Critical Issues in Child Welfare

Critical Issues in Child Welfare PDF Author: Joan F. Shireman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231539274
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 832

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Book Description
Reorganized for more effective classroom use, the second edition of Critical Issues in Child Welfare begins with an updated, thorough overview of the challenges currently facing at-risk children and families. A description of the child welfare system highlights issues that are discussed in more detail throughout the book. The text explores protective services, family preservation, foster care and residential care, adoption, services for adolescents, and training and retention of staff. New material highlights the recent discoveries of the impact of early trauma and stress on children's development, and the modifications currently taking place in the child welfare system in response to this new information. The book also examines the critical challenges of poverty and substance abuse, the importance of the community in shaping child welfare services, racial disproportionality in the system, the changing response of the system to LGBT issues, and services to ameliorate the difficulties of youth leaving the system.

Critical Issues in Child Welfare

Critical Issues in Child Welfare PDF Author: Joan F. Shireman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231539274
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 832

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reorganized for more effective classroom use, the second edition of Critical Issues in Child Welfare begins with an updated, thorough overview of the challenges currently facing at-risk children and families. A description of the child welfare system highlights issues that are discussed in more detail throughout the book. The text explores protective services, family preservation, foster care and residential care, adoption, services for adolescents, and training and retention of staff. New material highlights the recent discoveries of the impact of early trauma and stress on children's development, and the modifications currently taking place in the child welfare system in response to this new information. The book also examines the critical challenges of poverty and substance abuse, the importance of the community in shaping child welfare services, racial disproportionality in the system, the changing response of the system to LGBT issues, and services to ameliorate the difficulties of youth leaving the system.

Child Welfare in the United States

Child Welfare in the United States PDF Author: Sylvia I. Mignon, MSW, PhD
Publisher: Springer Publishing Company
ISBN: 0826126472
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Provides a balanced critical analysis of the child welfare system along with promising innovations Distinguished by its critical perspective, this book delivers a balanced and comprehensive examination of the child welfare system in the United States today. In a clear and accessible style, it outlines key issues, reviews the history of the child welfare system, and explores the challenges to developing appropriate federal, state and local policies that address child welfare concerns. A chapter devoted to innovative and effective child welfare and prevention practices showcases examples of successful programs. Additionally, the book underscores the importance of coordination among human service professionals and organizations. The text addresses issues related to the educational system, homelessness, poverty, the juvenile justice system, foster care, and adoption. It incorporates the perspectives of parents and children involved in the system, who cite both positive experiences and bureaucratic challenges. Child welfare workers themselves describe the professional and personal realities of their experiences working within the system. Illustrative case examples of abused and neglected children add to the text’s value for BSW and MSW students studying child welfare. Key Features: Provides a comprehensive overview of child welfare issues in the United States today Offers case examples of abused/neglected children and their families Includes the perspectives of parents and children involved with the child welfare system Incorporates the views of child welfare workers Provides examples of innovative practices in child welfare

The Child Welfare Challenge

The Child Welfare Challenge PDF Author: Peter J. Pecora
Publisher: AldineTransaction
ISBN: 0202363864
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
Within a historical and contemporary context, this book examines major policy practice and research issues as they jointly shape child welfare practice and its future. In addition to describing the major problems facing the field, the book highlights service innovations that have been developed in recent years. The resulting picture is encouraging, especially if certain major program reforms I are implemented and agencies are able to concentrate resources in a focused manner. The volume emphasizes families and children whose primary recourse to services has been through publicly funded child welfare agencies. The book considers historical areas of service—foster care and adoptions, in-home family-centered services, child-protective services, and residential services—where social work has an important role. Authors address the many fields of practice in which child and family services are provided or that involve substantial numbers of social work programs, such as services to adolescent parents, child mental health, education, and juvenile justice agencies. This new edition will continue to serve as a fundamen­tal introduction for new practitioners, as well as summary of recent developments for experienced practitioners.

Racial Disproportionality and Disparities in the Child Welfare System

Racial Disproportionality and Disparities in the Child Welfare System PDF Author: Alan J. Dettlaff
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030543145
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
This volume examines existing research documenting racial disproportionality and disparities in child welfare systems, the underlying factors that contribute to these phenomena and the harms that result at both the individual and community levels. It reviews multiple forms of interventions designed to prevent and reduce disproportionality, particularly in states and jurisdictions that have seen meaningful change. With contributions from authorities and leaders in the field, this volume serves as the authoritative volume on the complex issue of child maltreatment and child welfare. It offers a central source of information for students and practitioners who are seeking understanding on how structural and institutional racism can be addressed in public systems.

The Promise of Adolescence

The Promise of Adolescence PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309490111
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 493

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Book Description
Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.

Abusive Policies

Abusive Policies PDF Author: Mical Raz
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469661225
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
In the early 1970s, a new wave of public service announcements urged parents to "help end an American tradition" of child abuse. The message, relayed repeatedly over television and radio, urged abusive parents to seek help. Support groups for parents, including Parents Anonymous, proliferated across the country to deal with the seemingly burgeoning crisis. At the same time, an ever-increasing number of abused children were reported to child welfare agencies, due in part to an expansion of mandatory reporting laws and the creation of reporting hotlines across the nation. Here, Mical Raz examines this history of child abuse policy and charts how it changed since the late 1960s, specifically taking into account the frequency with which agencies removed African American children from their homes and placed them in foster care. Highlighting the rise of Parents Anonymous and connecting their activism to the sexual abuse moral panic that swept the country in the 1980s, Raz argues that these panics and policies—as well as biased viewpoints regarding race, class, and gender—played a powerful role shaping perceptions of child abuse. These perceptions were often directly at odds with the available data and disproportionately targeted poor African American families above others.

New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research

New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309285151
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Each year, child protective services receive reports of child abuse and neglect involving six million children, and many more go unreported. The long-term human and fiscal consequences of child abuse and neglect are not relegated to the victims themselves-they also impact their families, future relationships, and society. In 1993, the National Research Council (NRC) issued the report, Under-standing Child Abuse and Neglect, which provided an overview of the research on child abuse and neglect. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research updates the 1993 report and provides new recommendations to respond to this public health challenge. According to this report, while there has been great progress in child abuse and neglect research, a coordinated, national research infrastructure with high-level federal support needs to be established and implemented immediately. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research recommends an actionable framework to guide and support future child abuse and neglect research. This report calls for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to child abuse and neglect research that examines factors related to both children and adults across physical, mental, and behavioral health domains-including those in child welfare, economic support, criminal justice, education, and health care systems-and assesses the needs of a variety of subpopulations. It should also clarify the causal pathways related to child abuse and neglect and, more importantly, assess efforts to interrupt these pathways. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research identifies four areas to look to in developing a coordinated research enterprise: a national strategic plan, a national surveillance system, a new generation of researchers, and changes in the federal and state programmatic and policy response.

Foster Care and Best Interests of the Child

Foster Care and Best Interests of the Child PDF Author: Sarah A. Font
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303041146X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
This brief examines the U.S. foster care system and seeks to explain why the foster care system functions as it does and how it can be improved to serve the best interest of children. It defines and evaluates key challenges that undermine child safety and well-being in the current foster care system. Chapters highlight the competing values and priorities of the system as well as the pros and cons for the use of foster care. In addition, chapters assess whether the performance objectives in which states are evaluated by the federal government are sufficient to achieve positive health and well-being outcomes for children who experience foster care. Finally, it offers recommendations for improving the system and maximizing positive outcomes. Topics featured in this brief include: Legal aspects of removal and placement of children in foster care. The effectiveness of prior efforts to reform foster care. The regulation and quality of foster homes. Support for youth aging out of the foster care system. Racial and ethnic disparities in the foster care system. Foster Care and the Best Interests of the Child is a must-have resource for policy makers and related professionals, graduate students, and researchers in child and school psychology, family studies, public health, social work, law/criminal justice, and sociology.

No Way to Treat a Child

No Way to Treat a Child PDF Author: Naomi Schaefer Riley
Publisher: Bombardier Books
ISBN: 1642936588
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Kids in danger are treated instrumentally to promote the rehabilitation of their parents, the welfare of their communities, and the social justice of their race and tribe—all with the inevitable result that their most precious developmental years are lost in bureaucratic and judicial red tape. It is time to stop letting efforts to fix the child welfare system get derailed by activists who are concerned with race-matching, blood ties, and the abstract demands of social justice, and start asking the most important question: Where are the emotionally and financially stable, loving, and permanent homes where these kids can thrive? “Naomi Riley’s book reveals the extent to which abused and abandoned children are often injured by their government rescuers. It is a must-read for those seeking solutions to this national crisis.” —Robert L. Woodson, Sr., civil rights leader and president of the Woodson Center “Everyone interested in child welfare should grapple with Naomi Riley’s powerful evidence that the current system ill-serves the safety and well-being of vulnerable kids.” —Walter Olson, senior fellow, Cato Institute, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies

Child Welfare for the Twenty-first Century

Child Welfare for the Twenty-first Century PDF Author: Gerald P. Mallon
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231511167
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 785

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Book Description
This up-to-date and comprehensive resource by leaders in child welfare is the first book to reflect the impact of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997. The text serves as a single-source reference for a wide array of professionals who work in children, youth, and family services in the United States-policymakers, social workers, psychologists, educators, attorneys, guardians ad litem, and family court judges& mdash;and as a text for students of child welfare practice and policy. Features include: * Organized around ASFA's guiding principles of well-being, safety, and permanency * Focus on evidence-based "best practices" * Case examples integrated throughout * First book to include data from the first round of National Child and Family Service Reviews Topics discussed include the latest on prevention of child abuse and neglect and child protective services; risk and resilience in child development; engaging families; connecting families with public and community resources; health and mental health care needs of children and adolescents; domestic violence; substance abuse in the family; family preservation services; family support services and the integration of family-centered practices in child welfare; gay and lesbian adolescents and their families; children with disabilities; and runaway and homeless youth. The contributors also explore issues pertaining to foster care and adoption, including a focus on permanency planning for children and youth and the need to provide services that are individualized and culturally and spiritually responsive to clients. A review of salient systemic issues in the field of children, youth, and family services completes this collection.