A History of Child Protection in America is the first comprehensive history of American efforts to protect children from abuse and neglect. The book begins in colonial times and chronicles child protection into the twenty-first century. Among the important nineteenth century events detailed in these pages are the rise of orphanages for "dependent" children, the "orphan trains" operated by the New York Children's Aid Society, the birth of the juvenile court, the reforms of the Children's Progressive Era, and the dramatic rescue of Mary Ellen Wilson, which led to the creation of the world's first organization devoted entirely to child protection, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Twentieth century milestones include the gradual transition from private child protection societies to government operated child protection, the obscurity of child abuse from the 1920's to the 1960's, the "discovery" of child abuse in 1962, and the creation of the child protection system we know today.

IIn 1973, a young ACLU attorney filed a controversial class-action lawsuit that challenged New York City’s operation of its foster-care system. The plaintiff was an abused runaway named Shirley Wilder who had suffered from the system’s inequities. Wilder, as the case came to be known, was waged for two and a half decades, becoming a battleground for the conflicts of race, religion, and politics that shape America’s child-welfare system.

The Lost Children of Wilder gives us the galvanizing history of this landmark case and the personal story at its core. Nina Bernstein takes us behind the scenes of far-reaching legal and legislative battles, but she also traces the life of Shirley Wilder and her son, Lamont, born when Shirley was only fourteen and relinquished to the very system being challenged in her name. Bernstein’s account of Shirley and Lamont’s struggles captures the heartbreaking consequences of the child welfare system’s best intentions and deepest flaws. In the tradition of There Are No Children Here, this is a major achievement of investigative journalism and a tour de force of social observation, a gripping book that will haunt every reader who cares about the needs of children.

This study on cross cultural perspectives in child advocacy deals with various topics, including support for children's issues, the factors that influence reporting of suspected child abuse and child advocacy's application to education professionals. The study looks at issues from around the world.

"I worked in a trailer that ICE had set aside for conversations between the women and the attorneys. While we talked, their children, most of whom seemed to be between three and eight years old, played with a few toys on the floor. It was hard for me to get my head around the idea of a jail full of toddlers, but there they were." For decades, advocates for refugee children and families have fought to end the U.S. government's practice of jailing children and families for months, or even years, until overburdened immigration courts could rule on their claims for asylum. Baby Jails is the history of that legal and political struggle. Philip G. Schrag, the director of Georgetown University's asylum law clinic, takes readers through thirty years of conflict over which refugee advocates resisted the detention of migrant children. The saga began during the Reagan administration when 15-year-old Jenny Lisette Flores languished in a Los Angeles motel that the government had turned into a makeshift jail by draining the swimming pool, barring the windows, and surrounding the building with barbed wire. What became known as the Flores Settlement Agreement was still at issue years later, when the Trump administration resorted to the forced separation of families after the courts would not allow long-term jailing of the children. Schrag provides recommendations for the reform of a system that has brought anguish and trauma to thousands of parents and children. Provocative and timely, Baby Jails exposes the ongoing struggle between the U.S. government and immigrant advocates over the duration and conditions of confinement of children who seek safety in America.

Winner of The Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy, Simon Fraser University Originally approved as a master of laws thesis by a respected Canadian university, this book tackles one of the most compelling issues of our time--the crime of genocide--and whether in fact it can be said to have occurred in relation to the many Original Nations on Great Turtle Island now claimed by a state called Canada. It has been hailed as groundbreaking by many Indigenous and other scholars engaged with this issue, impacting not just Canada but states worldwide where entrapped Indigenous nations face absorption by a dominating colonial state.Starblanket unpacks Canada's role in the removal of cultural genocide from the Genocide Convention, though the disappearance of an Original Nation by forced assimilation was regarded by many states as equally genocidal as destruction by slaughter. Did Canada seek to tailor the definition of genocide to escape its own crimes which were then even ongoing? The crime of genocide, to be held as such under current international law, must address the complicated issue of mens rea (not just the commission of a crime, but the specific intent to do so). This book permits readers to make a judgment on whether or not this was the case.Starblanket examines how genocide was operationalized in Canada, focused primarily on breaking the intergenerational transmission of culture from parents to children. Seeking to absorb the new generations into a different cultural identity--English-speaking, Christian, Anglo-Saxon, termed Canadian--Canada seized children from their parents, and oversaw and enforced the stripping of their cultural beliefs, languages and traditions, replacing them by those still in process of being established by the emerging Canadian state. She outlines the array and extent of the destruction which inevitably took place as part of the effort to bring about such a wrenching change--forcible indoctrination by means of massive and widespread death by disease and dilapidated living conditions, torture, forced starvation, labor, and sexual predation--collateral damage to Canada's effort to absorb diverse original nations into one larger, alien and dominating body politic. The cumulative effects of genocide continue to be exhibited by the survivors and their descendants who suffer from the trauma and dysfunction, primarily in healthy proper parenting, which results in ongoing forcible removals via the child welfare systems to this day.

The removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families gained national attention in Australia following the Bringing Them Home Report in 1997. However, the voices of Indigenous parents were largely missing from the Report. The Inquiry attributed their lack of testimony to the impact of trauma and the silencing impact of parents' overwhelming sense of guilt and despair; a submission by Link-Up NSW commented on Aboriginal mothers being "unwilling and unable to speak about the immense pain, grief and anguish that losing their children had caused them." This book explores what happened to Aboriginal mothers who had children removed and why they have overwhelmingly remained silent about their experiences. Identifying the structural barriers to Aboriginal mothering in the Stolen Generations era, the author examines how contemporary laws, policies and practices increased the likelihood of Aboriginal child removal and argues that negative perceptions of Aboriginal mothering underpinned removal processes, with tragic consequences. This book makes an important contribution to understanding the history of the Stolen Generations and highlights the importance of designing inclusive truth-telling processes that enable a diversity of perspectives to be shared.

This volume of the Research in Global Child Advocacy Series explores participatory methodologies and tools that involve children in research. Perspectives on the role of children have transitioned from viewing children as objects of research, to children as subjects of research, to acknowledgement of children as competent contributors and agents throughout the inquiry process. Researchers continue to explore approaches that honor the capacity of children, drawing on diverse methodologies to elevate children's voices and actively engage them in the production of knowledge. Nonetheless, despite these developments, questions over the extent to which children can be free of adult filters and influence merits sustained scholarly attention. The book includes chapters that critically examine methodological approaches that empower children in the research process. Contributions include empirical or practitioner pieces that operate from an empowerment paradigm and demonstrate the agenic capacity of children to contribute their perspectives and voices to our understanding of childhood and children's lives. The text also features conceptual pieces that challenge existing theoretical frameworks, critique research paradigms, and analyze dilemmas or tensions related to ethics, policy and power relations in the research process.

The 1984 explosion of the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India was undisputedly one of the world's worst industrial disasters. Some have argued that the litigation following the Bhopal disaster provided an "innovative model" for dealing with the global distribution of technological risk; others consider the disaster a turning point in environmental legislation; still others argue that Bhopal is what globalization looks like on the ground.
Kim Fortun explores these claims by focusing on the dynamics and paradoxes of advocacy in competing power domains. She moves from hospitals in India to meetings with lawyers, corporate executives, and environmental justice activists in the United States to show how the disaster and its effects remain with us. Spiraling outward from the gas victims' stories, Fortun's innovative narrative sheds light on the complex intertwined way advocacy works within a global system, calling into question conventional notions of responsibility and ethical conduct. Revealing the hopes and frustrations of advocacy, this moving work also counters the tendency to think of Bhopal as an isolated incident that "can't happen here."

This book makes a critical case for advocacy in the lives of people with learning difficulties. This can only be applauded.' - Disability & Society 'I found this book to be a thoughtful, interesting and challenging read and I would recommend it to anyone working in the field of advocacy or involved in any capacity with people with learning disabilities. It raises many questions about advocacy in all its different forms and asks those of us involved in this field to reflect on our own practice and that of our funding bodies. It also challenges and invites reflection on prevailing attitudes towards learning disability more generally and the way in which services are provided. Finally it leaves the reader in no doubt of the benefit and necessity of advocacy services, to ensure that people with learning disabilities are able to have their voices heard and their needs understood and met.' -The British Journal of Developmental Disabilities 'This is designed for advocacy practitioners and staff working in agencies who come into contact with advocacy services. It is aimed at more experienced practitioners, and service planners, who are serious about developing effective advocacy services within a social inclusion framework.' - Care and Health magazine 'This book continues to raise questions about advocacy throughout. It asks questions of those who are advocates and those who have the duty of funding such services. It is a very thoughtful and practical collection of essays on a whole range of issues and ranges, and seeks to provide, some answers. In addition to all this, it is very readable and provides a quite comprehensive bibliography, which in itself is worth the cost of the book.' - Rostrum 'Advocacy and Learning Disability is a sound collection of perspectives with an interesting international flavour. Barry Gray and Robin Jackson have collected insightful contributions from Britain, the USA, New Zealand and Australia to create a useful overview exploring a very wide range of self-advocacy issues directly related to learning disability delivery.' -The British Journal of Special Education Advocacy is a critically important element in the development of effective services for people with a learning disability. It is seen by many as the critical link between theory and practice in creating a truly inclusive society. This book presents an in-depth examination of the historical, legal and philosophical contexts within which advocacy services have developed. The kind of professional and practical issues and problems confronting those running and using advocacy services are discussed, and the role of advocacy is examined. Chapters covering advocacy with families and with people with communication difficulties contain helpful information for practitioners. A survey of the development of advocacy services in the USA, Australia and New Zealand provides an international perspective. Practical and informative, Advocacy and Learning Disability will be essential reading for advocacy practitioners and those working in agencies in the statutory and voluntary sectors who come into contact with advocacy services.