The focus of this book is on different aspects of leadership and governess for learning in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector, which serves children aged 1-5 years. Internationally, the discourse on the ECEC sector is interwoven with the discourse on early intervention, where ECEC is viewed as laying the foundation for lifelong learning, eliminating child poverty, and fostering social inclusion within an increasingly diverse population.

A top economist weighs in on one of the most urgent questions of our times: What is the source of inequality and what is the remedy? In Giving Kids a Fair Chance, Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman argues that the accident of birth is the greatest source of inequality in America today. Children born into disadvantage are, by the time they start kindergarten, already at risk of dropping out of school, teen pregnancy, crime, and a lifetime of low-wage work. This is bad for all those born into disadvantage and bad for American society. Current social and education policies directed toward children focus on improving cognition, yet success in life requires more than smarts. Heckman calls for a refocus of social policy toward early childhood interventions designed to enhance both cognitive abilities and such non-cognitive skills as confidence and perseverance. This new focus on preschool intervention would emphasize improving the early environments of disadvantaged children and increasing the quality of parenting while respecting the primacy of the family and America's cultural diversity. Heckman shows that acting early has much greater positive economic and social impact than later interventions-which range from reduced pupil-teacher ratios to adult literacy programs to expenditures on police-that draw the most attention in the public policy debate. At a time when state and local budgets for early interventions are being cut, Heckman issues an urgent call for action and offers some practical steps for how to design and pay for new programs. The debate that follows delves deeply into some of the most fraught questions of our time: the sources of inequality, the role of schools in solving social problems, and how to invest public resources most effectively. Mike Rose, Geoffrey Canada, Charles Murray, Carol Dweck, Annette Lareau, and other prominent experts participate.

The Third Edition of Child Abuse Quick Reference is completely revised and expanded, with new and emerging science for the multidisciplinary response to child abuse. It features updated models for the investigation, diagnosis, and treatment of child abuse as well as three all-new chapters on: nonfatal strangulation in children, pregnancy in sexually abused minors, and prevention of child maltreatment. With this latest edition, Child Abuse Quick Reference remains the most detailed and convenient field guide to child maltreatment-ideal for professionals working directly with abused children. Medical practitioners, social workers, attorneys, law enforcement personnel, and others will find this easy-to-use guide essential to their work on the front lines of prevention and intervention in cases of child maltreatment.

It is common for adoptive families to need support and services after adoption. Postadoption services can help families with a wide range of issues. They are available for everything from learning how to explain adoption to a preschooler, to helping a child who experienced early childhood abuse, to supporting an adopted teens search for identity. Experience with adoptive families has shown that all family members can benefit from some type of postadoption support. Families of children who have experienced trauma, neglect, abuse, out-of-home care, or institutionalisation may require more intensive services. This book serves as a guide to postadoption assistance.

This book presents original research outlining the key elements in responding to parental misuse of drugs and alcohol. * Offers a definition of misuse and addiction and the factors that influence the nature of misuse or addiction * Reviews extensively the nature and impact of parental substance misuse on children and families using the latest evidence * Explores how research and theories might help inform professionals or non-professionals assessing families affected by parents who misuse drugs or alcohol * Provides an in-depth discussion of Motivational Interviewing, including a critical discussion of the challenges and limitations involved in using it in child and family settings * Considers the wider implications of the findings for practice and policy and argues that these responses can be used across the field of work with vulnerable children and their families

Child welfare services are intended to prevent the abuse or neglect of children; ensure that children have safe, permanent homes; and promote the well-being of children and their families. As the U.S. Constitution has been interpreted, states bear the primary responsibility for ensuring the welfare of children and their families. At the state level, the child welfare "system" consists of public child protection and child welfare workers, private child welfare and social service workers, state and local judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement personnel. These representatives of various state and local entities assume interrelated roles while carrying out child welfare activities, including investigating allegations of child abuse and neglect; providing services to families to ensure children's safety in the home; removing children from their homes when that is necessary for their safety; supervising and administering payments for children placed in foster care; ensuring regular case review and permanency planning for children in foster care; helping children leave foster care to permanent families via reunification with parents or, when that is not possible, via adoption or legal guardianship; offering post-permanency services and supports; and helping older children in foster care, and youth who leave care without placement in a permanent family, to transition successfully to adulthood. This book begins with a review of federal appropriations activity in FY2015 as it relates to child welfare programs, including the effect of the automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration. The book provides a short description of each federal child welfare program, including its purpose and recent funding levels. In addition, funds appropriated for the PSSF program support grants to state or tribal highest courts under the Court Improvement Program; grants to regional partnerships to improve the outcomes of children affected by their Child Welfare: Funding for Services Under Title IV-B of the Social Security Act Congressional Research Service 3 parents' substance abuse; grants to states and territories for monthly caseworker visits of children in foster care; and program-related research, evaluation, training, or technical assistance are also discussed in this book.

This book is the result of an interagency workgroup tasked with developing a strategy to support students and youth with disabilities in reaching their goals of economic empowerment and independence as they transition to adulthood. It focuses on five Federal systems that play key and inter-related roles in preparing youth with disabilities as they transition into adulthood - vocational rehabilitation, social security, juvenile justice, behavioral health, and workforce investment. The book summarizes each system's role, the extent of its use by the population, and central programs and authorizing legislation. In addition, challenges and recommendations for each system are identified, as are common themes and trends across systems. Moreover, the book provides information on the challenges students with disabilities may face accessing federally funded transition services; and the extent to which federal agencies coordinate their transition activities.

Youth with disabilities face several challenges as they transition out of high school. In addition to the social and emotional challenges associated with moving out of the guidance and supervision of supportive staff, teachers and friends in schools, and leaving home to enter the workforce, youth must be prepared and be able to navigate an increasingly complex world to obtain and maintain employment over the long-term. Among the most pressing issues for youth with disabilities are the development of knowledge and skills with regards to financial independence, money management and an understanding of asset development strategies. All too often, youth with disabilities live in poverty and face barriers to stable employment opportunities. In addition, government programs with confusing and conflicting eligibility criteria make accessing needed support services extremely difficult which often leads to unsuccessful transitions from school to post-secondary education, employment and independent living. Young people with disabilities may want to learn how to save money and build assets, but getting a job and saving a portion of their income may cause them to lose their disability benefits and other important support services, like health care. In order to address these concerns, comprehensive financial literacy programs customized to meet the needs of youth with all types of disabilities is paramount and in a diverse society such as ours, educators and policymakers should reexamine various cultures' value systems and recognize the importance of guiding youth/disabilities towards moral decisions on humanistic, rather than purely economic bases. This book explores efficacy and overall adequacy of financial literacy programs for youth with disabilities, and highlights promising practices that have been shown to improve participants' knowledge of money management and asset development strategies. Additionally, it explores the extent to which the "generic" financial literacy curricula and/or educational programs that target nondisabled youth address the needs of youth with disabilities by highlighting gaps in instructional domains and practices in existing programs. Finally, the implications for future research and policies related to financial literacy and employment for youth with disabilities are discussed.

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.

Children in rural areas face particular risks to their health and well-being. Some risks relate to their demographic characteristics; rural children are more likely to live in poverty than those in urban areas. Some relate to their physical environment; the risks of injury and of death from injury are greater among rural children. Since 2003, the National Survey of Children' Health (NSCH) has presented in-depth National and State-level data on the health and well-being of children in their families and communities. The survey provides a snapshot of children's physical, mental, and developmental health status; access to health care; activities at school, outside of school, and at home; and their safety and security in their neighborhoods and at school. The NSCH, supported and developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau and conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the only nationally-representative survey that considers children's health and well-being within the contexts of the family and community. This book presents indicators of the health and well-being of children, the supportive and risk factors in the family environment, and aspects of the neighborhood that may support or threaten families and children.

Each day, the safety and well-being of some children is threatened by child abuse and neglect. Intervening effectively in the lives of these children and their families is not the sole responsibility of any single agency or professional group, but rather is a shared community concern. In the area of neglect, both the field and the community increasingly recognize the impact of many factors such as poverty, unemployment, and housing, as well as individual and family characteristics. This book delves deeper into the root causes, symptoms, and consequences of neglect, as well as the interdisciplinary ways to prevent both its occurrence and recurrence. This book also reviews definitions and strategies for assessing neglect, presents lessons learned about prevention and intervention, and suggests sources of training and informational support. Strategies for addressing neglect, beginning with prevention, are included.

Influenced by news reports of young children brutalized by their parents, most of us see the role of child services as the prevention of severe physical abuse. But as Tina Lee shows in Catching a Case, most child welfare cases revolve around often ill-founded charges of neglect, and the parents swept into the system are generally struggling but loving, fighting to raise their children in the face of crushing poverty, violent crime, poor housing, lack of childcare, and failing schools. Lee explored the child welfare system in New York City, observing family courts, interviewing parents and following them through the system, asking caseworkers for descriptions of their work and their decision-making processes, and discussing cases with attorneys on all sides. What she discovered about the system is troubling. Lee reveals that, in the face of draconian budget cuts and a political climate that blames the poor for their own poverty, child welfare practices have become punitive, focused on removing children from their families and on parental compliance with rules. Rather than provide needed help for families, case workers often hold parents to standards almost impossible for working-class and poor parents to meet. For instance, parents can be accused of neglect for providing inadequate childcare or housing even when they cannot afford anything better. In many cases, child welfare exacerbates family problems and sometimes drives parents further into poverty while the family court system does little to protect their rights. Catching a Case is a much-needed wake-up call to improve the child welfare system, and to offer more comprehensive social services that will allow all children to thrive.

All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Territories have child abuse and neglect reporting laws that mandate certain professionals and institutions to report suspected maltreatment to a child protective services (CPS) agency. Most states recognise four major types of maltreatment: neglect, physical abuse, psychological maltreatment, and sexual abuse. Although any of the forms of child maltreatment may be found separately, they can occur in combination. This book provides data collected on child maltreatment from 2013; and discusses statutes identifying persons who are required to report suspected child maltreatment to an appropriate agency, such as child protective services, a law enforcement agency, or a State's toll-free child abuse reporting hotline.

Children in the U.S. are not faring well. Despite major advances in public health, hygiene, and treatment for acute infections, child health outcomes in the U.S. are among the bottom for developed countries. As we enter the third decade of a child obesity epidemic, children born in the last ten years are now likely to have a shorter lifespan than their parents. Coupled with an epidemic of childhood mental health issues - many of them unaddressed due to stigma or lack of recognition - plus the impacts of gun violence, poverty, and youth incarceration contribute to an overall culture that fails to prioritize the health and welfare of our youngest members of society. Child Health: A Population Perspective examines both the history of child health and the three dynamics that most define it: the principles and dynamics between children, families, and communities; social determinants of health; and life course health development. With both theoretical grounding and illustrative case studies, this book provides a core framework for students in maternal and child health to better understand the issues facing children today - and how to serve them best.

Tracy is a very troubled child living in a therapeutic care home in the 1980s. 'Finding Helen' uses an engaging mix of her caseworker's notes, heartfelt poetry which she writes to express her innermost thoughts and feelings, and a narrative of her volatile true-life story. As her case-worker Helen and the other staff attempt to understand the reasons behind Tracy's abusive and self-destructive behaviour, Tracy is torn between her desire to kill those around her and her desperate need to be loved. But as her negative behaviour escalates and the threat of psychiatric care becomes increasingly likely, can one woman's love be enough to save her?

Protecting children from abuse and neglect is a serious and complex area of social work practice and understanding the critical skills of communicating with and listening to children's voices, and those of their advocates and survivors, is essential. In this new edition of a highly-regarded book, the authors offer a strengthened children's rights perspective and explore four main categories of child abuse - emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and physical abuse. The book also considers legal safeguards and protective processes to increase the creativity and confidence of those undertaking such work. Locating knowledge and skills within a series of case examples from real life practice and serious case reviews, this book is an indispensable resource for students, professionals and others concerned with protecting children. This second edition has been comprehensively revised and updated to include current research evidence and a focus on the neglected protection needs of sexually exploited young people, children in custody, disabled children, young carers and unaccompanied child migrants.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is a means-tested program that provides health coverage to targeted low-income children and pregnant women in families that have annual income above Medicaid eligibility levels but have no health insurance. CHIP is jointly financed by the federal government and states, and the states are responsible for administering CHIP. Under the CHIP program, the federal government sets basic requirements for CHIP, but states have the flexibility to design their own version of CHIP within the federal government's basic framework. As a result, there is significant variation across CHIP programs. This book describes the basic elements of CHIP, focusing on how the program is designed, who is eligible, what services are covered, how enrollees share in the cost of care, and how the program is financed. The book also includes a brief discussion of the future of CHIP. Furthermore, this book examines provisions of H.R. 2, which is the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015; CHIP financing, beginning with an explanation of the federal matching rate; and the ACA MOE requirement for children if federal CHIP funding expires.

Highlighting and examining the vital role of nurses in protecting children from maltreatment, this book explores the input of nurses from different disciplines to the work of protecting children and young people. It draws on relevant theoretical, research and policy literature but focuses in particular on the evidence base for the value of their work.While orientated towards UK practice, the book includes some comparative material to add a wider European perspective. The text includes discussion of specialist public health nursing roles such as health visiting and school nursing, as well as the contribution of those who have more general nursing roles but whose work brings them into contact with children, young people and their families.This volume will inform all qualified nurses working in acute care and primary care settings who have contact with children, young people and their families. It will also be of use to those undertaking post-qualifying and post-graduate courses and is particularly relevant for Specialist Community Public Health Nurses (SCPHNs) many of whom, once qualified, have significant child protection roles in practice.

Pregnancy is a crucial point of intersection between generations. During pregnancy, women with a childhood maltreatment history have a 12-fold increased risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although awareness of the need for trauma-informed care and trauma-specific interventions is increasing in the fields of addiction and mental health treatment, there are no front-line programmes for the childbearing year that address maltreatment-related PTSD. The authors address these intergenerational cycles of childhood maltreatment and psychiatric vulnerability; they provide a resource to facilitate incorporating trauma-informed care and trauma-specific interventions into maternity services; and they signal the opportunities for improving outcomes for childbearing women with a history of childhood maltreatment.This volume provides an overview of information that child welfare and perinatal professionals can use in their work to move towards providing trauma informed care and developing trauma-specific interventions to improve intergenerational outcomes.

This is the definitive guide to counselling adolescents. Now in its fourth edition, this bestseller has introduced thousands of trainees and practitioners to the theory, principals, skills and techniques of proactively counselling this client group. New to the fourth edition: - A new chapter on the contemporary context of adolescence, exploring the challenges, opportunities and influences facing young people today. - A new chapter on the use of technology when counselling young people - Useful links to relevant online resources at the end of each chapter - Updates to all chapters reflecting more recent understanding, research and literature - Additional case studies to help trainees apply theory and strategies to practice A multi-disciplinary book which recognises that a diversity of needs requires a diversity of approaches and skills, it uses case studies and examples to demonstrate this in a variety of settings. It is essential reading for trainees and practitioners in counselling, social work, the allied health professions and education.

Combining institutional ethnography and community-based research, Youth Work is a sophisticated examination of the troubling experiences of young people living outside the care of parents or guardians, as well as of the difficulties of the frontline workers who take responsibility for assisting them. Drawing from more than a year of on-site research at an Ontario youth emergency shelter, Naomi Nichols exposes the complicated institutional practices that govern both the lives of young people living in shelters and the workers who try to help them.

A troubling account of how a managerial focus on principles like "accountability" and "risk management" has failed to successfully coordinate and deliver services to vulnerable members of society, Youth Work shows how competitive funding processes, institutional mandates, and inter-organizational conflicts complicate the lives of the young people that they are supposed to help. Nichols's book is essential reading for those involved in education, social services, mental health, and the justice system, as well as anyone with an interest in social justice.

In the past few decades, researchers and practitioners have moved away from the idea of fatherhood as a single, monolithic concept. Examining the challenges of vulnerable fathers such as those in poverty or in prison, they have developed valuable new strategies for cultivating the positive involvement of fathers in the lives of their children. Drawing on the innovative work of Prospere, a Quebec organization that brought together fathers, university researchers, and health and social service practitioners, Fathering details innovative approaches that support positive father involvement. It provides numerous examples of strategies and interventions with fathers, lessons learned from these practices on how to better support vulnerable fathers and families, and in-depth information on ways of designing, implementing, evaluating, and disseminating the results of participatory action research (PAR) - a methodology which put fathers at the heart of the project's decision-making.