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.

The landmark National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) study represents the first effort to gather nationally representative data, based on first-hand reports, about the well-being of children and families who encounter the child welfare system. NSCAW's findings offer an unprecedented national source of data that describe the developmental status and functional characteristics of children who come to the attention of child protective services. Much more than a simple history of placements or length of stay in foster care, NSCAW data chart the trajectory of families across service pathways for a multi-dimensional view of their specific needs. The NSCAW survey is longitudinal, contains direct assessments and reports about each child from multiple sources, and is designed to address questions of relations among children's characteristics and experiences, their development, their pathways through the child welfare service system, their service needs, their service receipt, and, ultimately, their well-being over time.
The chapters in this rich synthesis of NSCAW data represent thoughtful and increasingly sophisticated approaches to the problems highlighted in the study and in child welfare research in general. The authors capitalize on the longitudinal, multidimensional data to capture the experiences of children and families from the time they are investigated by CPS though multiple follow-up points, and to consider the interdependent nature of the traditional child welfare outcomes of safety, permanence, and well-being. The topics covered not only are critical to child welfare practice and policy, but also are of compelling interest to other child service sectors such as health, mental health, education, and juvenile justice. The authors of chapters in this volume are esteemed researchers within psychology, social work, economics, and public health. Together they represent the future of child welfare research, showcasing the potential of NSCAW as a valuable resource to the research community and providing glimpses of how the data can be used to inform practice and policy.

Solution-based casework is an approach to assessment, case planning, and case management that combines what we know from clinical social work with what we value about sound social work practice. It is grounded in family-centered social work and draws from clinical approaches within social work and mental health. By integrating problem- and solution-focused approaches that form the clinical and social work traditions, treatment partnerships are more easily formed between family, caseworker, and service provider.

Solution-Based Casework is a skill-based, practice-oriented text that provides the specific guidance that students and new practitioners need in order to make sense quickly of the complex tasks of assessment and case planning in child welfare. The book flows out of a long practice experience, and was developed in consultation with workers and supervisors who were attempting to remedy problems viewed as contributing to recurrent abuse and neglect. It seeks to end adversarial relationships in casework and advocates case plans based on specific outcome skills rather than on those written with vague outcome goals measuring attendance in counseling. It serves as a common conceptual framework for integrating disparate segments of a response network, thereby allowing all providers in a therapeutic system to work toward common goals.

The text is divided into three sections. In Section I the conceptual history and theoretical foundations of solution-based casework are presented so that the reader can place this approach to casework within the ongoing professional conversation about what constitutes sound practice. Section II addresses issues of assessment and case planning. Section III focuses on case management issues and how treatment team members experience a solution-based casework approach.

This book addresses the factors that explain the child welfare service careers of children, and the goals of permanency planning to be met for children entering foster care after initial abuse. It focuses on common child placements along the child welfare path.

Featuring contributions from leading international scholars of social policy, this dynamic Research Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of conceptual and methodological developments in leave policy research, as well as state-of-the-art findings on leave policy determinants and outcomes globally. The topic of inequality is placed at the centre of the Research Handbook, to strengthen the global debate and encourage broader thinking about the interconnections between leave policy design and social inequalities. Chapters illustrate the continued relevance of this correlation in the context of gendered care and employment practices, precarious, underinsured, and nonstandard employment, informal economies, migration, family changes, and growing financial strains for parents. Using parental leave policy as an empirical lens to further our understanding of the intersectional nature of social inequalities, the editors ultimately consider whether there is a case to reconfigure leave policy as a social right. This incisive Research Handbook will be essential reading for a multi-disciplinary audience of students and scholars of social policy, family studies, gender studies, sociology, social work, and public policy. Its evaluation of cutting-edge developments in leave policy will also benefit national and international policy makers, as well as HR leaders interested in parenting leave best practice.

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.

The well-being of children is a vital and highly topical issue. This important new book is the third in a series and updates the findings from a wide range of data to evaluate the outcomes of the Labour government's policies for children. Edited by a highly regarded expert in the field, it uses a framework to compare policy areas, making it an excellent source book for researchers, policy makers and students.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed by President Obama in March 2010 is a landmark in U.S. social legislation, and the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding the Act has ensured that it will remain the law of the land. The new law extends health insurance to nearly all Americans, fulfilling a century-long quest and bringing the United States to parity with other industrial nations. Affordable Care aims to control rapidly rising health care costs and promises to make the United States more equal, reversing four decades of rising disparities between the very rich and everyone else. Millions of people of modest means will gain new benefits and protections from insurance company abuses - and the tab will be paid by privileged corporations and the very rich. How did such a bold reform effort pass in a polity wracked by partisan divisions and intense lobbying by special interests? What does Affordable Care mean-and what comes next? In this updated edition of Health Care Reform and American Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know (R), Lawrence R. Jacobs and Theda Skocpol-two of the nation's leading experts on politics and health care policy-provide a concise and accessible overview. They explain the political battles of 2009 and 2010, highlighting White House strategies, the deals Democrats cut with interest groups, and the impact of agitation by Tea Partiers and progressives. Jacobs and Skocpol spell out what the new law can do for everyday Americans, what it will cost, and who will pay. In a new section, they also analyze the impact the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law. Above all, they explain what comes next, as critical yet often behind-the-scenes battles rage over implementing reform nationally and in the fifty states. Affordable Care still faces challenges at the state level despite the Court ruling. But, like Social Security and Medicare, it could also gain strength and popularity as the majority of Americans learn what it can do for them.

Written by Penny Tassoni so students can be sure that content is reliable, relevant and of the highest quality. Content relating to each level is clearly signposted so students can easily find the information they need. Visually appealing, full-colour Student Book engages students interest and is suitable for students of diverse learning needs. New magazine-style 'Activity Centre' pages provide fun and practical tasks for learners to demonstrate their knowledge.

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.

Get your kids moving and giggling with the delightful suggestions in A Year of Mini-Moves for the In-Sync Child created by Carol Kranowitz and Joye Newman. Here are fifty-two weekly schedules that will incorporate quick movement activities into your day. These whimsical digital pages can also be printed and posted to brighten your walls at the clinic, at home and at school. Pediatricians, teachers and other early childhood specialists now recognize that early motor development is one of the most important factors in the physical, emotional, academic and overall success of the child. Each of these mini-moves addresses one or more sensory, perceptual and visual motor skills that are the foundation of all future physical, cognitive, and emotional development. Use these whimsical mini-moves at the beginning of your day or therapy session, at transition times or as inspiration for a more elaborate movement experience. Adapt each move to suit the abilities of the children.

Discusses the use of orphan trains to place orphaned or abandoned children in homes in nineteenth-century Missouri.

Resources designed to support learners of the new next generation BTEC First in Children's Play, Learning and Development specification*. * Covers the underpinning knowledge and understanding for all core, mandatory and optional units for the Award and Certificate and all core and mandatory units for the Extended Certificate. * The attractive, accessible layout is packed with learning features, which draw out key points and bring topics to life. * Provides support and practice for learners as they work towards the Award, Certificate and Extended Certificate. * Units include plenty of activities and assessment guidance to help learners achieve their potential. *Case Studies reflect the work-related nature of the qualification, so that learners are more able to put theory into practice in real-world settings. *Assessment activities help learners to achieve their potential in internally-assessed units and support external assessment. * From 2012, Pearson's BTEC First qualifications have been under re-development, so schools and colleges could be teaching the existing 2010 specification or the new next generation 2012-2013 specification.There are different Student Books to support each specification. If learners are unsure, they should check with their teacher or tutor.

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.

Contains all the mandatory units and a number of optional units to provide the information learners need to succeed. The magazine-style page design is packed with glossy new photos and illustrations to help learners recap what they have covered for each unit. Clear signposting throuhgout the Student Book will allow learners to find further sources of information so you can be sure you have all the information you need to succeed.

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.

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.

The number of children living in families with incomes below the federal poverty level increased by 33 percent between 2000 and 2009, resulting in over 15 million children living in poverty. Some of these children are able to overcome this dark statistic and break the intergenerational transmission of poverty, offering hope to an otherwise bleak outlook, but this raises the question-how? In Fostering Resilience and Well-Being in Children and Families in Poverty, Dr. Valerie Maholmes sheds light on the mechanisms and processes that enable children and families to manage and overcome adversity. She explains that research findings on children and poverty often unite around three critical factors related to risk for poverty-related adversity: family structure, the presence of buffers that can protect children from negative influences, and the association between poverty and negative academic outcomes, and social and behavioral problems. She discusses how the research on resilience can inform better interventions for these children, as poverty does not necessarily preclude children from having strengths that may protect against its effects. Importantly, Maholmes introduces the concept of "hope" as a primary construct for understanding how the effects of poverty can be ameliorated. At the heart of the book are interviews with family members who have experienced adversity but managed to overcome it through the support of targeted programs and evidence-based interventions. Student leaders provide unique perspectives on the important role that parents and teachers play in motivating youth to succeed. Finally, professionals who work with children and families share their observations on effective interventions and the roles of culture and spirituality in fostering positive outcomes. Excerpts from these interviews bring research to life and help call attention to processes that promote hope and resilience. This book will be invaluable for policymakers, educators, and community and advocacy groups, as well as scholars and students in family studies, human development, and social work.

An unprecedented number of children around the world are working today. This volume is a must-have, up-to-date survey for student research. In the 15 examined countries, poverty, lack of education, gender inequity, the demands of the global marketplace, and easy sex tourism are key factors contributing to the child labor crisis. Each chapter depicts the child labor scene in a particular country, along with detailed conditions, the history of the problem, the present state of child labor, political policies, and social aspects, and the ultimate outlook.

Child labor is a complex social and political issue with a long and evolving history. The phenomenon of child labor, including prostitution, has been a focus of debate especially in the last two centuries and continues to generate fierce reactions. An unprecedented number of children around the world are working today. This volume is a must-have, up-to-date survey for student research. In the 15 examined countries, poverty, lack of education, gender inequity, the demands of the global marketplace, and easy sex tourism are key factors contributing to the child labor crisis. Each chapter depicts the child labor scene in a particular country, along with detailed conditions, the history of the problem, the present state of child labor, political policies and social aspects, and the ultimate outlook.

The scope of the topic is wide, and basic definitions of what constitutes child and labor vary from country to country. International laws and conventions promoted by labor and human rights groups are establishing new norms to counteract harsh cultural and economic realities, but these and similar local laws are hard to enforce. These issues are explored, and vignettes from the children's point of view add a human-interest angle to the narrative.