what they tell us of contemporary family and kin relationships. It will be of great interest to lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists and social historians.