Using SilverStripe 3.1 I have laid out a FrontPage page type that loops through its children to produce a big tall scrolling page. It has all kinds of different page types in it and I access their templates by creating their controllers on the fly by adding on to the Page class:

class Page extends SiteTree {

.....

function RenderAsChild($templateName = null) {
if(!$templateName) $templateName = $this->ClassName;
if(!$this->pageController){
$class = $this->ClassName . "_Controller";
$this->pageController = new $class($this);
}
return $this->pageController->renderForHolderPage($templateName);
}

and in the controller:

class Page_Controller extends ContentController {

....

function renderForHolderPage($templateName = null) {
if(!$templateName) $templateName = $this->ClassName;
return $this->renderWith(array($templateName));
}

In this way I can render pages and manage their templates and special features easily while still treating them all the same way in the template, something like:

<% loop $Children %>
<% if $ClassName = 'FancyPage' %>
$RenderAsChild
......

The thing is I want to use the userforms module this way but in the template in a loop or control it shows up just as a page. It does not appear to know anything about the form or the UserDefinedForm object.

Is there a way to get userforms to render as a child in a template?

The answer was that I had to get away from the Page template. This was rendering both the main Page.ss template and the Page.ss layout causing some confusion.
In fact the method i describe works I simply had to create a "BasicPage" layout and then force the page to render using that.

Actually that didn't fully solve the problem.
It is coming back with a javascript error" "TypeError: $(...).validate is not a function"
Which tells me that I may not be including all the .js files.

Is there some published documentation for userforms? Or is there some better way of pulling this trick off?

It may need debugging, but something like this should let you define a Page_singlepage.ss in either main or Layout (overriding whichever you prefer for this task, even both).
It will print all vars, including controller types when you call something like <% loop $AllTheThings %>$Me<% end_loop %>

Nb: You may need to add 'forTemplate()' to Page_Controller (or relevant subclasses) for $Me to work. You could try instead $handleAction('index'), or find some other trigger the controller's default output method.

class CombinedPage_Controller extends Page_Controller {
	public function AllTheThings() {
		$pages = ArrayList::create();
		foreach(Page::get()->filter('ParentID'=>$this->ParentID) as $page) {
			$controller = ModelAsController::controller_for($page);
			$controller->templates = $controller->getViewer('singlepage')->templates();
			$pages->push($controller);
		}
		return $pages;
	}
}

Basically, use what's already available to avoid repeating code.