`Families with complex needs' who experience both a breadth of interrelated or interconnected needs and a depth of profound, severe, serious or intense needs (Rankin and Regan, 2004), are most reliant on services and support. This might include families affected by mental health needs, disability, caring responsibilities, migration and asylum seeking, criminal behavior, drug and alcohol misuse, and so on.

This edited text considers how such families form and experience contemporary life, and how such understandings might inform policy and practice responses. Specific contributions include examining models and approaches to family-based policy and service provision and drawing on fieldwork and analyses in a wide variety of countries and contexts, with particular emphasis on Latin America.