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HE theme of this paper is that disorganization can kill children. Efficient organisation, on the -*-other hand, can help children. Each day, on average, two children are killed by their parents -a larger number than there were ever killed in the Victorian workhouses.The report of two enquiries are reviewed, one on the recent case of Stephen Meurs at King's Lynn and the other on Maria Colwell at Brighton. The defects of the system that leads to mismanagement of child care are analysed, and a prescription offered under six headings for the problem of the battered child. SEPARATION AND DEPRIVATIONTHE ISSUES of separation emerge very clearly from the case of Maria Colwell. The decisive reason for removing Maria from her foster mother was that the love of a foster mother is in no way considered to be as satisfactory for the child as the love of a natural mother. Here we have three wrong assumptions: first, that the love of the mother, or parents is ever present, whereas the fact of the matter is that although on most occasions parents are loving, sometimes their love is feeble, and occasionally their attitude is hostile and destructive. In work with families we must accept the reality in each particular family. The helping professions are not going to be asked to help loving families. They are going to be asked to help when the family is hostile and destructive -and that means help for the child and for its family. Secondly, it is assumed that the love of foster parents is always less adequate than that of natural parents. But many foster parents have children of their own. Like all