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19 J. Soc. Welfare & Fam. L. iii (1997)

handle is hein.journals/jnlosclwl19 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 19(1) 1997: iii-v Editorial With the constant debate going on between the various political parties as to whether the United Kingdom should continue with its current social policy opt-out, the first article in this issue of the Journal by Sylvia Hargreaves entitled 'Social Europe after Maastrict: is the United Kingdom really opted out?' is particularly timely. As we are all aware, the United Kingdom has for many years resisted the extension of social regulation from Brussels and this has not only been highlighted by the relevant stages of negotiation but also by recent case-law. Sylvia Hargreaves' article considers the issues which are raised by the opt-out arrangements, particularly as they concern the constitu- tional character of Social Europe and the United Kingdom's place in it. Sylvia Hargreaves argues that whilst the United Kingdom has no obligations arising directly from the Social Policy Agreement, the affects of its Social Policy opt-out are limited by its existing Treaty obligations with respect to social legislation and by the impact of an increasingly multi-national indus- trial environment in which workers and management have an important role to play in the formulation and implementation of social policy. In the next article entitled 'Health-care workers and HIV screening: pragmatism or public interest?' Moira Wright highlights the increasing number of cases in recent years in which patients have been panicked by disclosures that they have been treated by health-care workers who have been suffering from a variety of communicable blood diseases. As she notes, each revelation has been followed by outrage that doctors and others should have put patients at risk, reassurance that the risk is negligible, then enquiries and reports which have generally concluded that no harm has been caused to patients and that it would be unnecessary to introduce further legal or profes- sional regulations to safeguard the health of patients. Since the whole issue of screening health-care workers raises considerable unease, the purpose of this article is to examine where legal and public policy arguments can support the screening of key health-care workers. In the third article Paul Ban and Phillip Swain from Melbourne, Australia, analyse the developments of family group conferences in the state of Victoria in line with recent practice developments in the United Kingdom. They examine a pilot project and present the practice issues arising from the imple- mentation of the pilot as well as discussing the use of family group conferences in fields other than child protection. They conclude that the approach has the potential to alter the face of child welfare and other practice in the same way as many of those participating in similar conferences in England in the child protection arena have felt that they could be beneficially extended in other areas. In the fourth article Eunice Halliday, who is the Chair of the Network of Access and Child Contact Centres, writes about the role and function of child contact centres. Every week approximately 2,000 children attend a contact centre in England, Wales or Northern Ireland and this number is growing © 1997 Routledge 0141-8033

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