This article is an overview of community based respite care programmes operating in the metropolitan area of Sydney. The term “community-based respite care” in this article refers to a model where the care is given by other families within the community. The term “families” encompasses traditional two parent families, single parents and other caring adults. These families are identified as “host families” and “respite care” is defined as provision of short term relief from 2 hours to 2 weeks to disabled persons and their families on a planned basis or in emergency situations.

The underlying philosophy of community respite care is that services to the disabled should be based on making available to them the same patterns and conditions of everyday life which most citizens enjoy.

This paper addresses itself to the topic of the single adoptive parent, a relatively new phenomenon in the adoptive process in Australia. It presents a review of the available research and a critical discussion of some of the pertinent issues raised by a consideration of this area. Brief comment is made about the current Australian scene and it is concluded that with caution, placement of children with single adoptive parents could be made on a routine basis.

The writer has come to share with other recent contributors to this journal, a liking for social ecological approaches to human development and the problems besetting individuals along the way. Like them, he has been attracted to the work of Bronfenbrenner and Garbarino as it seems to reflect in an explanatory way, the variety and complexity of influences, effecting outcomes encountered in practice with adolescents and their habitats. Bronfenbrenner points out the importance of considering development of the individual in a context and proposed a series of systems surrounding the developing person-micro, meso, exo and macro-systems – in which decisions are taken; events occur; and quality varies according to their composition; all impacting on the development of the individual. Garbarino extends this thinking to include concepts of sociocultural risk and opportunity. Using such approaches it becomes possible to consider the way in which young people develop through participating in a social environment. The nature of their interaction with kin, peers, significant others and the organisations and institutions around them is also worthy of study from the point of view of maximising peaceful human relations at both the micro and macro level.

“Once upon a time … violence and disorder were unknown in Britain. The hallowed traditions of the ‘British way of life’ were founded upon civility, reasonableness and an unquestioning respect for law and authority …” (Pearson).