Contents:
1. Adoption in Context: Social Change and Openness 2. Openness in Adoption: Essential for Children's Wellbeing? 3. Policy, Law and Openness in Adoption 4. The Study: Issues, Methods and Sample Characteristics 5. Preparation and Planning for Direct Contact 6. Adoptive Parents: Perspectives on Adoption and Direct Contact 7. Birth Relatives and Direct Contact 8. Children's Thoughts and Feelings: Adoption and Post Adoption Contact 9. Views from the Triangle 10. Direct Post-Adoption Contact: Benefits, Risks and Uncertainties

What does mentoring really mean? What can be achieved through mentor relationships? This timely book examines one of the fastest growing social movements of our time. As millions of volunteers worldwide continue to add to the mentoring phenomenon, the need for this authoritative text becomes increasingly evident. It capably traces the history of mentoring, unravelling the many myths that surround it, with a combination of intellectual rigour, insight and lucid discussions. The author draws upon detailed case studies, providing a unique and vivid account of mentoring through the voices of the participants themselves. These eye-opening narratives reveal the complex power dynamics of the mentor relationship, giving the reader the chance to: * Contextualise mentoring against the background policy driven schemes and social inequalities; * Look beyond the popular myths of self-sacrificing and devoted mentors, and understand the emotional cost of mentoring; * Appreciate young people's view of mentoring and recognise the benefits and the counterproductive outcomes it can produce; * Reflect on a range of models of mentoring, and consider policies to support good practice. The strength of this book lies in the author's ability to present complex material in a highly readable form. It offers a radically new theoretical analysis of mentoring, based on award-winning research, arguing that mentoring cannot be separated from the wider power relations that surround those involved. For anyone with a professional commitment or link to mentoring, including managers, practitioners and policy-makers, this is an essential, incomparable read.

The book examines where, why and to what extent immigrant children are represented in the child welfare system in different countries. These countries include Australia/New Zealand, Belgium/the Netherlands, England, Estonia, Canada, Finland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Norway, and the United States-all of them having different child welfare philosophies and systems as well as histories and practices in immigration. By comparing policies and practices in child welfare systems (and welfare states), especially in terms of how they conceptualize and deal with immigrant children and their families, we address an immensely important and pressing issue in modern societies. Immigrants in the child welfare system are a critical issue and they seem to face serious challenges that are evident across countries. These are challenges related to lack of language proficiency, lack of knowledge about cultural and social aspects and about the public systems of the destination country. Perhaps most relevantly, the challenges may include collisions of ideas and beliefs about how to raise children, about children's place in the family and society, and about children's rights.

The turn of the 1990s saw a number of high profile public inquiries into the handling of child sexual abuse cases in Great Britain. Governing Child Sexual Abuse examines the implications of these inquiries on the regulation of relationships between families and the state. In so doing, Samantha Ashenden brings a number of contemporary debates in social and political theory to bear upon the governance of child sexual abuse. In particular, drawing on the work of Foucault and Habermas, she looks at:

*how to analyze the boundary between public and private spheres
*the legal and scientific determination of legitimate intervention
*the relationship between democracy and expertise in the governance of social life.

This book will be of particular interest to scholars and students of social and political theory, political sociology, the sociology of law, and social policy.

Courts considering the future of maltreated children face complex and controversial questions, and the professional experts advising the courts must often address dilemmas which are key to the child's future but challenge the limits of current knowledge.

Studies in the Assessment of Parenting brings together acknowledged experts who consider difficult questions that can arise during family proceedings, and respond with practical approaches for dealing with these demanding and complex issues. A wide range of chapter topics place emphasis on considering the child's perspective whilst assessing parents who show a range of problems. Chapter topics are presented as challenging questions such as:
· What principles guide parenting assessments?
· Can parents with personality disorders adequately care for children?
· How does a judge weigh up a case?

Studies in the Assessment of Parenting offers a review of the latest literature but moreover a practical guide essential to those such as psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and paediatricians who give their expert opinions to courts in child care cases. In addition it will inform a range of professionals involved in day-to-day child protection work or whose role it is to enhance the safety and well-being of children within their families.

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What does mentoring really mean? What can be achieved through mentor relationships? This timely book examines one of the fastest growing social movements of our time. As millions of volunteers worldwide continue to add to the mentoring phenomenon, the need for this authoritative text becomes increasingly evident. It capably traces the history of mentoring, unravelling the many myths that surround it, with a combination of intellectual rigour, insight and lucid discussions. The author draws upon detailed case studies, providing a unique and vivid account of mentoring through the voices of the participants themselves. These eye-opening narratives reveal the complex power dynamics of the mentor relationship, giving the reader the chance to: * Contextualise mentoring against the background policy driven schemes and social inequalities; * Look beyond the popular myths of self-sacrificing and devoted mentors, and understand the emotional cost of mentoring; * Appreciate young people's view of mentoring and recognise the benefits and the counterproductive outcomes it can produce; * Reflect on a range of models of mentoring, and consider policies to support good practice. The strength of this book lies in the author's ability to present complex material in a highly readable form. It offers a radically new theoretical analysis of mentoring, based on award-winning research, arguing that mentoring cannot be separated from the wider power relations that surround those involved. For anyone with a professional commitment or link to mentoring, including managers, practitioners and policy-makers, this is an essential, incomparable read.

Hearing the Voices of Children takes as its main theme the emergence of 'the child's voice' and the implications of this for social policy. Each contributor explores the various new perspectives on social policy that emerge when the 'voices of children' are listened to. The book explores social and cultural resources for children, comparing like with like across countries and continents. The editors argue that children's voices need to be taken more into account when policy is initially shaped, and that more attention needs to be paid to fostering children's active participation when implementing social policy.

Hearing the Voices of Children provides a fresh perspective on social policy. At the heart of the book is the emergence of 'children's voices' and the implications of this for social policy. The authors argue that children's voices should be heard much more strongly in the process of policy formation at all levels. Although there is growing support for this idea, it is not without opposition, and the authors themselves make many critical points about the current attempts to put it into practice.

The book is divided into four main themes: hearing children's voices; discourses of childhood; children and services; and resources for children. Childhood experts from the UK, Scandinavia, Germany and Australia, examine how assumptions and models about childhood and discuss ways in which children's voices might become more influential in shaping policy. There are many obstacles to overcome, but the contributors to this volume show that children's participation is possible, and needed, if services are to be improved.

This book is essential reading for students and academics in the field of childhood studies, sociology, social policy and education. It will also be of interest to practitioners in the social, child and youth services.

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.

In this collective portrait, editors and authors do not attempt to draw systematic, country-by-country comparisons. Given the magnitude of the issues, they believed that it would be inappropriate to paint with too broad a stroke. What they have accomplished, however, is to codify and identify what the participants repeatedly noted in regard to issues and difficulties inherent in conducting outcome evaluation. These include: varying definitions of outcome; complexities in measuring outcomes of particular interventions with different groups of consumers and documenting the effectiveness of the intervention; the tendency to focus on evaluation of process more than outcome; the challenge of involving practitioners in the evaluation task, in part because its value is unclear to them or perceived as distant or untrustworthy; the typical inadequacy of resources available for systematic evaluation; and the need to inject rigor into the design and execution of evaluation projects. The authors demonstrate strong conviction about sharing research expertise across national boundaries; learning through each other how to cope with organizational impediments to cross-national collaboration; and strengthening the interaction between practice and research. Their contributions suggest that there is wide interest in pursuing cross-national collaboration. In recent years, largely in response to demands by their funding sources for accountability, assessment of performance, and cost effectiveness, researchers in human services have been devoting increased attention to outcome evaluation. Limited attention, however, has been given to the findings of evaluation studies conducted in different countries. The present volume has been organized and edited to address the task of learning from outcome research across the world. Its goal, an extension of a major goal of the human services in any one country, is to improve life chances of vulnerable children and youth. Anthony N. Maluccio is professor of social work at Boston College, Graduate School of Social Work, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Cinzia Canali is research associate at the Fondazione Emanuela Zancan, Padua, Italy. Tiziano Vecchiato is scientific director of the Fondazione Emanuela Zancan, Padua, Italy.

Inclusive Child Development Accounts showcases the global context of emerging asset-building policies and programmes around Child Development Accounts. Child Development Accounts (CDAs) are subsidized accounts that enable families to accumulate assets to invest in children's development and life goals, such as postsecondary education, homeownership, business development, and retirement security. The vision for CDAs is to be universal (meaning everyone participates), progressive (meaning greater subsidies for the poor), and lifelong (meaning from the cradle to the grave). Since 1991, schools, communities, states, provinces, and entire countries have launched various CDA programs and policies. In the first part of the volume, scholars highlight the core feature of "inclusiveness" of CDAs in Singapore, Israel, and the United States. In the second part, scholars report on CDA policies and projects in Taiwan, Uganda, Korea, and mainland China. Showing how asset building can be effective in diverse cultural and social contexts, and that all these contexts emphasize the investing in children early in life and empowering of them to achieve their potential as productive citizens, Inclusive Child Development Accounts will be of great interest to scholars of social work, policy, investment, and development, as well as financial inclusivity. It originally published as a special issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development.

Adoption: Changing Families, Changing Times draws together contributions from all those with an interest in adoption: adopted people; birth parents and adoptive parents; practitioners and managers in the statutory and voluntary sectors; academics and policy makers. Chapters on research and policy are interspersed with those from people with first-hand experience of being adopted, becoming an adoptive parent or giving a child up for adoption. Together, they provide unique insights into a subject that although regularly in the media is often surrounded by prejudice and misconception. Topics covered include:

* children and young people in care
* trying to adopt
* waiting for adoption
* life after adoption
* the politics of adoption.

This accessible text offers a comprehensive view of adoption policy, practice and services and analyses why adoption has become so controversial. It provides professional and general reader alike with a fully rounded picture of adoption and exposes some of the myths surrounding it.

Adoption: Changing Families, Changing Times draws together contributions from all those with an interest in adoption: adopted people; birth parents and adoptive parents; practitioners and managers in the statutory and voluntary sectors; academics and policy makers. Chapters on research and policy are interspersed with those from people with first-hand experience of being adopted, becoming an adoptive parent or giving a child up for adoption. Together, they provide unique insights into a subject that although regularly in the media is often surrounded by prejudice and misconception. Topics covered include:
* children and young people in care
* trying to adopt
* waiting for adoption
* life after adoption
* the politics of adoption.
This accessible text offers a comprehensive view of adoption policy, practice and services and analyses why adoption has become so controversial. It provides professional and general reader alike with a fully rounded picture of adoption and exposes some of the myths surrounding it.

In this one-of-a-kind handbook, Reid and Silver have combined the expertise of over thirty contributors, amassing exhaustive coverage of the fundamentals of administration and management in various types of mental health centres and disciplines. Covering the basic principles of administration, management, and leadership, this text addresses both the generic and unique topics of mental health organizations. The Handbook includes crucial information regarding many new management topics, such as information technology, current human resources policy and law, and modern funding streams. A special "Primer" section will ease those readers from primarily clinical backgrounds into their administrative roles whilereaders from management backgrounds will find within a broad introduction to the clinical issues that affect mental health care administrators and managers.

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Children's Friendship Training fully integrates parents into the treatment of children's friendship problems in order to promote simplification in home and school environments. This book represents twelve years of research by the authors to develop a comprehensive social skills training program for children. Broken into four parts, the book begins with a complete step-by-step manual and presents the empirical outcome of tests of the interventions and as well as a review of other social skills training interventions for children. The nature and development of children's friendships are included in the second section. Session content is presented in the third part with a chapter devoted
to each of the twelve sessions of this intervention. Each of these sessions sets out goals, offers a training plan and gives an "at-home" plan as well as a "group" plan. The final section will cover unique situations.

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Despite its decline throughout the advanced industrial nations, child labor remains one of the major social, political, and economic concerns of modern history, as witnessed by the many high-profile stories on child labor and sweatshops in the media today. This work considers the issue in three parts. The first section discusses child labor as a social and economic problem in America from an historical and theoretical perspective. The second part presents child labor as National Child Labor Committee investigators found it in major American industries and occupations, including coal mines, cotton textile mills, and sweatshops in the early 1900s. Finally, the concluding section integrates these findings and attempts to apply them to child labor problems in America and the rest of the world today.

Despite its decline throughout the advanced industrial nations, child labor remains one of the major social, political, and economic concerns of modern history, as witnessed by the many high-profile stories on child labor and sweatshops in the media today. This work considers the issue in three parts. The first section discusses child labor as a social and economic problem in America from an historical and theoretical perspective. The second part presents child labor as National Child Labor Committee investigators found it in major American industries and occupations, including coal mines, cotton textile mills, and sweatshops in the early 1900s. Finally, the concluding section integrates these findings and attempts to apply them to child labor problems in America and the rest of the world today.

Currently, it is common practice among the child psychiatric establishment to prescribe powerful and potentially addictive drugs to children who have emotional or behavioural problems. Pathological Child Psychiatry and the Medicalization of Childhood is a strong challenge to this way of thinking.
Sami Timimi uses a wide variety of sources that shape our understanding including his personal experiences to highlight the role of culture, beliefs, science, social hierarchy and power, in shaping our understanding of childhood problems and how to deal with them. He urges professionals who work with children to question their assumptions in a manner that will enable them to access a greater variety of potentially helpful therapeutic frameworks.
Since the 1960s, psychiatry has had to learn to accommodate critical analysis of its beliefs and methods. The legitimacy of its core assumptions continues to be questioned. Now child psychiatry too must engage with such a debate, if it wishes to develop into a genuinely democratic and inclusive profession. Pathological Child Psychiatry and the Medicalization of Childhood will be of great interest to professionals and trainees in psychiatry and child psychiatry, social work, family therapy and other psychotherapies for children and adolescents.

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Whether childcare is seen as part of society's educational policy, welfare policy, or employment policy affects not only its form and content but also its public image. The contributors in this volume use current polices for the care of infants and preschool children to analyze debates and track the emergence of new state welfare practices across a variety of social and political configurations-and offer some conclusions about which methods work the best.

This book examines how black children, who grow up in an impoverished environment construct their social reality, and why this process is a particularly critical factor in their perception and creation of self.

This book examines the major US welfare programs affecting children and presents a systematic evaluation of the evidence regarding the effects of welfare programs on the children themselves.

Children may be witnesses to crimes or accidents, or suspected victims of abuse or neglect, or they may be involved in some form of legal action such as custody cases. In these situations, they may need to be interviewed formally, and if this is not done properly, incorrect or inadequate information may be recorded or the child's position may not be correctly represented later in court. In cases of child abuse, the child may not be the only witness, and the quality of their verbal evidence is critical.
A Guide to Interviewing Children is a practical guide the evidential interviewing techniques needed by a range of professionals: social workers, forensic psychologists, lawyers, police and teachers. It outlines basic techniques, explains how to deal with children of different ages (from pre-school to fifteen years), how to deal with parents, the particular issues of sexual abuse, handling multiple interviews of one child and so on. It is written for an international readership, and will be more practical and cover a broader range of contexts than the other titles currently available.

"Adoption, Race, and Identity" is a long-range study of the impact of interracial adoption on those adopted and their families. Initiated in 1972, it was continued in 1979, 1984, and 1991. Cumulatively, these four phases trace the subjects from early childhood into young adulthood. This is the only extended study of this controversial subject.

Simon and Altstein provide a broad perspective of the impact of transracial adoption and include profiles of the families involved in the study. They explore and compare the experiences of both the parents and the children. They identify families whose adoption experiences were problematic and those whose experiences were positive. Finally, the study looks at the insights the experience of transracial adoption brought to the adoptive parents and what advice they would pass on to future parents adopting children from different racial backgrounds. They include the reflections of those adopted included in the 1972 first phase, who are now adults themselves.

This second edition includes a new concluding chapter that updates the fourth and last phase of the study. The authors were able to locate 88 of the 96 families who participated in the 1984 study. Bringing together all four phases of this twenty-year study into one volume gives the reader a richer and deeper understanding of what the experience of transracial adoption has meant for the parents, the adoptees, and children born into the families studied. This landmark work, will be of compelling interest to social workers, policy makers, and professionals and families involved on all sides of interracial adoption.

To manage the life of the report since publication, Institute for American Values has formed what we are calling the Hardwired to Connect Coalition. The four groups in the coalition are the Institute for American Values and specifically its 33-member Commission on Children at Risk; the YMCA of the USA; the National Council of Churches; and the Search Institute. We envision being able to advertise and sell this volume to interested members of the audience and also believe the contributors will be able to help publicize this volume in their spheres of influence.

BSW/MSW education funded by Title IV-E of Social Security Act ("Title IV-E Child Welfare Education") is an important incentive to encourage social workers to stay in the child protection field. It aims to demonstrate the training partnership between universities and public child welfare agencies. This book contains essential research results with a focus on the impact of Title IV-E Child Welfare Education to improve worker capacities and case outcomes, as well as on the process and results of social work education in promoting public child welfare work. There are nine chapters written by renowned researchers in public child welfare who applied rigorous quantitative and/or qualitative methodologies to clearly describe measures used, data sources, outcome variables, and implications for education, practice, policy, and research. These evidence-based articles address the following child welfare topics: training partnerships and worker outcomes, effective pedagogy and online education, workplace climate and retention factors, and other topics connecting BSW/MSW education to public child welfare practice. Future child welfare education will need to further expand child welfare knowledge and skills, strengthen worker competencies with a strong commitment to social work values and ethical practice principles, and develop a cohesive supervisory network to build a workforce with positive attitude toward child protection programs. This collection will inform child welfare educators, administrators and legislators regarding the impact of Title IV-E Child Welfare Education on the development of public child welfare and make recommendations to improve the child welfare curriculum in social work education. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Public Child Welfare.