This book challenges the concept of wellbeing as applied to children, particularly in a school-based context. Taking a post-structural approach, it suggests that wellbeing should be understood, and experiences revealed, at the level of the subjective child. This runs counter to contemporary accounts that reduce children's wellbeing to objective lists of things that are needed in order to live well. This book will be useful for academics and practitioners working directly with children, and anyone interested in children's wellbeing.

The viability, quality and sustainability of publicly supported early childhood education and care services is a lively issue in many countries, especially since the rights of the child imply equal access to provision for all young children. But equitable provision within childcare markets is highly problematic, as parents pay for what they can afford and parental income inequalities persist or widen. This highly topical book presents recent, significant research from eight nations where childcare markets are the norm. It also includes research about 'raw' and 'emerging' childcare markets operating with a minimum of government intervention, mostly in low income countries or post transition economies. Childcare markets compares these childcare marketisation and regulatory processes across the political and economic systems in which they are embedded. Contributions from economists, childcare policy specialists and educationalists address the question of what constraints need to be in place if childcare markets are to deliver an equitable service.

Social capital, children and young people is about the relationships and networks - social capital - that children and young people have in and out of school.Social capital has become of increasing interest to policy makers but there has been little evidence of how it operates in practice. In this unique collection, the social capital of children and young people, and in one case parents and teachers, is explored in a wide range of formal and informal settings.The contributors to the book, who include academic researchers and educational professionals, provide in-depth accounts of social capital being developed and used by children and young people. They offer critical reflections on the significance of social capital and on the experiences of researching the social capital of sometimes vulnerable people.This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with how children and young people get along, get by and get on.

This book is about the relationships and networks - social capital - that children and young people have in and out of school. Social capital has become of increasing interest to policy makers but there has been little evidence of how it operates in practice. In this unique collection, the social capital of children and young people, and in one case parents and teachers, is explored in a wide range of formal and informal settings. The contributors to the book, who include academic researchers and educational professionals, provide in-depth accounts of social capital being developed and used by children and young people. They offer critical reflections on the significance of social capital and on the experiences of researching the social capital of sometimes vulnerable people. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with how children and young people get along, get by and get on.

Drawing together international research from the fields of geography, alcohol studies, sociology, psychology and childhood studies, Jayne and Valentine explore children's understandings and experiences of alcohol consumption and the role of alcohol in family life. Chapters address both extra-familialnorms about parenting and drinking cultures which are generated in wider society (through law/regulation, media/advertising and social networks etc.) and intra-familialnorms including the modelling behaviour of family members attitudes to alcohol, drinking habits and practices, rules and guidance, and initiating children to drinking. Based on empirical research undertaken in the UK, and drawing on studies from around the world, Childhood, Family, Alcohol advances theoretical debates and offers insights relevant to policy and practice by: * adopting a cross-generational perspective on drinking cultures * exploring pre-teen children's understandings of alcohol * focusing on the significance of the spaces of everyday family life * considering adult alcohol consumption, drinking practices and drunken performativities * reflecting on social/individualized consumption, social reproduction, adult-children interaction and materialities * showing the importance of non-(and more-than) representational understanding of the complexities of childhood, family life and alcohol consumption.

This original book explores the importance of geographical processes for policies and professional practices related to childhood and youth. Contributors from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds explore how concepts such as place, scale, mobility and boundary-making are important for policies and practices in diverse contexts. Chapters present both comprehensive cutting-edge academic research and critical reflections by practitioners working in diverse contexts, giving the volume wide appeal. The focus on the role of geographical processes in policies and professional practices that affect young people provides new, critical insights into contemporary issues and debates. The contributions show how local and national concerns remain central to many youth programmes; they also highlight how youth policies are becoming increasingly globalised. Examples are taken from the UK, the Americas and Africa. The chapters are informed by and advance contemporary theoretical approaches in human geography, sociology, anthropology and youth work, and will be of interest to academics and higher-level students in those disciplines. The book will also appeal to policy-makers and professionals who work with young people, encouraging them to critically reflect upon the role of geographical processes in their own work.

The failure of current policy to address important quality of life issues for urban youth remains a substantial barrier to civic participation, educational equity, and healthy adulthood. This volume brings together the work of leading urban youth scholars to highlight the detrimental impact of zero tolerance policies on young peoplea (TM)s educational experience and well being. Inspired by the conviction that urban youth have the right to more equitable educational and social resources and political representation, Beyond Resistance! offers new insights into how to increase the effectiveness of youth development and education programs, and how to create responsive youth policies at the local, state, and federal level.

This book challenges the concept of wellbeing as applied to children, particularly in a school-based context. Taking a post-structural approach, it suggests that wellbeing should be understood, and experiences revealed, at the level of the subjective child. This runs counter to contemporary accounts that reduce children's wellbeing to objective lists of things that are needed in order to live well. This book will be useful for academics and practitioners working directly with children, and anyone interested in children's wellbeing.

This book tells the story of Sure Start, one of the flagship programmes of the last government. It tells how Sure Start was set up, the numerous changes it went through, and how it has changed the landscape of services for all young children in England. Offering insight into the key debates on services for young children, as well as how decisions are made in a highly political context, it will be of keen interest to policy academics, senior managers of public services and all those with a keen interest in developing services for young children.

'The book covers a fascinating range of theory, policy and practice research not covered elsewhere in one text. The editors are to be congratulated' - Marian Charlton, Leeds Metropolitan University 'The book offers a broad overview of the issues and literature, and will be of immediate use. It enables students to bring themselves up to date with contemporary concerns and changes in the field of community and youth work' - Jean Spence, University of Durham This authoritative text is a must-read for anyone working - or training to work - with young people. It considers how theory, policy and practice intersect and influence one another in today's challenging and rapidly changing social, economic and political contexts. Offering a timely contribution to the debate, it covers key themes and developments, including: - how we understand the lives of young people - the principles that underpin work with young people - the policy and practice in a wide range of contexts, both national and international - the key concepts currently high on the policy and practice agenda. An essential companion for the professional training of youth workers, this core text will also be of interest and value to students in a wide range of fields such as education, criminology and youth justice, social work, sociology and social policy.

Current family policy approaches emphasize the significance of paternal involvement in children's lives, yet there has been a silence on violent and abusive fathering in these discourses. This book specifically focuses on violent fathering, discussing original research in the context of domestic violence. It examines fathers' perceptions of their domestic violence and its impact on children, their relationships with children, and their parenting practices. It also looks at abused mothers' perceptions of their ex-partners' parenting. The book recommends ways that policy and practice can be improved in order to safeguard children in family law and child protection practice through a better understanding of the risks posed and appropriate assessment of violent fathers as parents. This study will be of considerable value to all professionals working in this area.

Current family policy approaches emphasise the significance of paternal involvement in children's lives, yet there has been a silence on violent and abusive fathering in these discourses. This is the first UK book to specifically focus on violent fathering discussing original research in the context of domestic violence and emerging practice literature to address this problem. Violent fathering and the risks to children examines fathers' perceptions of their domestic violence and its impact on children, their relationships with children and their parenting practices. It looks at fathers' reasons for wanting contact with children post-separation, abusive parenting practices during child contact and the impacts of perpetrator programmes on the fathers' own perceptions of their abuse. It also discusses abused mothers' perceptions of their ex-partners' parenting. The author recommends ways that policy and practice can be improved in order to safeguard children in family law and child protection practice through a better understanding of the risks posed and appropriate assessment of violent fathers as parents. This book will be of interest to academics and students in family and child welfare policy, socio-legal studies, social work, criminology, gender studies and other disciplines with an interest in domestic violence and child protection. It will also be also be of considerable value to professionals working in this area.

The public inquiry that followed the death of Maria Colwell had profound implications for the developing profession and practice of social work in the UK. This book describes the politics, professional concerns and public interest - both local and national - that surrounded the inquiry and its aftermath, and shows how the concerns of this landmark child abuse case have still failed to find a satisfactory resolution today. Social work, then and now, remains 'on trial'.

Divided into six parts, this substantive reference work charts how childhood studies has moved beyond developmental issues to focus on broader issues of children in society, as actors and agents, and as subjects of policy intervention. It is a comprehensive overview of key theoretical and empirical work in the field of childhood studies.

Clinical psychologist Daniel J. Flannery reveals the impact of violence and victimization in the lives of children and adolescents from a developmental perspective. He explores how young people experience violence in their everyday lives and how this impacts their mental health and ability to cope with challenges and crises. His case studies show the significance of these mental health issues for the individual, family, neighborhood, and community. He offers lists of professional resources, including web sites and readings related to violence and mental health. This book will be a valuable resource for parents, teachers, social workers, childcare workers, public health officials, police officers and others who interact every day with young people, to help them understand more about child development and how experiences with violence can affect development and daily life.

Written by experienced practitioners and academics, this is a core text about the practice of residential child care. It takes as its starting point the fact that residential child care involves workers and children sharing a common lifespace, in which the quality of interpersonal relationships is key. Each chapter highlights relevant policy guidance and is developed around a practice scenario, discussing key knowledge skills and values relating to its theme. This highly practical book should, therefore, be of value to a range of students at different academic levels, from VQ to Masters, and to practitioners and managers in residential child care. The book draws on ideas from child and youth care and social pedagogic traditions and will appeal to a North American child and youth care audience while also providing a valuable addition to the emerging literature around social pedagogy in the UK.

Stroll through any public park in Brooklyn on a weekday afternoon and you will see black women with white children at every turn. Many of these women are of Caribbean descent, and they have long been a crucial component of New York's economy, providing childcare for white middle- and upper-middleclass families. Raising Brooklyn offers an in-depth look at the daily lives of these childcare providers, examining the important roles they play in the families whose children they help to raise. Tamara Mose Brown spent three years immersed in these Brooklyn communities: in public parks, public libraries, and living as a fellow resident among their employers, and her intimate tour of the public spaces of gentrified Brooklyn deepens our understanding of how these women use their collective lives to combat the isolation felt during the workday as a domestic worker. Though at first glance these childcare providers appear isolated and exploited-and this is the case for many-Mose Brown shows that their daily interactions in the social spaces they create allow their collective lives and cultural identities to flourish. Raising Brooklyn demonstrates how these daily interactions form a continuous expression of cultural preservation as a weapon against difficult working conditions, examining how this process unfolds through the use of cell phones, food sharing, and informal economic systems. Ultimately, Raising Brooklyn places the organization of domestic workers within the framework of a social justice movement, creating a dialogue between workers who don't believe their exploitative work conditions will change and an organization whose members believe change can come about through public displays of solidarity.

This collection of articles, first published in 1991, attempts to describe life in the suburbs from diverse vantage points, to evoke a feeling of what life is like for some of the children and their families living in these communities and to demonstrate the practice and value of group work within this context. This title will be of interest to students of social work, sociology and urban studies.

Researchers, practitioners, journalists and politicians increasingly recognise that foster care throughout the world is in a state of crisis. There are more and more children needing care and, as residential alternatives dry up, more of these children are being assigned to foster families. This book reports the major findings of a two-year longitudinal study of 235 such children who entered the foster care system in Southern Australia between 1998 and 1999. As well as examining the changing policy context of children's services, the book documents the psychosocial outcomes for these children, their feedback on their experiences of care, and the views of their social workers and carers. In the process, the book examines some cherished beliefs about foster care policy and sheds new light on them. The research reveals that while most children do quite well in foster care up to the two-year point, there is a worrying amount of placement instability at a time when the concentration of emotionally troubled children in care is increasing throughout the western world. Although, surprisingly, placement instability does not appear to produce psychosocial impairment for a period of up to eight months in care, it has an extreme effect on children who are moved from placement to placement because no carer will tolerate their behaviour. These children are consigned to a life of distribution and emotional upheaval because of the lack of alternative forms of care. Another unexpected finding of the research is that increasing the rate of parental contact achieves little or nothing in relation to the likelihood of family reunification. As child welfare increasingly enters a world of research-based practice, Children in Foster Care provides some much needed hard evidence of how foster care policy and practice can be improved.

Clinical psychologist Daniel J. Flannery reveals the impact of violence and victimization in the lives of children and adolescents from a developmental perspective. He explores how young people experience violence in their everyday lives and how this impacts their mental health and ability to cope with challenges and crises. His case studies show the significance of these mental health issues for the individual, family, neighborhood, and community. He offers lists of professional resources, including web sites and readings related to violence and mental health. This book will be a valuable resource for parents, teachers, social workers, childcare workers, public health officials, police officers and others who interact every day with young people, to help them understand more about child development and how experiences with violence can affect development and daily life.

Most slave trades were abolished during the 19th century, yet there remain millions of people in slavery today, including approximately 210 million children - trafficked, in debt bondage, as well as other forms of forced labor. Set to be the definitive text on the subject, this groundbreaking book - drawing on global experiences - shows how children remain locked in slavery, the ways in which they are exploited, and how they can be emancipated. Child Slavery Now includes international contributors who remind us that we all - as consumers - are implicated in modern childhood slavery, and we need both to understand its causes and act to stop it.

Everyone who has been involved in an adoption will find this book fascinating and valuable.

Human development is about the growth of agency, which is developed in interaction with their parents and families but if parental agency is insufficient, agency in the form of child welfare will be required to fill the gaps. This book provides an holistic view of how children develop agency, combining social, psychological and child development aspects, as well as examining child welfare structures and the roles of social workers. This focus will make a contribution to current debates about child welfare and child protection and the book will therefore be essential reading for academics and researchers in social work, childhood studies, children's policy and social policy.

The very notions of childhood and youth are intimately connected to contemporary norms, practices and spaces of care, caring and care-giving. The provision of care is widely figured as both the primary responsibility of parents, carers and practitioners who work with children and young people, and the primary factor in shaping children and young people's development, education, socialisation, wellbeing and contentment. However, children and young people themselves are rarely figured as key actors in the provision of care. An overwhelming presumption that children and young people are to be cared for has effectively marginalised their agency and responsibilities as carers, or in relation to practices and spaces of care. Bringing together a significant array of multidisciplinary work on children, young people and families, this collection draws together new research on the diverse lives and experiences of children and young people as carers, as cared for, and in relation to spaces and institutions of care. It is the first collection specifically devoted to the subject of care in relation to childhood and youth. As such, the book will be a key resource for academics, practitioners and students seeking leading-edge empirical and conceptual material on this topic.

The true measure of any society is how it treats its children, who are in turn that society's future. Making use of data from the longitudinal Chinese Family Panel Studies survey, the authors of this timely study provide a multi-faceted description and analysis of China's younger generations. They assess the economic, physical, and social-emotional well-being as well as the cognitive performance and educational attainment of China's children and youth. They pay special attention to the significance of family and community contexts, including the impact of parental absence on millions of left-behind children. Throughout the volume, the authors delineate various forms of disparities, especially the structural inequalities maintained by the Chinese Party-state and the vulnerabilities of children and youth in fragile families and communities. They also analyze the social attitudes and values of Chinese youth. Having grown up in a period of sustained prosperity and greater individual choice, the younger Chinese cohorts are more independent in spirit, more open-minded socially, and significantly less deferential to authority than older cohorts. There is growing recognition in China of the importance of investing in children's future and of helping the less advantaged. Substantial improvements in child and youth well-being have been achieved in a time of growing economic prosperity. Strong political commitment is needed to sustain existing efforts and to overcome the many obstacles that remain. This book will be of considerable interest to researchers of Chinese society and development.