This book proposes what, to many professionals in the child welfare field, will appear a radically different explanation for our society's decisions to protect children from harm and for the significant drop in substantiated child abuse numbers. At the center of this conceptual and analytic approach is the contention that social outrage emanating from horrific and often sensationalized cases of child maltreatment plays a major role in CPS decision making and in child outcomes. The ebb and flow of outrage, we believe, invokes three levels of response that are consistent with patterns of the number of child maltreatment reports made to public child welfare agencies, the number of cases screened-in by these CPS agencies, the proportions of alleged cases substantiated as instances of real child abuse or neglect, and the numbers of children placed outside their homes. At the community level, outrage produces amplified surveillance and a posture of "zero-tolerance" while child protection workers, in turn, carry out their duties under a fog of "infinite jeopardy." With outrage as a driving force, child protective services organizations are forced into changes that are disjointed and highly episodic; changes which follow a course identified in the natural sciences as abrupt equilibrium changes. Through such manifestations as child safety legislation, institutional reform litigation of state child protective services agencies, massive retooling of the CPS workforce, the rise of community surveillance groups and moral entrepreneurs, and the exploitation of fatality statistics by media and politicians we find evidence of outrage at work and its power to change social attitudes, worker decisions and organizational culture. In this book, Jungian psychology intersects with the punctuated equilibrium theory to provide a compelling explanation for the decisions made by public CPS agencies to protect children.

The UK has a deservedly strong reputation for work on understanding social inequalities in health. But there is some way to go in ensuring that research and other types of knowledge are used to reduce inequalities in child health. This revised and updated edition of an important report looks at macro public policy interventions, community interventions, and individual level interventions in a variety of settings, and for a range of populations: infancy, early years, childhood and adolescence, and those with particular needs including looked after children. It considers 'what works' in practice. There are new case studies, updated research, and reference to cost effectiveness - particularly relevant for doing the right thing in a climate of austerity. Drawing on evidence from the UK and beyond, the book presents these in an accessible form not just for those who make decisions now, but also for the students of today who are the decision makers of tomorrow.

At the end of the 20th century, New York City had one of the worst child welfare systems in the United States. Often families' difficulties festered without help from the city until the situation exploded in the mid-90s. The city's response was to place children in foster care, and by the early 1990s there were 50,000 children in care, more than at any other time in the city's history. Beginning in the mid-1990s, for the first time in the history of the United States, a movement developed of parents who have been embroiled in the child welfare system. Their efforts, working with their allies, brought about unprecedented improvements that have resulted in more benefits to children and families, systemic changes that appear to be lasting. By 2011, fewer than 15,000 children were in New York City's foster care system. The parents whose stories are traced in this book were victims of domestic violence, homelessness and poverty. Some became dependent on drugs. They all had the crushing, enraging and at times transforming experience of having their children taken from them and put into foster care by child protective services. Many of these parents entered drug treatment programs, got intensive counseling, left abusive relationships, got jobs, filed lawsuits and were reunited with their children. Some took the next step and were trained as parent organizers. They learned how to fight effectively against bad child welfare policies that leave families victimized by a system that is supposed to help them. This book focuses on the lives of six mothers who have come back "from the other side, " and their allies-child welfare commissioners, social workers, lawyers and foundation officers who used their resources to help parents and advocates, and recounts how their courage and resilience was harnessed to bring about the most significant changes in the history of New York's child welfare system.

Child Welfare Removals by the State addresses a most important (but little-researched) legal proceeding: when the State intervenes in the private family sphere to remove children at risk to a place of safety, adoption, or in other forms of out-of-home care. It is an intervention into the private family sphere that is intrusive, contested, and a last resort. States' interventions in the family are decided within legal and political orders and traditions that constitute a country's policies, welfare state model, child protection system, and childrens position in a society. However, we lack a cross-country analysis of the different models of decision-making in a European context. This text aims to present new research at the intersection of social work, law, and social policy concerning child protection proceedings for children in need of alternative care. It explores the role of court-based and voluntary decision-making systems in child protection proceedings, its effects, dynamics, and meanings in seven European countries and the United States, and analyses the tensions and dilemmas between children, parents, and socio-legal professionals. The book consists of eight country chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion chapters. The range of countries of countries represented in the book covers the social democratic Nordic countries (Finland, Norway, and Sweden), the conservative corporatist regimes (Germany and Switzerland), the neo-liberal (England, Ireland, and the United States), and related child welfare systems.

Fujimura takes us across history and into Russian society, its orphanages and shelters, and along the streets of the nation to see how abandoned children are stigmatized and shunned. Readers come to understand how and why these children, left orphans by death or by choice, form their own culture to find power and to survive. This pioneering work on child abandonment looks at Russian society from a new angle: from the perspectives of abandoned youngsters and their caretakers. Based on direct observation of and interviews with abandoned children, this work shows why any effort to rescue these children calls for a deep understanding of Russian culture, and why any effort to address abandonment in Russia calls for a joint effort between psychologists, social workers, and the children themselves. Researcher Fujimura takes us across history, into Russian society, its orphanages and shelters, and along the streets of the nation to see how abandoned children are stigmatized and shunned. We also come to understand how and why these children, left orphans by death or by choice, form their own culture to find power and to survive. This pioneering work on child abandonment looks at Russian society from a new angle: from the perspectives of abandoned youngsters and their caretakers. Based on direct observation of and interviews with abandoned children, this work shows why any effort to rescue these children calls for a deep understanding of Russian culture, and why any effort to affect abandonment in Russia calls for a joint effort between psychologists, social workers, and the children themselves.

This thought-provoking work raises important questions about sex offender laws, drawing from personal stories, research, and data to prove the policies promote fear, destroy lives, and fail to protect children. Do sex offender laws protect children, or are they inherently unfair practices that, at their worst, promote vigilante justice? The latter, this book argues. By analyzing the social, political, historical, and cultural context surrounding the emergence of current sex offender policies and laws, the work shows how sex offenders have come to loom as greater-than-life monsters when, in many cases, that is not true at all. Looking at its subject from a fresh viewpoint, the book shares research and new analyses of data and qualitative evidence to show how sex-offender laws are not only ineffective, but engender destructive fear and anxiety. To help readers understand the impact of these laws, the author presents interviews with sex offenders and their families as they describe the day-to-day reality of living on the sex offender registry. Citing research and statistics, the book challenges the idea that sex offenders must be continually monitored and publicly identified because they are incurably predatory. Most important, the study shows that undue sex offender panic is preventing policymakers from addressing the true threats to children-poverty and growing inequality. Provides research-based evidence that the mean-spirited and panic-driven sex offender laws, aimed at branding a group of offenders as inhuman and unworthy of civil liberties and human rights, increases fear, destroys the lives of offenders and their families, and fails to protect children Shows that emphasizing sex offenders and stranger-danger as the primary threat to child well-being and safety prevents focus on and attention to policies that prevent far more pervasive forms of child abuse, such as physical abuse, neglect, and maltreatment Analyzes the sociohistorical context surrounding the emergence of current draconian sex offender policies Challenges the idea that sex offenders must be continually monitored and publicly identified Tells the stories of convicted sex offenders and their families and how they survive in a society that views them as the "worst of the worst"

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019, a powerful, well-researched, fictional account exploring the trokosi tradition for the curious and the open-minded. Abeo Kata lives a comfortable, happy life in West Africa as the privileged nine-year-old daughter of a government employee and stay-at-home mother. But when the Katas' idyllic lifestyle takes a turn for the worse, Abeo's father, following his mother's advice, places the girl in a religious shrine, hoping that the sacrifice of his daughter will serve as atonement for the crimes of his ancestors. Unspeakable acts befall Abeo for the fifteen years she is enslaved within the shrine. When she is finally rescued, broken and battered, she must struggle to overcome her past, endure the revelation of family secrets, and learn to trust and love again. In the tradition of Chris Cleave's Little Bee, Praise Song for the Butterflies is a contemporary story that offers an educational, eye-opening account of the practice of ritual servitude in West Africa. Spanning decades and two continents, Praise Song for the Butterflies is an unflinching tale of the devastation that children are subject to when adults are ruled by fear and someone must pay the consequences. "Abeo is unrelenting - a fiery protagonist who sparks in every scene. Bernice L. McFadden has created yet another compelling story, this time about hope and freedom." Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun

All over the world children are faced with social, physical and emotional turmoil that stems from varying degrees of violence. Abuse, neglect, abandonment and bereavement often affects these children and their education. This book highlights the plight of children and explores multi-sectoral approaches in providing sustainable psychosocial support. Quality education for vulnerable children is a top priority and an important discussion is to be had on how to support these types of students and children. This book is ideal for researchers, students, teachers, school administrators, public and private agencies, and anyone else interested in support and education for neglected, abused, and vulnerable children.

In this fifth edition of the best-selling core introductory textbook, Pete Alcock and Lee Gregory provide a comprehensive and engaging introduction to social policy. Continuing with the unbeaten narrative style and accessible approach of the previous editions, the authors explore the major topics of social policy in a clear and digestible way. By breaking down the complexities behind policy developments and their outcomes, the book demonstrates the relationship between core areas of policy and the society we live in. This new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to cover the impact of Brexit and contains reflections on the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for social policy. Each chapter contains comprehension activities to aid understanding, as well as helpful summary points and suggestions for further reading.

Transportation and Children's Well-Being applies an ecological approach, examining the social, psychological and physical impacts transport has on children at the individual and community level. Drawing on the latest multidisciplinary research in transport, behavior, policy, the built environment and sustainability, the book explains the pathways and mechanisms by which transport affects the different domains of children's travel. Further, the book identifies the influences of transportation with respect to several domains of well-being, highlighting the influences of residential location on travel by different modes and its impact on the long-term choices families make. The book concludes with proposed evidence-based solutions using real-world examples that support positive influences on well-being and eliminate or reduce negative solutions.

In the present-day Tower of Babylon-the all-encompassing virtual world built of image layered upon image-children are the most vulnerable users. If we permit them unfettered access to media that promotes corporate and consumer values, while suppressing their cognitive development and creative imagination, then an 'imaginationless generation' may be our grim and inevitable future. This book takes the reader, whether an academic, a parent or an educator, through a startling journey from the harms lurking in the virtual worlds-to children's health and well-being, to how they deal with representations of violence and sexuality, as well as exposure to cyberbullying, advertising, Internet Addiction Disorder, and even exploitation. The most dangerous harm is unseen, and affects the innermost realm of a child's psyche: the imagination. The authors discuss the current global regulatory framework that makes the protection of children ever more challenging. They discuss lessons learned from the ways that courts have negotiated free speech issues, as well as the research on parental mediation of children's Internet use in the home. Finally, they move towards a bold new attempt at understanding regulation, by drawing lessons for new media from ancient culture. In The Imagionationless Generation, the authors pioneer an attempt to address the real harms that children face in virtual realities by presenting a new and paradigm shifting theory-the Media Engagement. They follow the theory's insights and predictions to offer a new perspective on a burning question of our time-how to protect children online. This multidisciplinary intellectual voyage and its insights are only possible by standing on the shoulders of scholars who have gone before, such as Ellul, Baudrillard, McLuhan, Postman and Piaget, to name a few. As academics, parents and concerned human beings, the authors present here the results of more than twenty years of research in a way that should appeal to a wide variety of readers, as they stretch our understanding of the human-machine interface beyond right and wrong. This book shapes our understanding of media in the digital age in much the same way that McLuhan's Understanding Media did for a previous generation.

The internet has greatly enhanced access to, dissemination, and sale of child pornography, which is a profitable industry estimated to generate billions of dollars worldwide. While efforts to address the issue of sexual exploitation of children may be slow, the capabilities of offenders to organize, communicate over the internet, and harness technology are unequivocally fast. Protection of children against cyber exploitation has become imperative, and measures should be taken that are specific and targeted to provide specialized victim identification capabilities; adequate protection for children using the internet; genuine participation of children; a full and responsible private sector; and finally, coordinated, effective, and structured international cooperation to protect all children. Combating the Exploitation of Children in Cyberspace provides innovative research for understanding all elements of combating cyber exploitation of children including the roles of law enforcement, international organizations, and the judicial system and educating children and their families to the dangers of the independent internet usage through cyberspace awareness programs. The content within this publication examines child grooming, cyberbullying, and cybercrime. It is designed for law enforcement, lawmakers, teachers, government officials, policymakers, IT specialists, cybercriminal researchers, psychologists, victim advocates, professionals, academicians, researchers, and students.

The 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has inspired advocates and policy makers across the globe, injecting children's rights terminology into various public and private arenas. Children's right to participate in decision-making processes affecting their lives is the acme of the Convention and its central contribution to the children's rights discourse. At the same time the participation right presents enormous challenges in its implementation. Laws, regulations and mechanisms addressing children's right to participate in decision-making processes affecting their lives have been established in many jurisdictions across the globe. Yet these worldwide developments have only rarely been accompanied with empirical investigations. The effectiveness of various policies in achieving meaningful participation for children of different ages, cultures and circumstances have remained largely unproven empirically. Therefore, with the growing awareness of the importance of evidence-based policies, it becomes clear that without empirical investigations on the implementation of children's right to participation it is difficult to promote their effective inclusion in decision making. This book provides a much-needed, first broad portrayal of how child participation is implemented in practice today. Bringing together 19 chapters written by prominent authors from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and Israel, the book includes descriptions of innovating programs that engage children and youth in decision-making processes, as well as insightful findings regarding what children, their families, and professionals think about these programs. Beyond their contribution to the empirical evidence on ways children engage in decision-making processes, the book's chapters contribute to the theoretical development of the meaning of "participation", "citizenship", "inclusiveness", and "relational rights" in regards to children and youth. There is no matching to the book's scope both in terms of the diversity of jurisdictions that it covers as well as the breadth of subjects. The book's chapters include experiences of child participation in special education, child protection, juvenile justice, restorative justice, family disputes, research, and policy making.

The Child Support Enforcement Handbook provides students with an historical overview of child support and enforcement, including relevant federal and state legislative and statutory schemes. Decades of state and federal legislation, and their varying impacts, are presented to help readers decode this complex multibillion-dollar governmental enterprise. The handbook begins by detailing the history of child support and enforcement and providing readers with a solid grounding in the various models and formulas used by states to determine the appropriate amount of child support in individual cases. Readers learn about the disparate impact of child support enforcement on families at the lowest socioeconomic levels and its importance in supporting the day-to-day livelihood of low-income parents. Additional chapters examine child support enforcement procedures, as well as challenges and issues that arise with enforcement, including paternity testing and presume parentage, same-sex parenting, assisted reproductive technology, and more. Designed to help readers navigate an important and complex system, The Child Support Enforcement Handbook is an ideal resource for courses in family law, social work, counseling, and accounting. It can also serve as a helpful reference for practicing attorneys and those in helping professions.

International media regularly features horrific stories about Chinese orphanages, especially when debating international adoption and human rights. Much of the popular information is dated and ill-informed about the experiences of most orphans in China today, Chinese government policy, and improvements evident in parts of China. Informal kinship care is the most common support for the orphaned children. The state supports orphans and abandoned children whose parents and relatives cannot be found or contacted. The book explores concrete examples about the changing experiences and future directions of Chinese child welfare policy. It is about the support to disadvantaged children, including abandoned children in the care of the state, most of whom have disabilities; HIV affected children; and orphans in kinship care. It identifies how many orphans are in China, how they are supported, the extent to which their rights are met, and what efforts are made to improve their rights and welfare provision. When our research about Chinese orphans started in 2001, these children were almost entirely voiceless. Since then, the Chinese government has committed to improving child welfare. We argue that a mixed welfare system, in which state provision supplements family and community care, is an effective direction to improve support for orphaned children. Government needs to take responsibility to guarantee orphans' rights as children, and support family networks to provide care so that children can grow up in their own communities. The book contributes to academic and policy understanding of the steps that have been taken and are still required to achieve the goal of a child welfare system in China that meets the rights of orphans to live and thrive with other children in a family.

Life on the Malecon is a narrative ethnography of the lives of street children and youth living in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and the non-governmental organizations that provide social services for them. Writing from the perspective of an anthropologist working as a street educator with a child welfare organization, Jon M. Wolseth follows the intersecting lives of children, the institutions they come into contact with, and the relationships they have with each other, their families, and organization workers. Often socioeconomic conditions push these children to move from their homes to the streets, but sometimes they themselves may choose the allure of the perceived freedoms and opportunities that street life has to offer. What they find, instead, is violence, disease, and exploitation-the daily reality through which they learn to maneuver and survive. Wolseth describes the stresses, rewards, and failures of the organizations and educators who devote their resources to working with this population. The portrait of Santo Domingo's street children and youth population that emerges is of a diverse community with variations that may be partly related to skin color, gender, and class. The conditions for these youth are changing as the economy of the Dominican Republic changes. Although the children at the core of this book live and sleep on avenues and plazas and in abandoned city buildings, they are not necessarily glue- and solvent-sniffing beggars or petty thieves on the margins of society. Instead, they hold a key position in the service sector of an economy centered on tourism. Life on the Malecon offers a window into the complex relationships children and youth construct in the course of mapping out their social environment. Using a child-centered approach, Wolseth focuses on the social lives of the children by relating the stories that they themselves tell as well as the activities he observes.

Each chapter provides in-depth discussions and this volume serves as an invaluable resource for Developmental or educational psychology researchers, scholars, and students.
Includes chapters that highlight some of the most recent research in the area of Positive Youth DevelopmentEach chapter provides in-depth discussionsAn invaluable resource for developmental or educational psychology researchers, scholars, and students

The purpose of this book is to compile and publicize the best current thinking about training and professional development for youth workers. School age youth spend far more of their time outside of school than inside of school. The United States boasts a rich and vibrant ecosystem of Out?of?School Time programs and funders, ranging from grassroots neighborhood centers to national Boys and Girls Clubs. The research community, too, has produced some scientific consensus about defining features of high quality youth development settings and the importance of after?school and informal programs for youth. But we know far less about the people who provide support, guidance, and mentoring to youth in these settings. What do youth workers do? What kinds of training, certification, and job security do they have? Unlike K?12 classroom teaching, a profession with longstanding - if contested - legitimacy and recognition, "youth work" does not call forth familiar imagery or cultural narratives. Ask someone what a youth worker does and they are just as likely to think you are talking about a young person working at her first job as they are to think you mean a young adult who works with youth. This absence of shared archetypes or mental models is matched by a shortage of policies or professional associations that clearly define youth work and assume responsibility for training and preparation. This is a problem because the functions performed by youth workers outside of school are critical for positive youth development, especially in ourcurrent context governed by widening income inequality. The US has seen a decline in social mobility and an increase in income inequality and racial segregation. This places a greater premium on the role of OST programs in supporting access and equity to learning opportunities for children, particularly for those growing up in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. Fortunately, in the past decade there has been an emergence of research and policy arguments about the importance of naming, defining, and attending to the profession of youth work. A report released in 2013 by the DC Children and Youth Investment Corporation suggests employment opportunities for youth workers are growing faster than the national average; and as the workforce increases, so will efforts to professionalize it through specialized training and credentials. Our purpose in this volume is to build on that momentum by bringing together the best scholarship and policy ideas - coming from in and outside of higher education - about conceptions of youth work and optimal types of preparation and professional development.

Child and Family Welfare: A Casebook provides readers with informative and valuable cases to help them improve their engagement, assessment, diagnostic, and treatment planning skills. The cases also serve to enhance the way readers think about their clients and practice in child and family welfare. The opening chapter presents the Advanced Multiple Systems (AMS) approach, which provides readers with a series of guiding practice principles to use while reading the evaluating cases. In proceeding chapters, readers learn about a Children's Protective Services worker managing multiple cases, investigating abuse and neglect, and dealing with the challenges of assessment and placement. Additional cases chronicle the journey of two boys moving through the foster care system and a teenage girl and her little brother waiting to see if an agency can place them together in an adoptive home. Another case shares the story of a teenager who grew up in foster care while still connected to her biological family and who is now attending college. The closing chapter reviews best practice methods in child and family welfare. Child and Family Welfare is part of the Cognella Casebook Series for the Human Services, a collection of textbooks that challenge students to learn through example, build critical competencies, and prepare for effective, vibrant practice.

Today, two cultural forces are converging to make America's youth easy targets for sex traffickers. Younger and younger girls are engaging in adult sexual attitudes and practices, and the pressure to conform means thousands have little self-worth and are vulnerable to exploitation. At the same time, thanks to social media, texting, and chatting services, predators are able to ferret out their victims more easily than ever before. In "Walking Prey," advocate and former victim Holly Austin Smith shows how middle class suburban communities are fast becoming the new epicenter of sex trafficking in America. Smith speaks from experience: Without consistent positive guidance or engagement, Holly was ripe for exploitation at age fourteen. A chance encounter with an older man led her to run away from home, and she soon found herself on the streets of Atlantic City. Her experience led her, two decades later, to become one of the foremost advocates for trafficking victims. Smith argues that these young women should be treated as victims by law enforcement, but that too often the criminal justice system lacks the resources and training to prevent the vicious cycle of prostitution. This is a clarion call to take a sharp look at one of the most striking human rights abuses, and one that is going on in our own backyard.

The information age is upon us and, with it, a new era of human services has emerged. The terms 'Evidence-Based,' 'evidence-informed,' 'best practice', and 'effective' have become ubiquitous in scholarly and professional publications, government documents, funding applications, and training institutions across the world. Yet despite this avalanche of words, there is substantial disagreement with respect to the definition of evidence and how it should be used to improve the lives of children and youth. This book builds on the burgeoning evidence-informed practice movement in social welfare that evolved from evidence-based medicine some twenty years ago. Key insights from an internationally recognized group of scholars representing several child welfare systems promotes a nuanced understanding of evidence in all its forms; makes a strong case for understanding the role of context in generating, interpreting, and employing evidence; and provides guidance for integrating evidence and context in the provision of child welfare services. The book begins with an introduction to evidence-informed practice and a broad overview of the different types of evidence that can be useful in guiding difficult decisions under uncertain conditions. This is followed by a decision-making framework that incorporates the use of evidence within the context of a complex child protection system. Next, empirically supported programs and treatments are evaluated with respect to their transportability across contexts, with sometimes surprising results. Two revolutionary approaches to the delivery of effective services, common factors and common elements, are then introduced and followed by a treatise on the importance of implementation in child welfare settings. Embracing different types of evidence used for different questions, the role of randomized controlled trials, epidemiology, administrative and survey data are then explored. Finally, the context of service provision within an agency is explored through an overview of the structure, function, and culture of human services organizations; the role of universities in training staff and conducting relevant practice and policy research; and an applied example involving a partnership between a major university and a large child welfare agency.