The Centre for Social Policy was established in 1995 to complement the work of the Social Research Unit which has been at Dartington since 1968. The aim was to establish an organisation for researchers, managers and professionals to maintain their interests and facilitate their work during or immediately before their retirement from their principal career. There are presently over 60 Centre Fellows who share dedicated office space with other activities on the campus.

The Centre provides practical support and consultancy to the other activities of the Warren House Group. It maintains a Research Ethics Committee and assists with the publication of the journal Children's Services, a collaboration between SRU and Pier Professional Publishing. There are regular seminars on social policy issues and some Fellows use the administrative and collegiate opportunities offered to undertake their own work. Fellows respond to consultative documents and publish their considerations and conclusions in various forms.

At the 2013 AGM, the Centre had over 60 fellows from several countries (United Kingdom, Israel, USA and Norway). Their disciplines are: social policy research; social work/social services; education; psychiatry/medicine; psychology; youth justice; law ; psychotherapy and publishing.

The next seminar will be on June 19th and 20th at Lower Hood Barn, Dartington. There will be four contributions: Judith Masson (University of Bristol) on recent changes in private and public family law; Roger Bullock (CSP) on changes in the placements of children in care 1980-2010; Daniel Ellis (SRU) on evaluating the global terrorism database; and David Robertson (environmental scientist) on what Western societies and the Global South can learn from each other.

The Centre's in February 2013 focused on Welfare: Its definition, measurement and delivery. It included presentations from Tim Hobbs (Social Reserach Unit)  on the concept of welfare; Matthew Taylor (Royal Society of Arts) on Power Failure: compenasting for the dissolution of traditional hierarchies and allegience to civic institutions; Martin Knapp (LSE) on the relationship between economics and welfare; and Triin Edova;d and Gretchen Bjornstad (SRU) on reconciling welfare and econoimics.

The previous seminar in June 2012 discussed the Government's proposed changes to health and social care with a presentation by Sir Denis Pereira Gray, former chair of the RCGP. It then reviewed the draft content of training materials for chairs of Mental Health Homicide Case Reviews prepared by Gillian Downham and colleagues. In the fual session. Ginny Russell from the Peninsular Medical School, Exeter outlined a forthcoming follow-up study of two groups of children with autism and ADHD, one clinically diagnosed and the oither identified on child welfare assessment instruments.