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30 J. Soc. Welfare & Fam. L. 1 (2008)

handle is hein.journals/jnlosclwl30 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Social Welfare & Family Law R Vol. 30, No. 1, March 2008, 1-2 EDITORIAL This first issue of the journal for 2008 starts on a significant note. It is my sad task to announce the departure of Christina Lyon from the Joint Editorship. Christina has provided invaluable leadership to the journal over many years and will be very much missed. However, she has agreed to stay on as a member of the Advisory Board and will be an extremely welcome addition in that capacity. A fuller appreciation of her work will appear in a later edition of the journal. There are two pieces of good news in this, however. The first of these is that the reason for Christina's departure was her appointment as a Circuit Judge in November 2007. Obviously, such a role is incompatible with the public profile that goes with editorship of a journal. I and, I am sure, everyone else associated with the journal wish her all the best in that new role. The other piece of good news is that Dr Helen Stalford, of the Liverpool Law School, has agreed to act as Christina's successor. Helen's specialism in European law will be a significant asset in maintaining the international side of the journal's coverage and I look forward to working with her. For this issue of the journal, we have articles and cases covering the range of our usual concerns and some relatively new ones. Our first article, by Israel Doron of the University of Haifa in Israel, along with colleagues, should be of particular interest to social work practitioners and academics in other countries. The analysis by the authors of the impact of the legislative professionalisation of social workers of social workers in Israel since 1996 sheds an intriguing light on how social workers have responded to this development. As the authors point out, this development has interesting parallels with the legislative regulation of social work that has taken place in such countries as the UK and New Zealand during a similar time frame. In the case of their own study, the authors found that legal regulation had been broadly welcomed by social workers. Defining a profession and regulating entry to it is, of course, usually welcomed by those who manage be defined as members of the profession. In that sense, the authors' findings are not surprising. However, the story is not as simple as that. Professionalisation does not always equal progress and the authors note both 'anti-professionalism' arguments and advocates, and the possible implications of such professionalisation for the welfare of clients. The second article, by Malcolm Voyce of McQuarrie University Law Department in Australia, considers an issue that has cropped up, in one form or another, in various past issues of this journal. The treatment of cohabitation and, in this case, 'marriage-like relationships' raises difficult legal and moral issues for the state. The desire to maintain a distinction between marriage as a legal state and other forms of relationship often clashes with a desire to treat a wide variety of relationships either equally or with moral neutrality (or both). In the Australian context, the key focus of attention is on the way in which having the status of being in a 'marriage-like relationship' affects the relationship of women to the benefits system. The complex and varied status of such relationships presents significant ISSN 0964-9069 print/ISSN 1469-9621 online © 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09649060802169732 http://www.informaworld.com

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