CYP Now has collected the views of children's services experts from a range of backgrounds to hear what they think the key challenges and opportunities will be in 2016 across services for children, young people and families.
As local authority data reveals a doubling of cuts in spending on children's centres, forcing them to prioritise the protection of statutory functions, a DfE report suggests that councils' ability to do this is being stretched to the limit.
Ministers give "inadequate" children's services departments six months to improve or face having social care removed; plans for improvement bodies also unveiled alongside review of safeguarding boards.
Measures announced in the Chancellor's Spending Review will result in core funding for councils falling 24 per cent in real terms over the next four years. How will this affect children, young people and their families?
A Unicef UK programme is helping five councils change how they deliver and commission a range of children's services by redesigning them using the principles that underpin the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
With the number of children on child protection plans due to neglect on the rise, research by the NSPCC suggests a lack of understanding is resulting in universal services referring some cases that could be managed with early help.
Protecting children from extremist ideology, improving care leaver support, reforming child mental health services and changes to Ofsted social care inspections were all issues on the agenda at the NCAS conference this month.