The nation's future depends to a larger extent on its children's ability to develop into contributing adult members of society. For that reason, and for what many would consider a society's moral obligation to care for the young and vulnerable, Congress and the nation take an interest in promoting children's well-being. Their well-being and ability to develop into productive adults in an increasingly competitive global economy is influenced by a variety of factors and public policies. This book discusses topics such as child well-being and the non-custodial father; child support enforcement and ex-offenders; parents in prison and their minor children, as well as child welfare agencies' efforts to identify, locate and involve non-resident fathers.

The sexual abuse and exploitation of children rob the victims of their childhood, irrevocably interfering with their emotional and psychological development. Ensuring that all children come of age without being disturbed by sexual trauma or exploitation is more than a criminal justice issue, it is a societal issue. Despite efforts to date, the threat of child sexual exploitation remains very real, whether it takes place in the home, on the street, over the Internet or in a foreign land. Because the sexual abuse and exploitation of children strikes at the very foundation of our society, it will take our entire society to combat this affront to the public welfare. This authors of this book examine the nature of the child exploitation problem and the significant efforts being undertaken by federal, state and local agencies to address this epidemic.

Recess can be stressful for children on the autism spectrum. Since most of these children tend to function better in structured environments, the usual chaos of the schoolyard is not only overwhelming from a sensory standpoint, but from a social one as well. In this book, Carol Gray offers teachers and parents helpful tips and strategies for structuring playtime so that children can get through this part of the day.

This book presents a synthesis of major studies on child exploitation and an annotated bibliography. Topics discussed in this compilation include: Internet crimes against children; the role of the family and caregivers in preventing children from becoming victims of sexual abuse; the incidence of sexual solicitation according to demographics and social characteristics and the role that law enforcement can play in prosecuting predators and evaluating the effectiveness of their investigations.

Each year, there are over 58,000 non-family abductions and more than 1 million children reported missing. This is a staggering number, but it doesn't include the other young victims, the sisters and brothers of those who have been abducted. These overlooked children suffer the loss of their sibling. Their lives are turned assunder, and family patterns are irrevocably changed. Additionally, when a child is abducted by a family member, the parent who has been left behind faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Pre-school childcare in England, 1939-2010 investigates how competing ideas about child development influenced the provision, practice and experience of childcare for the under fives since 1939. It explores how theories which developed during the war about the psychological harm caused by separating an infant from its mother influenced the organisation of childcare outside the family in light of the social, economic and demographic changes seen during the years that followed. Focusing on four different forms of childcare - day nurseries, nursery schools and classes, playgroups, and childminders - it considers how both individual families and wider society managed the care of young children in the context of dramatic increases in the employment of married women. Using a new body of oral history interviews specifically undertaken for the book, it also examines the experiences and effects of care on those involved and the current policy implications raised. -- .

Child, nation, race and empire is an innovative, inter-disciplinary, cross cultural study that contributes to understandings of both contemporary child welfare practices and the complex dynamics of empire. It analyses the construction and transmission of nineteenth-century British child rescue ideology. Locating the origins of contemporary practice in the publications of the prominent English Child rescuers, Dr Barnardo, Thomas Bowman Stephenson, Benjamin Waugh, Edward de Montjoie Rudolf and their colonial disciples and literature written for children, it shows how the vulnerable body of the child at risk came to be reconstituted as central to the survival of nation, race and empire. Yet, as the shocking testimony before the many official enquiries into the past treatment of children in out-of-home 'care' held in Britain, Ireland, Australia and Canada make clear, there was no guarantee that the rescued child would be protected from further harm. -- .

For over a decade and with the best of intentions, the U.K. government has spent millions attempting, but largely failing, to improve personal, social and educational outcomes for children and young people in public care. In this book, the authors explain why the problems of this highly vulnerable group have resisted such effort, energy and expenditure and go on to show how achieving positive outcomes for children in care is possible when the root causes of failure are tackled.

Topic covered include:

- The power of parenting

- The impact of parental rejection on emotional development

- Support for the adaptive emotional development of children and young people

- Practical advice on introducing the 'Authentic Warmth' approach into existing childcare organisations

- Future issues in childcare

This book is essential reading for carers, commissioners, policymakers, support professionals, designated teachers and students of social work.

While child welfare programs are a primary responsibility of state and local governments, the federal government appropriates close to $7 billion annually to support these programs (primarily for foster care and adoption assistance) and states are required to meet certain federal policies in order to receive this funding. Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs) gauge state efforts and ability to achieve the primary goals of safety and permanence for children, and well-being for children and their families. The review is intended both to measure state compliance with federal child welfare policy and to strengthen and improve state child welfare programs. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) conducted the initial round of onsite reviews between March 2001 and March 2004. No state was found to be in substantial conformity with all of the outcomes and systems assessed. Some critics of the CFSR argue that while the outcomes reviewed are on target, the criteria established to determine state achievement of those outcomes may give misleading information about a state's performance. Although much attention has focused on states' uniform inability to meet all of the federal criteria, the reviews also showed certain relative strengths. States showed the greatest ability to ensure that children were not exposed to child abuse and neglect and remained safely in their homes whenever appropriate and possible, and in preserving their family relationships and connections. They had the most difficulty in achieving permanent and stable living arrangements for children, enhancing the capacity of families to meet the needs of their children and in seeing that appropriate mental and physical health services were available to children served. Information regarding ensuring provision of educational services to children was more mixed. In addition to reviewing outcomes, the CFSR assesses state compliance with federal child welfare policy by examining certain federally required systems. States were most likely to be found successful at operating a statewide information system; maintaining foster and adoptive parent licensing, training, recruitment and retention; and responding to community concerns. They were least likely to have a strong service array or case review system in place. Ratings of state quality assurance and training systems were more mixed. To avoid immediate assessment of penalties for failure to comply with federal policy, each state was required to develop a Program Improvement Plan (PIP). A PIP must address each one of the outcomes or systems with which a state was found to be out of substantial conformity and must describe the state's specific plan for moving toward full conformity with federal policy. A few states have successfully completed their PIPS but most are still in the process of implementing them. The Children's Bureau has begun planning for a second round of CFSRs and onsite reviews will likely begin in FY2006. This book describes the origins and design of CFSRs before turning to its primary discussion: state performance in the initial round of CFSRs.

States have primary responsibility for administering child welfare funds. However, the federal government provides substantial child welfare funding that is contingent on states meeting certain program requirements. The greatest part of federal assistance for general child welfare services, as well as adoption assistance, foster care, the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program and Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, is included in Title IV-B and IV-E of the Social Security Act. Under the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), states also receive funds to strengthen child protective services, develop networks of state-wide community-based, prevention focused family resource and support programs, and improve handling, investigation and prosecution of child maltreatment cases. This book categorises and describes state program requirements linked to these federally funded child welfare programs and includes a list of important related definitions from the Social Security Act.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) offers federal matching funds for states and territories to provide health insurance to uninsured, low-income children in families whose annual incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid. Unlike Medicaid, which operates as an individual entitlement, SCHIP operates as a capped grant program. Allotment of funds among states is determined by a formula set in law. Once a state depletes a given year's original allotment, other than funds from prior years made available through redistribution, no additional federal funds will be made available to that state for that year. States have the flexibility to design their programs to operate within these funding constraints. The allotment and redistribution methods under current law have been incompatible with state spending patterns to date. This book details the issues necessary to understand and track this important program. CONTENTS: Preface. SCHIP Financing Issues; Medicare Provisions in the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000 (BIPA, PL 106-554); Reaching Low-Income, Uninsured Children: Are Medicaid and SCHIP Doing the Job?; Medicaid, SCHIP, a

Annette Druner invites educationalists to combine empathy and specialist knowledge in order to act sensibly and thus create a relaxed, relational and happy learning environment for children. What is the key to early childhood care where the little ones really feel feel good and learn enthusiastically? For the author it is the relationship between the child and the educator. If the child's learning process is not tied to speed and rigid performance expectations, but is geared towards the real needs and interests of the children, many happy moments of closeness and experiences of success can arise. This book is based on empathy exercises, topic-based knowledge transfer and numerous practical examples the connection of knowledge and empathy and paves the way to a harmonious and constructive cooperation.

"Christian Heroes: Then & Now have set a new standard of quality in Christian biography. These thrilling true adventures are the best-written biographies for ages 10 and up! Sustained by God's provision. George Muller's vision of caring for orphans grew to five large homes that ultimately over ten thousand children would call home (1805-1898).

Managing Children's Homes focuses on leadership, effective management, the allocation of resources, and ensuring positive outcomes for young people in residential care. The book develops an interdisciplinary understanding of what needs to be taken into account when establishing and maintaining good practice on behalf of young people living in children's homes. The authors explain the considerable variation in quality achieved by children's homes and how this relates to management style, working environment and staff structures. The skills and qualities that make effective managers of homes are explored. These, along with factors such as the provision of resources, are investigated to demonstrate how to attain a successful children's home environment and longer-term achievement for looked-after children. Based on innovative, DfES-funded, interdisciplinary research, this book will be essential reading for staff and managers in children's care homes and will also be of interest to students, policy-makers and directors of social services.

This new edition of this bestselling textbook examines the key themes involved in the study of young children and childhood from a variety of disciplines and international perspectives, making essential links between theory and practice to help you apply your learning in real-life settings. Key additions include: the latest changes in early years policy 2 brand new chapters on Postmodernist theories in Education, and Education for Sustainable Development A renewed emphasis on reflective practice across Part 4, supporting and encouraging your professional development Throughout, case studies, exercises and links to further reading help you engage with key issues and test your learning, making it easier for you to get to grips with all aspects of your course.

"Every child's way of being can open doors to wisdom, compassion, and human connection. We need only to listen." This is among the conclusions that the authors, one of whom is an experienced foster parent and the other a professor of developmental psychology, draw as a result of working with a diverse range of children and families. Inspired by their relationships with families in crisis, the authors began to rethink the traditional foster care models and developed an innovative practice that afforded birth parents the opportunity to reside, under supervision, with their children during evaluation and treatment. Drawing on over 20 years of work in foster care, along with current attachment research and theory, this book conveys the foster care experience with recommendations for improved models of care and intervention strategies. Engaging case studies depict the challenging nature of determining the best outcome for a child and of supporting the adult's journey as a parent. Written in a narrative style and supported by in-depth research, this book will aid social workers and foster care professionals to better understand families in crisis and to further develop their practice.

In Choosing to Care, Kyle E. Ciani examines the long history of interactions between parents and social reformers from diverse backgrounds in the development of social welfare programs, particularly childcare, in San Diego, California. Ciani explores how a variety of people-from destitute parents and tired guardians to benevolent advocates and professional social workers-connected over childcare concerns in a city that experienced tremendous demographic changes caused by urbanization, immigration, and the growth of a local U.S. military infrastructure from 1850 to 1950. Choosing to Care examines four significant areas where San Diego's programs were distinct from, and contributed to, the national childcare agenda: the importance of the transnational U.S.-Mexico border relationship in creating effective childcare programs; the development of vocational education to curtail juvenile delinquency; the promotion of nursery school education; and the advancement of an emergency daycare program during the Great Depression and World War II. Ciani shows how children from families in unstable situations, especially children from Native American, Asian, Mexican-descent, African American, and impoverished Anglo families, challenged a social reform system that defined care as both social control and behavioral regulation. Choosing to Care incorporates a broader definition of childcare to include efforts by governmental and organizational bodies and persons to maintain and nurture the physical, mental, and social health and development of minors when parents and guardians cannot do so. It offers a more complex understanding of how multiple avenues and resources established social welfare in San Diego and other West Coast cities.

Residential care and treatment for children and youth remain ubiquitous across Canada in spite of frequent critiques and an ideology of constructing group care as a last resort. In the first book of its kind, Dr. Kiaras Gharabaghi argues that the absence of a unifying theory or conceptual idea(s) pursuant to residential care and treatment perpetuate dynamics of mediocrity and complacency toward inadequate standards and practices. Drawing on organizational examples from across Canada, Gharabaghi re-constructs the possibilities for this form of care as a space for healing, growth, and the promotion of autonomy for young people. This well-timed resource offers the child and youth services community a positive, constructive, and revolutionary framework for residential care and treatment that is fundamentally based on a partnership between caregivers and young people, their families, neighbourhoods, and communities. Dr. Gharabaghi's sophisticated and provocative analysis of the system's key issues is essential reading for students, practitioners, and educators in the field of child and youth care and in the human services more broadly. Features: explores residential care and treatment with a focus on the needs of unique populations, such as black youth, Indigenous youth, and young people impacted by developmental disability or neurodevelopmental challenges emphasizes the voices and participation of young people with lived experience in residential care and treatment written in a uniquely Canadian context, but its theoretical elements draw on residential care in the United States, Germany, South Africa, and elsewhere

A time of great hardship, the Second World War became a consequential episode in the history of Soviet childhood policies. The growing social problem of juvenile homelessness and delinquency alerted the government to the need for a comprehensive child protection programme. Nevertheless, by prioritizing public order over welfare, the Stalinist state created conditions that only exacerbated the situation, transforming an existing problem into a nation-wide crisis. In this comprehensive account based on exhaustive archival research, Olga Kucherenko investigates the plight of more than a million street children and the state's role in the reinforcement of their ranks. By looking at wartime dislocation, Soviet child welfare policies, juvenile justice and the shadow world both within and without the Gulag, Soviet Street Children and the Second World War challenges several of the most pervasive myths about the Soviet Union at war. It is, therefore, as much an investigation of children on the margins of Soviet society as it is a study of the impact of war and state policies on society itself.

In mid-nineteenth-century New York, vagrant youth, both orphans and runaways, filled the streets. For years the city had been sweeping these children into prisons or almshouses, but in 1853 the young minister Charles Loring Brace proposed a radical solution to the problem by creating the Children's Aid Society, an organization that fought to provide homeless children with shelter, education, and, for many, a new family in the country. Combining a biography of Brace with firsthand accounts of orphans, Stephen O'Connor here tells of the orphan trains that, between 1854 and 1929, spirited away some 250,000 destitute children to rural homes in every one of the forty-eight contiguous states.
A powerful blend of history, biography, and adventure, Orphans Trains remains the definitive work on this little-known episode in American history.

Services for young children have gone through a period of rapid transformation in recent years, which have been paralleled by great advances in our knowledge of early child development. However, care and education in the first three years of life continues to be a neglected area.

Thoroughly updated to take account of key policy and practice changes in childcare provision, this landmark text translates child development theory and research into everyday practice. All the practical ideas in the book have been developed and tested in nurseries, family and children s centres and include the importance of providing opportunities for adventurous and exploratory play for babies and toddlers, understanding and responding to children's emotional needs and offering personalized and sensitive care. The book also explores different ways of working with parents and the role of early years settings and practitioners in helping to keep children safe. It includes chapters on:

• Childcare policy and services
• Planning spaces for living, learning and playing
• Babies in day care
• Heuristic play with objects
• Mealtimes
• Learning out of doors
• Leading and managing a childcare centre
• Involving and working with parents
• Safeguarding children

People Under Three" is an established practical text for all those training to work with young children or managing day care facilities. Focusing on the care and learning of very young children, it is designed specifically for those who look after them day by day, as well as being a useful resource for social work students and policy makers."

The Fourth Edition of this best-selling handbook provides readers with the most up-to-date theory, research, and best practices in the field of child abuse and neglect. Edited by leading experts, the book covers all aspects of child maltreatment, from physical abuse to sexual abuse and neglect, focusing on etiology, consequences, investigation, and treatment and systems. Updates include new content on assessment and mental health interventions, prevention, as well as global perspectives. Comprehensive and easy to read, the handbook will serve as an invaluable resource for students and professionals-both emerging and seasoned-across disciplines, but part of the same movement dedicated to improving the lives of maltreated children.

Compelling and humane, this book reveals the lives of the 300,000 child soldiers around the world, challenging stereotypes of them as predators or a lost generation. Kidnapped or lured by the promise of food, protection, revenge, or a better life, children serve not only as combatants but as porters, spies, human land mine detectors, and sexual slaves. Nearly one-third are girls, and Michael Wessells movingly reveals the particular dangers they face from pregnancy, childbirth complications, and the rejection they and their babies encounter in their local contexts.

Based mainly on participatory research and interviews with hundreds of former child soldiers worldwide, Wessells allows these ex-soldiers to speak for themselves and reveal the enormous complexity of their experiences and situations. The author argues that despite the social, moral, and psychological wounds of war, a surprising number of former child soldiers enter civilian life, and he describes the healing, livelihood, education, reconciliation, family integration, protection, and cultural supports that make it possible. A passionate call for action, "Child Soldiers" pushes readers to go beyond the horror stories to develop local and global strategies to stop this theft of childhood.

This practical guide demystifies health and safety in early years settings with a step-by-step guide to the law, compliance and practical application. Bringing together health and safety legislation and the welfare requirements within the revised Early Years Foundation Stage 2012, it successfully integrates health and safety within the EYFS. Including information taught on a variety of courses accredited by CACHE and BTEC, references to EYFS and Health and Safety legislation, specific guidance for childminders and audit tools for evaluation, it can be referred to as needs arise or used as an aid to inspection. This book is for all staff working within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) or environmental health. It will be useful for auditing, improving standards and preparing for inspection and it offers a clear outline of responsibilities within the legislative framework. It could also be used for in-house training or workshops.