Training has always been a contentious subject. A survey of residential workers in 1973 showed that two problems stood out above all others. The first was having to be resident, and all the stresses created by living on top of one's job. The second was training. For ninety-five per cent of residential childcare workers, being resident is a thing of the past, but training remains a live issue.

Training is a convenient peg on which to hang a lot of complaints. If staff do not have the right skills, it is obviously a sign of inadequate training. If their morale is low, training is often looked to as a way of renewing commitment and motivation. If an individual is failing, he or she is sent for training as the last resort before disciplinary action. If a team is not pulling together, it is a training exercise which is used to develop bonding and a shared approach. The absence of training provision is seen as a sign of lack of interest on the part of managers or those controlling the services, or, worst of all, as a symptom of the low status of the service in the eyes of the wider community and those in power.

Through the influence of the Government, there is now an emphasis on induction training. There are increased grants for training residential childcare workers through the Department of Health. More people are doing NVQ-based courses than ever before. TOPSS is giving training for residential workers priority. There are new post-qualifying opportunities for social workers working with children in all settings. There are rapidly expanding schemes set up by the National Childminding Association for childminders to obtain training, both before taking on children and to consolidate their learning, providing a more thorough basis for their work than ever before. Specialist training for inspectors is being planned. All these are good signs.

There are still gaps, however. Perhaps the most fundamental is a joined-up approach between all Government departments in their basic philosophy as to the nature of work with children in all settings. In the United Kingdom, we have a tradition of training each professional grouping separately, with different accrediting bodies and different curricula. There are some overlaps and some areas of shared training, but by and large, training for each job type is separate and there is no common professional identity for people working with children.

Indeed, despite the wealth and flexibility of English, we have no terminology to describe all the people who work with children and young people who are not members of other regulated professions as a group. In other European countries, they are called educateurs or social pedagogues, and they work in all settings and with the whole range of children, whatever their age or category. Often they share a core of training.

In this country, childcare is the commonest term used, but there are those, such as youth and community workers, who would not see what they are doing as childcare. In A Golden Opportunity it was argued that social education should be adopted as the global term in this country to cover everyone working directly with children.

Whatever term is adopted, it would offer people working with children and young people a common identity and help them to develop professional confidence in the shared knowledge and skills base. Without such a shared base, they will remain fragmented, and their training systems will relate to their respective specialisms. This will be a nonsense, as workers move between settings in the course of their careers and in any case could usefully share much training about children in common. It will be both divisive for the profession and a waste of training if the programmes for each group of workers are not integrated into a single comprehensive system.