Recent public debates have discussed lesbians and gay men caring for children as a novel phenomenon, but such arrangements are not new. Helen Cosis Brown and Christine Cocker track debates concerning lesbian and gay families and examine the relationship between policy and practice that is evidence based and ideologically driven. They outline the complexities of adoption and fostering practice within its political and social context and argue that the paramountcy of the child's welfare is the lynchpin to understanding the issues involved with the placement of children with lesbian and gay carers. The emphasis, in examining the detail of practice, is on recruitment, assessment, matching and support.

Eggs of wild giant Canada Geese (Branta canadensis maxima) breeding in southern Ontario were collected and incubated artificially. Components of the total nutrient reserve of goslings were measured at hatch to test whether relationships existed between egg size, gosling weight, and weight of reserves in goslings. The growth rate of fed goslings of different weights at hatch was measured for 25 days. The nutrient reserves remaining in goslings of different hatch weights were measured after 2, 4, and 6 days of starvation. Egg size and gosling weight were not highly correlated in this population (r = 0.63). Larger goslings generally contained more reserves than small goslings (P < 0.05), but much variability occurred in this relationship. Gain in weight over 25 days was not related to the weight at hatch. Starved goslings with higher body fat levels had significantly higher dry carcass weights than goslings with low body fat levels (P < 0.01), suggesting a sparing action of fat on body tissues. The apparent survival of small goslings and goslings with small reserves, combined with the great variability in egg size, gosling weight, and extent of metabolic reserves, suggests relaxed selection in the southern Ontario environment where this population breeds.

This paper provides an account of one university's experience of involving service users and carers in the delivery of the new undergraduate and postgraduate social work degrees. It poses the question as to whether user and carer involvement in social work education can be viewed as a means of promoting citizen participation or whether it is a case of manipulating relatively powerless groups. In addressing this question, service users and carers and social work tutors describe, from their own distinct perspectives, the processes in which they were both involved.

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In the UK, the last 15 years have seen a profound change in the way that lesbians and gay men have been socially and politically located and acknowledged. This is evidenced by recent legislative changes that have given protection to lesbians and gay men and placed a duty on public bodies to provide equitable services. For a number of years lesbians and gay men have been specifically targeted, recruited and utilised as adopters of children in public care. With these changes has come the realisation that a number of complexities in adoption practice have been insufficiently addressed. Brown and Cocker (2008) have argued that in the assessment of prospective lesbian and gay adopters, struggling with complexities is crucial for safe and effective assessment of suitability to be realised. This appreciation of the complexity of practice has been articulated in the Independent Inquiry into the Circumstances of Child Sexual Abuse by Two Foster Carers in Wakefield (Parrott et al, 2007). The report noted that the ‘homosexuality’ of the foster carers became the primary focus of social work anxiety. This happened at the expense of holistic considerations of both the carers' potential and their actual foster care practice. Although these findings relate to foster care, they are transferable to the adoption field. The authors of the Inquiry emphasised the importance of ‘discrimination’ in practice, arguing that ‘discrimination’ was essential for discerning and analytical assessment, support and supervision. This article by Christine Cocker and Helen Cosis Brown offers a conceptual framework as well as practice tools to facilitate such discriminatory, effective, discerning and comprehensive assessments of lesbian and gay prospective adopters. The paramountcy of the child's welfare has to remain central to developments in adoption practice. This article maintains this centrality.

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