Exclusion from school: short-term setback or a long term of difficulties?

This article draws on data gathered in a two-year English government-funded follow-up study of secondary school children who were permanently excluded from school and who did not return to mainstream settings. It reflects on recent debates concerning different forms of social exclusion and considers what forms of service provision might prevent the multiple and overlapping forms of disadvantage that characterise 'deep' exclusion. This reflection is set in the context of recent policy moves in England that seek to promote practices of 'joined up' or interagency working. It is argued that more attention should be focussed on the organisational climate in which professionals in Children's Services operate. This, it is argued, may make it possible to form meaningful relations and patterns of communication that join the services around the young people rather than be constrained by narrow targets that up until now have regulated professional action in the separate agencies that are now, supposedly unified, in Children's Services.