Reorganized for more effective classroom use, the second edition of Critical Issues in Child Welfare begins with an updated, thorough overview of the challenges currently facing at-risk children and families. A description of the child welfare system highlights issues that are discussed in more detail throughout the book. The text explores protective services, family preservation, foster care and residential care, adoption, services for adolescents, and training and retention of staff. New material highlights the recent discoveries of the impact of early trauma and stress on children's development, and the modifications currently taking place in the child welfare system in response to this new information. The book also examines the critical challenges of poverty and substance abuse, the importance of the community in shaping child welfare services, racial disproportionality in the system, the changing response of the system to LGBT issues, and services to ameliorate the difficulties of youth leaving the system.

The Social Skills Picture Book, Winner of an iParenting Media Award - now in Spanish! Ganador de un Premio de Medios de Comunicacion iParenting (iParenting Media Award), este libro utiliza fotos de estudiantes en una variedad de situaciones de la vida real. El formato realista sirve de refuerzo visual para ninos con trastornos del espectro autista y otros trastornos del desarrollo a ensenarles comportamientos sociales adecuados. Las fotos a color ilustran la "forma correcta" y la "forma incorrecta" de actuar en cada situacion, y las consecuencias positivas y/o negativas de cada una. Los Modelos-padres, profesores, etc.-pueden explicar cada situacion y hacer preguntas tales como "?Que esta pasando aqui?" Entonces, los ninos pueden hacer el papel de las habilidades que tienen uno a uno con un adulto o en un grupo hasta que tienen la suficiente confianza como para practicarlo en interacciones en la vida real. Este libro ensena habilidades tan importantes como: No ser un invasor del espacio Mantener una conversacion Unirse a un juego Compartir Turnarse Comprometerse Como comportarse cuando se pierde Mantenerse calmado Aceptar un "No" por respuesta Probar algo nuevo Como comportarse con las pullas !Y muchas mas!

In this incisive examination of lead poisoning during the past half century, Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner focus on one of the most contentious and bitter battles in the history of public health. "Lead Wars" details how the nature of the epidemic has changed and highlights the dilemmas public health agencies face today in terms of prevention strategies and chronic illness linked to low levels of toxic exposure. The authors use the opinion by Maryland's Court of Appeals--which considered whether researchers at Johns Hopkins University's prestigious Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) engaged in unethical research on 108 African-American children--as a springboard to ask fundamental questions about the practice and future of public health. "Lead Wars" chronicles the obstacles faced by public health workers in the conservative, pro-business, anti-regulatory climate that took off in the Reagan years and that stymied efforts to eliminate lead from the environments and the bodies of American children.

*Shortlisted for the Young Minds Book Prize 2006* Shattered Lives bears witness to the lives of children who have experienced abuse and neglect, and highlights the effects of early traumatic episodes. Chapters take the form of letters to a child capturing their life experiences, hugely impacted by sexual abuse, parental substance misuse and loss, leading to feelings of shame, rejection and worthlessness. Batmanghelidjh offers understanding for those baffled by these hard-to-reach children and warns against stigmatizing them for their problem behaviour. In her critique of existing structures, she exposes the plight of children who are overlooked by the authorities and denounces those who value bureaucracy over the welfare of the individual child. Society's failure to acknowledge the truth of their experiences and act to change the environment in which such mistreatment can flourish is, she strongly argues, leading to the death of childhood. The book is a clarion call for change.

Social workers are constantly making decisions under pressure. How do policy, law, research and theory influence what they do? This important book provides the answers with a crystal-clear map of the field of social work with children and families. Focused on four major themes - family support work, child protection, adoption and fostering, and residential child care, and reveals in detail all the challenges that social workers face every day. Edited by the highly respected Martin Davies, this authoritative and illuminating book argues that the skill of the social worker can have life-enhancing consequences for some of the most vulnerable people in society. It is an essential investment for students, educators and practitioners alike.

Social pedagogy is an innovative discipline that supports children's upbringing and overall development by focusing on the child as a whole person. It has been described as where education and care meet or as 'education in its broadest sense'. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the theory, principles and practice of social pedagogy and the profession of social pedagogue. With chapters from leading international contributors, it outlines the roots of social pedagogy and its development in Europe, and its role in relation to individuals, groups, communities and societies. Also covered is how it applies in practice to working with children and young people in a variety of settings, including children in care and in need of family support, and its potential future applications. This seminal book on an increasingly important topic will be essential reading for all academics, researchers and practitioners working with children.

This book guides childcare professionals through attachment theory and provides techniques for caring for children with attachment difficulties. It explains what attachment is, what different patterns of attachment look like in children and young people, how early attachment experiences affect their lives, and how this understanding can help childcare workers to develop therapeutic ways of caring. By understanding these issues, childcare workers are better equipped to help and support the troubled children they care for. This book shows how to promote recovery through secure base experiences in a therapeutic environment and provides solutions and methods to tackle challenging and problem behaviour, anger and the effects of trauma in children with attachment problems. This essential book will be invaluable to professionals such as residential carers, social workers and foster carers who work in a therapeutic environment with vulnerable and troubled children and young people.

Quality Matters in Children's Services brings together authoritative research to explore critical concerns for those working with vulnerable children, young people and their families. Subjects covered include reunification, stability and wellbeing, kinship care, educating vulnerable young people, child protection, domestic violence and parental substance misuse, the participation of disabled young people and advocacy services. Mike Stein discusses key issues for policy and practice in the development of quality services including identifying and sustaining quality through involving stakeholders, integrated working and quality services, the development of policies, procedures and organisational processes and carrying out quality assessments, training and workforce reform. This book is essential reading for practitioners, senior staff, commissioners, managers and anyone involved in developing quality children's services.

This essential text is a comprehensive, one-stop guide to addressing every facet of social-emotional development, working skillfully with children and families, and improving parents' interactions with their children. This is the one book every early childhood professional needs to help ensure a lifetime of social-emotional health for all the children they work with.Get the most up-to-date research findings on each social and emotional area; learn what social-emotional milestones a child should reach at each age level; address parents' most common questions about hot topics such as challenging behavior, language development, discipline, play, and feeding and sleeping problems; get a wide range of simple, concrete strategies and principles to use with children in their care and share with caregivers to promote their children's development in each key area; guide caregivers with updated exercises and activities that sharpen their parenting skills; select and use appropriate assessments.

Warfare, epidemics, and famine left millions of Soviet children homeless during the 1920s. Many became beggars, prostitutes, and thieves, and were denizens of both secluded underworld haunts and bustling train stations. Alan Ball's study of these abandoned children examines their lives and the strategies the government used to remove them from the streets lest they threaten plans to mold a new socialist generation. The "rehabilitation" of these youths and the results years later are an important lesson in Soviet history.

Runner-up, Bronze Medal, Independent Publishers Book Awards: Memoir/Autobiography Category, 2009 Unclear about his future career path, Steve Reifenberg found himself in the early 1980s working at a small orphanage in a poor neighborhood in Santiago, Chile, where a determined single woman was trying to create a stable home for a dozen or so children who had been abandoned or abused. With little more than good intentions and very limited Spanish, the 23-year-old Reifenberg plunged into the life of the Hogar Domingo Savio, becoming a foster father to kids who stretched his capacities for compassion and understanding in ways he never could have imagined back in the United States. In this beautifully written memoir, Reifenberg recalls his two years at the Hogar Domingo Savio. His vivid descriptions create indelible portraits of a dozen remarkable kids-mature-beyond-her-years Veronica; sullen, unresponsive Marcelo; and irrepressible toddler Andres, among them. As Reifenberg learns more about the children's circumstances, he begins to see the bigger picture of life in Chile at a crucial moment in its history. The early 1980s were a time of economic crisis and political uprising against the brutal military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Reifenberg skillfully interweaves the story of the orphanage with the broader national and international forces that dramatically impact the lives of the kids. By the end of Santiago's Children, Reifenberg has told an engrossing story not only of his own coming-of-age, but also of the courage and resilience of the poorest and most vulnerable residents of Latin America.

The new edition of this established core textbook continues to give an insightful, authoritative and accessible overview of competing theoretical positions on the sociological study of childhood. The book explores the ways these theories inform key themes, including education, work, identity and agency. The study of childhood has taken on an increasingly global focus in recent years, honing in on how issues of rights, protection and development shape the lives of children and those around them at political, social and institutional levels across the world. As a result, this book guides students through the theories and research on childhood in both local and global contexts. Author Michael Wyness clearly illustrates how a study of childhood can inform sociological thinking on social crises, changes and problems such as globalisation, criminality and disruption of the social order. Written for students exploring childhood from a sociological perspective, this is the essential introduction to the topic. New to this Edition: - A broadened global focus throughout every chapter, including more on the developing world. - A revised chapter on researching children and childhood. - An updated critical appraisal of children's rights, as well as new data on child protection and schooling. - The introduction of new key readings and 'Academic Insights' boxes that explore research on important topics in more detail.

Approximately one third of child sexual abuse is carried out by children and young people themselves. There is growing public awareness of this issue as well as recognition among professionals that this is a key concern in the safeguarding of children. Working with children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour raises challenging dilemmas around balancing risk management with the need to provide opportunities for social and emotional development. Strong feelings of anxiety may be present among professionals and considerable levels of shame and stigmatisation are often experienced by these children and their families.Allardyce and Yates focus on the importance of recognising that young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour are children first and foremost. They outline an individualised, trauma informed and systemic approach to working with these children and their families. In particular they suggest an approach that moves away from an exclusive focus on the psychology of the individual child towards a wider contextual understanding of the child and the meanings of their behaviour within their family and environment. The authors thus provide an overview of up-to-date empirical and theoretical knowledge about children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour to produce a practical text that is suitable for students and professionals working in child care settings.

With an emphasis on professional expectations, values and practice skills such as building trust, listening and advocacy, this textbook helps enable social workers base their practice with children and young people on a truly child-centred model. Drawing on contemporary knowledge about childhood and children's rights, it provides a critical understanding of the theoretical and legal basis for child-centred practice, and examines the dilemmas faced by professionals in maintaining their focus on promoting children and young people's participation in decision-making. Child-Centred Social Work is essential reading for students and professionals, helping the reader understand what we can learn from the tragic deaths of children such as 'Baby P' and Victoria Climbie, and from children and young people in care who need their voices heard.

This review looks at the progress towards developing a children's perspective in government up to 2001 and makes further detailed recommendations. In England the government announced new structures in 2000 - a Cabinet Committee, a Minister for Young People and a cross-cutting children's unit - which go a long way towards fulfilling the recommendations of the 1996 report. In Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales there have been a variety of developments for children in the entirely new context of devolution.

Children often fare the worst when communities face social and environmental changes. The quality of food, water, affection and education that children receive can have major impacts on their subsequent lives and their potential to become engaged and productive citizens. At the same time, children often lack both a private and public voice, and are powerless against government and private decision-making. In taking a child rights-based approach to sustainable development, this volume defines and identifies children as the subjects of development, and explores how their rights can be respected, protected and promoted while also ensuring the economic, social and environmental sustainability of our planet.

'Primarily aimed at adoptive parents, but of considerable use to foster carers of young children, this publication approaches attachment and developmental issues arising when even the smallest child is in your care. Extremely well researched, it offers practical, sensitive guidance through the dark areas of separation, loss and trauma in early childhood. It reassures that no problem faced as a result of your child's early experiences is insignificant or undeserving of a solution. Neither is the reader patronized by assumptions that some matters should already be common knowledge. Archer sets out purposefully to encourage confidence and thereby to enable enjoyment of the young life in your care, confessing this to be the book she herself would have welcomed 20 years ago.'

'A 'must have' book for both adoptive parents and for those professionals who help adoptive families forge new family ties. The author, herself an adoptive parent, addresses a wide variety of very complex topics with a marked sensitivity to the varying needs of children who may have had a wide range of early life experiences. Although in general the text is easy to read and understand, there is a glossary for those who might be unfamiliar with some of the terminology. References are made to well established issues as well as to some of the newer research on the impact of early abuse and neglect on brain development. I particularly appreciated the special focus on identifying abnormal arousal patterns and helping the child with these. Parents and professionals alike will value the specific ideas provided for coping with problem behaviors and for building closer family ties.'

Child abuse, incest, child molestation, Halloween sadism, child pornography: although clearly not new problems, they have attracted more attention than ever before. "Threatened Children "asks why. Joel Best analyzes the rhetorical tools used by child advocates when making claims aimed at raising public anxiety and examines the media's role in transmitting reformers' claims and the public's response to the frightening statistics, compelling examples, and expanding definitions it confronts. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from criminal justice records to news stories, from urban legends to public opinion surveys, Best reveals how the cultural construction of social problems evolves.

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. Federal support for child welfare activities is provided via multiple programs. The largest share of this federal child welfare funding is provided for support of children in foster care, and for ongoing assistance to children who leave foster care for new permanent families (via adoption or legal kinship guardianship). This book begins with an overview of appropriations activities for child welfare programs. It then includes a discussion of how annual funding levels are determined for child welfare programs and briefly discusses the effect of sequestration on that child welfare funding. The remainder, and largest part, of the book provides descriptions of each federal child welfare program.

Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa, made up of multiple ethnic groups, cultures, and languages. She is a nation with world-acclaimed writers, scientists, and physicians who have created record breaking and award-winning contributions to their fields. Sadly, this great and mighty nation is plagued and attacked almost every week by militants from a deadly, brutal, barbarous, vicious, and dangerous sect called Boko Haram. Boko Haram is the most dangerous terrorist group in Nigeria, the actions of which have led to the injury and/or death of many people. This group evolved from a non-violent nuisance group to a brutal, cruel, and savage one. Boko Haram's activities have had and still have negative, destructive, and devastating effects on different aspects of Nigeria's economy. The impact of Boko Haram's terrorism on security, health, finance, tourism, and education in Nigeria and its people is the topic of focus in this book. Furthermore, the Boko Haram sect is a leading group that breaches the rights of children. It is common knowledge that the children are the future of any nation, and they need to be trained properly for a promising future. Ultimately, the individuals or groups breaching the rights of children need to be punished appropriately, for a better and glorious future for the children of Nigeria.

This book draws on original research to consider the connections between childcare, family lives and social policy. The research, located in Wales in the period following devolution, concerns the capacity of policy to enhance family well-being. In interviews with mothers and fathers of young children, their day-to-day childcare arrangements are explored through the themes of gender, social networks, material circumstances and neighbourhood resources. This material provides a basis for an assessment of policy through interviews with policy-makers. The book identifies a significant gap between what matters to parents and what is currently being offered in policy and service provision

In this absorbing story of how child abuse grew from a small, private-sector charity concern into a multimillion-dollar social welfare issue, Barbara Nelson provides important new perspectives on the process of public agenda setting. Using extensive personal interviews and detailed archival research, she reconstructs an invaluable history of child abuse policy in America. She shows how the mass media presented child abuse to the public, how government agencies acted and interacted, and how state and national legislatures were spurred to strong action on this issue. Nelson examines prevailing theories about agenda setting and introduces a new conceptual framework for understanding how a social issue becomes part of the public agenda. This issue of child abuse, she argues, clearly reveals the scope and limitations of social change initiated through interest-group politics. Unfortunately, the process that transforms an issue into a popular cause, Nelson concludes, brings about programs that ultimately address only the symptoms and not the roots of such social problems.

This book highlights a report to Congress which outlines the findings of two adoption-research studies conducted as part of The Collaboration to AdoptUsKids. In the first study, a nationwide purposive sample of 300 families seeking to adopt children with special needs from the public child welfare system was selected, interviewed and surveyed to determine actual and potential barriers to the completion of the adoption process. In the second study, a four-year prospective examination of a nationwide sample of 161 families who had adopted children with special needs was conducted in order to determine factors that contributed to successful adoption outcomes.

Family abduction is the most prevalent form of child abduction in the United States. Regardless of the abductor's motive, it is an illegal act that has lasting consequences for the abducted child, the custodial parent and the abducting family member. Written with the help of six persons who have experienced family abduction, this book features valuable insights from a firsthand perspective. It is designed to provide the searching family, law enforcement and mental health professionals with strategies to build a comprehensive, child-centred approach to recovery and healing, and to support victims subjected to the crime of family abduction.

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.