Despite a proliferation of legislative action in response to differential outcomes, the relative educational, employment and lifecourse disadvantages of individuals who have experienced the care system remains a pressing issue of widespread international concern. In Wales, a significant body of work has been produced on and with care-experienced children and young people. This edited collection attempts to highlight these valuable insights in a single volume, with contributions from well-established and early career scholars working in different traditions - including education, psychology, policy studies, sociology and social work - to provide a unique opportunity for reflection across disciplinary boundaries and shed new light on common problems and opportunities stimulated by research in the field of social care. The volume introduces a range of contexts and sites - including the home, the school, alternative educational institutions, contact centres, and the natural environment - and reflexively explores changes and continuities within the political and geographical landscape that constitutes Wales. Each chapter introduces insights, reflections and recommendations about the care system and its impacts, which will be useful for readers across geographical contexts who are concerned with improving the lives of children, young people and wider family networks.

Levels of violence, abuse and neglect in early childhood are reported internationally as having reached epidemic proportions. The prevalence of all forms of violence to children has been difficult to establish, particularly in low and middle income countries. However, even in countries with a high GDP, the sexual abuse of children and young people by predatory adults may continue undetected for decades. In parts of Africa young children are mutilated and killed for religious reasons. Physical beatings that injure and break bones are still common in the Western world. Pornography and sexual abuse involving young children is propagated worldwide through the internet. The prevention of this violence will require substantial shifts in parental and public attitudes to children and the development and support of national systems of preventive legislation. The last 20 years has seen the emergence of a body of material which interrogates early childhood violence and neglect in a wider range of global settings, particularly those countries with a low GDP. This book aims to highlight important features of national and international initiatives which are rooted in findings from systematic research. The continued abuse and neglect of children has been attributed to social acceptance, not understanding the importance of reporting abuse, and the limitations of child welfare systems. This book will be of interest to practitioners in health care, education, and social work services, as well as field workers implementing programmes to address all forms of abuse at family, community and national level. This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.

A new edition of the guidebook for organizing and conducting workshops for siblings of children with a variety of special needs.

The figure of the lost child has haunted the Australian imagination. Peter Pierce's original and sometimes shocking study The Country of Lost Children traces this ambivalent and disturbing history. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from poetry, fiction and newspaper reports to paintings and films, The Country of Lost Children analyzes the cultural and moral implications of the lost child in Australian history and illuminates a crucial aspect of our present condition. At its core are confronting, often troubling, questions about childhood itself.

Through innovative fieldwork and ethnographic writing, Hecht lays bare the received truths about the lives of Brazilian street children. This book changes the terms of the debate, asking not why there are so many homeless children in Brazil but why - given the oppressive alternative of home life in the shantytowns - there are in fact so few. Speaking in recorded sessions that participants called "radio workshops," street children asked one another questions that even the most experienced researchers would be unlikely to pose. At the center of this study are children who play, steal, sleep, dance, and die in the streets of a Brazilian city. But all around them figure activists, politicians, researchers, "home" children, and a global crisis of childhood.

Emotional difficulties in children aged 5-11 can display themselves in a range of different behaviours, and it is important for staff in schools to be able to identify and address these problems, and to provide appropriate help. This easy-to-use tool provides an observation checklist which enables staff to identify behavioural patterns in children with social and emotional difficulties, analyse the emotional difficulties underlying these behaviours and establish what kind of help and support the children need. Behavioural responses are categorised within clearly outlined topics, including behaviour, play and relationship with peers, attachment behaviours, emotional state in the classroom and attitude to attendance. Checklists and diagrams identify different 'styles' of relating (secure, avoidant, ambivalent), to help school staff who work with children and their families to respond appropriately to the individual needs of each child. A range of handouts include activities designed to provide emotional support, to focus and regulate behaviour and enable the child to develop important social and emotional skills. Suitable for use with children aged 5-11, this tool will be an invaluable resource for teachers, teaching assistants, learning support staff, school counsellors and educational psychologists.

Once a diagnosis of autism is made, a myriad of questions arises. Why is this happening? What can I do? How will I cope? What will the future bring? Will I ever smile again? A roadmap is needed, a handbook to refer to when all seems overwhelming. The priorities are to begin the healing process and to start treatment. The way to ensure success is to begin with the end goals in mind. It is remarkable how things fall into place once a vision of the future is formulated - a productive, upstanding, and most important, happy adult! This book walks parents through the steps of early intervention by demonstrating ways to achieve the most optimal outcomes. We address the following: Happy adults have a positive outlook, feel valued when their passions are honored and when interest is shown in the things they love. We can help children foster those attitudes in early childhood. Productive adults regulate their emotions, manage their time, cope with change, make wise choices and accept responsibility for their actions. We illustrate how to develop these skills from the outset. Adults perform skills independently and complete tasks necessary for work and home life. Children should be expected to do the same and we outline ways how to do that. Wherever a parent is on their parenting journey, and whatever age the child is, now is the time to look forward and plant seeds for the future, beginning with the end in mind. Our shared goal is to honor the glory that is in all of us, and to enhance each child's journey towards their fullest potential. If you are now confused and overwhelmed, you need a compassionate and optimistic guide for the early years and beyond. Where to start? Right here.

This book provides new insights on the lives of children in street situations by providing analyses from a qualitative perspective on the sociology of childhood. It proposes some insightful perspectives on the current discussion about the rights of children in street situations. It includes a unique selection of texts, which were initially published in French, written by the authors of this volume, on the lives of children in street situations in Latin America and China, that are now available to an English readership. It challenges obstacles, linked to macrosocial issues such as inequalities, images of the child, the separation of public/private spheres, urban dynamics and structural adjustments, as well as to microsocial dimensions such as identity, motivation, and activities that are constitutive of street situations. The book discusses the situations experienced by children, highlighting children's reflexivity and strategies as social factors, and shedding new light on the debate "agency within structure".

This important text analyzes the relationship between child development research and the design and implementation of social policy concerning children and families. The editors have compiled contributions from leading experts in the fields of developmental psychology, psychiatry, public health, business, political science, and education. By so doing, they present a multidisciplinary account of the controversies and challenges that have emerged in the field of child development and social policy, and an analysis of recent changes in our national ethos toward children and families.

This book presents an international perspective on the involvement of men in the lives of young children across a range of differing contexts and from a number of disciplinary perspectives. It takes as a starting point the importance of positive male engagement with young children so as to ensure their optimal development. Past research has revealed however the complexity of studying these relationships and the barriers that exist in families & society which impede the implementation of positive relationships. This book is developed to use new research and educational thinking in order to explore the lived experiences of both fathers and men in edu-care and in addition to considers what it is to be a man in the 21st century. As such this work is pertinent, timely and responsive to issues of concern to all those professionals, policy makers and practitioners within education and family services and also to the public in general. The central purpose of the book is to contribute to the debate around key issues connected to the ways in which men can develop secure professional and familial attachments to young children for whom they have a responsibility. This book was published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.

This book provides an interdisciplinary framework for school intervention into child and adolescent maltreatment, highlighting the unique potential for schools to identify and mitigate the long-term impacts of childhood trauma on children's educational well-being. Contributors evaluate recent efforts to incorporate trauma-informed approaches into schools, including strategic planning by administrators, staff training, prevention programming, liaising with local youth service agencies, and trauma-sensitive intervention with affected students. Among the topics discussed:* The developmental impact of trauma* The role of schools and teachers in supporting student mental health* Prevention programming to prevent child and adolescent sexual abuse* Education policies to support students with traumatic histories* Responding to childhood trauma at both macro and microsystem levels Trauma-Informed Schools: Integrating Child Maltreatment Prevention, Detection, and Intervention is a valuable resource for child maltreatment researchers, educational and school psychologists, school social workers, students in early childhood and K-12 education, and education policy makers at all levels of government. It offers the necessary guidelines and insights to facilitate better learning for students who have experienced trauma, aiming to improve student well-being both inside and outside the classroom.

Written by an experienced adoptive parent, this clear, sensitive and practical handbook is designed to encourage and support adoptive and long-term foster parents, their children and adolescents. An adopted child may well have suffered abuse, neglect or inconsistent parenting in the past; he or she will certainly have experienced painful separations and losses. These early traumatic experiences, often expressed in emotional and behavioural problems within the family, can conceal a broad range of subtle alterations to the brain and nervous system of the developing child. They may become increasingly problematic as the youngster approaches the developmental challenges of adolescence. Drawing on both firsthand experience and some of the latest medical research, Caroline Archer presents strategies to help parents deal with their youngsters' troubling behaviour and to make them feel more comfortable, in what seems to them a hostile world. Archer sets out to provide adoptive and foster parents with an understanding of the complex range of difficulties with which their children may struggle as a result of their early experience of adversity. By exploring, in very simple ways, the effects of adverse experiences on the child's built-in biological response systems, she assists parents to make sense of the frequently perplexing behaviours of the hurt child within their family. Common situations which she specifically addresses include: sleep problems; anger, aggression and violence; lying and stealing; staying out late and running away; addictive behaviours and self harm; impulsiveness and risk-taking; sex; suicide and compulsive eating disorders. Following on from First Steps in Parenting the Child Who Hurts: Tiddlers and Toddlers (2nd edition), Next Steps will be an invaluable resource for adoptive and foster parents seeking to support their child through the later stages of childhood and adolescence. This book will also be an essential practical guide for professionals working with families and eager to gain a thorough understanding of the on-going developmental and relationship difficulties of adopted children.

This book challenges and revises existing ways of thinking about leaving care policy, practice and research at regional, national and international levels. Bringing together contributors from fifteen countries, it covers a range of topical policy and practice issues within national, international or comparative contexts. These include youth justice, disability, access to higher education, the role of advocacy groups, ethical challenges and cultural factors. In doing so it demonstrates that, whilst young people are universally a vulnerable group, there are vast differences in their experiences of out-of-home care and transitions from care, and their shorter and longer-term outcomes. Equally, there are significant variations between jurisdictions in terms of the legislative, policy and practice supports and opportunities made available to them. This significant edited collection is essential reading for all those who work with young people from care, including social workers, counsellors, and youth and community practitioners, as well as for students and scholars of child welfare.

The brief provides an overview of Dr. Penelope K. Trickett's work and explores her innovations in the areas of theory, measurement, and methodology in the study of child maltreatment. It offers a summary of Dr. Trickett's seminal longitudinal studies on child maltreatment, including their influence on understanding the impact of sexual abuse and child maltreatment on female and adolescent development. Chapters examine the impact of her work on policy and practice and offer present four new empirical studies that have been directly influenced by Dr. Trickett's contributions. The brief concludes with further research recommendations to bridge the current policy and practice gaps. Topics featured in this brief include: Childhood sexual abuse and its effect on eating disorder development in females. The traumatic nature of reporting maltreatment in adolescents. Associations between adolescents' community violence exposure (CVE) and the development of aggressive behavior problems. Child sexual abuse experiences in Korea. Child Maltreatment Research, Policy, and Practice 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.

This book addresses how best to meet everyday challenges. The author focuses on how to think and act differently about what we do as we face challenges, and how to assess each situation as one of challenge rather than threat or harm because we have the strategies to cope. Spanning eleven chapters, the book examines the best ways to provide the core skills for life, to children, adolescents and adults, and how that is best achieved through the contemporary theories of coping. Coping has traditionally been defined in terms of reaction; that is, how people respond after or during a stressful event. More recently, coping is being defined more broadly to include anticipatory, preventive and proactive coping. This book provides case studies of resilient adults in a range of settings, highlighting how coping resources have helped them to overcome adversity. Researchers, students of psychology and social work, practitioners and those interested in the self-help field will find this book invaluable.

Child Welfare: Preparing Social Workers for Practice in the Field is a comprehensive text for child welfare courses taught from a social work perspective. This textbook provides a single source for all material necessary for a contextual child welfare course. As well as combining history, theory, and practice, the authors integrate different practice perspectives to teach social workers how to engage children and families at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. Covering both broad issues, such as child welfare, child maltreatment, and responses to child maltreatment, and current issues in social care, including mandated reporting and evidence-based policy prevention and preservation, the material is designed to meet the needs of social work students entering the child welfare workforce. Child Welfare provides students in social work courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels with a single source for all material necessary to successfully navigate their studies and careers.

Child Welfare: Preparing Social Workers for Practice in the Field is a comprehensive text for child welfare courses taught from a social work perspective. This textbook provides a single source for all material necessary for a contextual child welfare course. As well as combining history, theory, and practice, the authors integrate different practice perspectives to teach social workers how to engage children and families at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. Covering both broad issues, such as child welfare, child maltreatment, and responses to child maltreatment, and current issues in social care, including mandated reporting and evidence-based policy prevention and preservation, the material is designed to meet the needs of social work students entering the child welfare workforce. Child Welfare provides students in social work courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels with a single source for all material necessary to successfully navigate their studies and careers.

Broken Three Times is a narrative nonfiction book that chronicles one family's travails through the child welfare system. While this is the story of one family, it typifies countless others who get lost in the system. Each chapter of the family's story provides a launching point for discussing contemporary policy and practice, while it presents scientific updates relevant for understanding risk and promoting resilience in maltreated children, and improving the child welfare system. Emerging insights from genetics and neuroscience research are also reviewed. The book begins with snapshots from the mother's abusive childhood, which sets the stage for discussing trauma-informed systems of care initiatives. These programs include efforts to train professionals on the effects of trauma, implement universal screening of trauma experiences, and disseminate evidence-based treatments to address trauma-related psychiatric problems. The book then fast-forwards to the family's first involvement with Connecticut protective services when the children are eleven and ten. After a brief investigation, the family's case is closed, and despite their many needs, the family is not provided links to any ongoing supportive services. This chapter is then followed by a brief discussion of differential response programs. Like many unconfirmed cases, the family is re-referred to protective services within months of the initial case closing, and after a lengthy second investigation, the children are removed from their mother's care. Over the next five years we see the children pass through nearly twenty placements, while their mother continually relapses on crack and moves from one violent relationship to the next. The prevalence of substance abuse and domestic violence problems in families referred to protective services are also reviewed, together with a range of other issues relevant to improving the child welfare system and the outcomes of the children it serves. Over the course of the decade that is covered in the book's primary narrative, the child welfare system has started a process of significant reform. Trauma-informed systems of care, differential response teams, and strengthening of community-based mental health and addiction services are just a few trends that have begun to transform the system and improve the trajectory of children entering care in many jurisdictions. Judgment is still out on whether these changes will last and will prove effective, but stories like the one that forms the heart of Broken Three Times us of the complexity of the issues involved with child welfare. This book will hopefully provide readers with some ideas about concrete steps to take to improve practice, gaps in our knowledge, and a deepening appreciation of the value of incorporating broad perspectives into this work - from neurobiology to social policy.

Autism and Lockdown includes Tips and Insights from the World's Leading Experts on subjects such as: Carol Gray - Social Stories for a pandemic Dr. Tony Attwood - Latest Research on Autism and Covid 19 Temple Grandin - How the Lockdown is Affecting Me Carol Kranowitz - Sensory ""Quinks"" for Cooped-Up Days Ellen Notbohm - An Autistic Perspective on Social Distancing Dr. Jed Baker - Anxiety, Autism, and the Coronavirus Dr. Wendy - How to Deal with Sudden Homeschooling Jim Ball - Maintaining Good Behavior During Lockdown Beth Aune - OT Support for Sensory, Motor Skills and Self-care Anita Lesko - My Experiences as a Woman with Autism in the Medical Professional

In Narrating Practice with Children and Adolescents, social workers, sociologists, researchers, and helping professionals share engaging and evocative stories of practice that aim to center the young client's story. Drawing on work with a variety of disadvantaged populations in New York City and around the world, they seek to raise awareness of the diversity of the individual experiences of youth. They make use of a variety of narrative approaches to offer new perspectives on a range of critical health care, mental health, and social issues that shape the lives of children and adolescents. The book considers the narratives we tell about the lives and experiences of children and adolescents and proposes counternarratives that challenge dominant ideas about childhood. Contributors examine the environments and structures that shape the lives of children and youth from an ecological lens. From their stories emerge questions about how those working with young clients might respond to a changing landscape: How do we define and construct childhood? How do poverty and inequality impact children's health and welfare? How is childhood lived at the intersection of race, class, and gender? How can practitioners engage children and adolescents through culturally responsive and democratic processes? Offering new frameworks for reflecting on social work practice, the essays in Narrating Practice with Children and Adolescents also serve as a vehicle for exploration of children's agency and voice.

This book offers an analysis and summary of the uses, abuses and limitations of attachment theory in contemporary child welfare practice. Analysing the primary science and drawing on the authors' original empirical work, the book shows how attachment theory can distort and influence decision-making. It argues that the dominant view of attachment theory may promote a problematic diagnostic mindset, whilst undervaluing the enduring relationships between children and adults. The book concludes that attachment theory can still play an important role in child welfare practice, but the balance of the research agenda needs a radical shift towards a sophisticated understanding of the realities of human experience to inform ethical practice.

This book explores the conceptualisation and measurement of youth quality of life in sub-Saharan Africa. Further, it addresses methodological questions relevant to the development of measures and gaining an understanding of youth quality of life in this region. Drawing on the data collected, it subsequently explores students' primary goals and their satisfaction with the extent of having achieved those goals. Accordingly, the book fills an important gap in the available literature on youth quality of life, and advances the role of qualitative methods in developing youth quality of life measures in sub-Saharan Africa.

Family Group Conferences are seen as a progressive and influential form of practice in child welfare across the globe. This book examines and identifies variations in independent advocacy provision offered to young people and their families in relation to undertaking a FGC, and discusses how these can impact the outcomes both positively and negatively for young people involved. Using critical discourse analysis and an original theoretical framework, the outcomes of advocacy provision are examined from participants' perspectives prior to, during, and after the FGC process has been completed. The analysis develops themes that are discussed comprehensively and recommendations are made for the enhancement of advocacy provision generally, and, for young people involved in FGC specifically.

This second edition of the Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention provides a comprehensive overview of this complex and continually evolving field by an outstanding group of contributing authors. Eighteen of the twenty-eight chapters are new to this edition; chapters from the first edition have been updated. It combines rigorous scholarship with state-of-the-art content on policy and service delivery. It is designed to address a broad, multidisciplinary audience including psychologists, early childhood educators, social workers, pediatricians, nurses, child psychiatrists, physical and occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, and professionals interested in public health and social policy. The Handbook is a valuable resource for both graduate students and experienced professionals.

This book offers a timely and detailed exploration and analysis of key contemporary issues and challenges in child sexual abuse, which holds great relevance for scholarly, legal, policy, professional and clinical audiences worldwide. The book draws together the best current evidence about the nature, aetiology, contexts, and sequelae of child sexual abuse. It explores the optimal definition of child sexual abuse, considers sexual abuse in history, and explores new theoretical understandings of children's rights and other key theories including public health and the Capabilities Approach, and their relevance to child sexual abuse prevention and responses. It examines a selection of the most pressing legal, theoretical, policy and practical challenges in child sexual abuse in the modern world, in developed and developing economies, including institutional child sexual abuse, female genital cutting, child marriage, the use of technology for sexual abuse, and the ethical responsibility and legal liability of major state and religious organisations, and individuals. It examines recent landmark legal and policy developments in all of these areas, drawing in particular on extensive developments from Australia in the wake of its Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It also considers the best evidence about promising strategies and future promising directions in enhancing effective prevention, intervention and responses to child sexual abuse.