Learn the skills and best practices to make receiving visits more productive and worry-free
As a family child care professional, you nurture and teach children during their most formative years. Being a family child care provider also means you must attend to families, licensors, food program representatives, coaches, and other people who visit your in-home business. This guide is filled with everything you need to successfully prepare for and host visits from people involved in the operation and regulation of your business.
This book includes case studies featuring more than twenty common challenges that can occur during visits and skill-based solutions and successful strategies you can use to prepare for those situations. It also provides checklists and self-examination activities to help you welcome and connect with potential families, specialists, and inspectors in positive ways, as well as support, guidance, and techniques to enhance your program.

Donna C. Hurley has been writing and delivering trainings for providers, parents, and home visitors or more than forty years.

Sharon Woodward has more than twenty years of experience supporting family child care professionals.

This book traces the changing fortunes of radical and critical social work in the U.K., and examines the theory, context and application of such approaches. Radical social work of the 1970s declined as the rise of neoliberalism changed the nature of the welfare state along with what social workers do and how. A looser critical approach developed, although practitioner demoralisation and disillusionment led to the 'second wave' of radical social work in the late 2000s. Despite challenges, critical practice is both necessary and possible in the neoliberal world. Drawing on the author's unique experience, core areas of practice with children and families are covered, including real life case studies, key point summaries and suggestions for further reading. The essential argument is for an emancipatory practice geared to meeting immediate needs, as well as having some vision of a future, more socially just and equal, society. The book will be invaluable to undergraduate and postgraduate social work students, experienced practitioners, educators, managers and policy makers.

During the past decade, a remarkable transference of responsibility to Indigenous children's organisation has taken place in many parts of Australia, Canada, the USA and New Zealand. It has been influenced by Indigenous peoples' human rights advocacy at national and international levels, by claims to self-determination and by the globalisation of Indigenous children's organisations. Thus far, this reform has taken place with little attention from academic and non-Indigenous communities; now, Decolonising Indigenous Child Welfare: Comparative Perspectives considers these developments and, evaluating law reform with respect to Indigenous child welfare, asks whether the pluralisation of responses to their welfare and well-being, within a cross-cultural post-colonial context, can improve the lives of Indigenous children. The legislative frameworks for the delivery of child welfare services to Indigenous children are assessed in terms of the degree of self-determination which they afford Indigenous communities. The book draws upon interdisciplinary research and the author's experience collaborating with the peak Australian Indigenous children's organisation for over a decade to provide a thorough examination of this international issue. Dr Terri Libesman is a Senior Lecturer in the Law Faculty, at the University of Technology Sydney. She has collaborated, researched and published for over a decade with the peak Australian Indigenous children's organisation.

For over 20 years I have accepted the challenge and had the privilege of caring for sick children, agonizing with their parents during periods of serious illness, which were sometimes fatal. Because of my particular interest in and concern about birth defects and genetic disease, many of these children had severe disabling handicaps, which were often genetic and included mental retardation. Hence care of these children and their families was often complicated by the presence of serious or profound genetic defects. The initial realization of the nature of the disorder invariably led to emotional . difficulties and inevitably later spawned chronic distress. For some children inexorable deterioration led to untimely deaths, while the parents agonized over their handi capped, chronically ill, or defective-but nevertheless loved---"

William Seraile uncovers the history of the colored orphan asylum, founded in New York City in 1836 as the nation's first orphanage for African American children. It is a remarkable institution that is still in the forefront aiding children. Although no longer an orphanage, in its current incarnation as Harlem-Dowling West Side Center for Children and Family Services it maintains the principles of the women who organized it nearly 200 years ago. The agency weathered three wars, two major financial panics, a devastating fire during the 1863 Draft Riots, several epidemics, waves of racial prejudice, and severe financial difficulties to care for orphaned, neglected, and delinquent children. Eventually financial support would come from some of New York's finest families, including the Jays, Murrays, Roosevelts, Macys, and Astors. While the white female managers and their male advisers were dedicated to uplifting these black children, the evangelical, mainly Quaker founding managers also exhibited the extreme paternalistic views endemic at the time, accepting the advice or support of the African American community only grudgingly. It was frank criticism in 1913 from W. E. B. Du Bois that highlighted the conflict between the orphanage and the community it served, and it wasn't until 1939 that it hired the first black trustee. More than 15,000 children were raised in the orphanage, and throughout its history letters and visits have revealed that hundreds if not thousands of "old boys and girls" looked back with admiration and respect at the home that nurtured them throughout their formative years. Weaving together African American history with a unique history of New York City, this is not only a painstaking study of a previously unsung institution of black history but a unique window onto complex racial dynamics during a period when many failed to recognize equality among all citizens as a worthy purpose.

Working with Challenging Youth, Second Edition is a practical, reader-friendly guide through the pitfalls and problems that arise when working with at-risk youth. As in the first edition, the new Working with Challenging Youth builds on a solid theoretical base in reality therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, solution-focused therapy, systems theory, and humanistic philosophy to answer the question "What distinguishes the really effective professionals from the rest?" This second edition includes new sections on specialized, evidence-based approaches such as dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness, collaborative problem-solving, motivational interviewing, and multisystemic therapy. This book also offers 7 guiding principles and 50 specific lessons to help bridge the gap between helping professionals and youth.

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.

A remarkable piece of American history that tells, through the story of one bright, mischievous orphan, the history of the Catholic orphanage system in New York in the nineteenth and twentieth century.
In 1946 Edward Rohs was left by his unwed parents at the Angel Guardian Home to be raised by the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters hoped that the parents would one day return for him. In time they married and had other children, but Ed's parents never came back for him. And they never signed the legal papers so he could be adopted by another family.
Raised by the Churchchronicles the extraordinary life of Ed Rohs, a bright, mischievous boy who was raised in five institutions of the Catholic orphanage system in postwar Brooklyn, New York, from infancy in 1946 until he was discharged as an adult in 1965.
Rohs was one of thousands of children taken in by Catholic institutions during the tumultuous post-WWII years: out-of-wedlock infants, children whose fathers had been killed in the war, and children of parents in crisis. Ed gives a brief history of each institution before describing that world--the Sisters and Brothers who raised him, the food, his companions, and the Catholic community that provided social and emotional support.
When Ed finally leaves the institution after nineteen years he has a difficult time adjusting. He slowly assimilates into "normal" life and determinedly rises above his origins, achieving an advanced degree and career success, working for years in child welfare and as volunteer strength coach for the Fordham University basketball team. He hides his upbringing out of shame and fear of others' pity. But as he begins to reflect on his own story and to talk to the people who raised him, Ed begins to see a larger story intertwined with his own.
With original research based on interviews with clergymen and nuns, archival data from the New York Archdiocese, and government records, Raised by the Church tells the social history of an era when hundreds of thousands of baby boomers passed through the orphanage system. Through the story of oneman, this book gives us a much-needed historical perspective on an American society that understood and acknowledged the community's need for a safe haven.

The Baby Peter and Dano Sonnex incidents were high profile cases in which two key public services, namely child protection and probation, both failed in their tasks of protection of the victims and the public. In this book the author graphically describes media and political reactions and then proceeds to analyze the common problems both social work and probation practice face under conditions of economic recession and drastic reductions in funding. This new paperback version comes with a foreword from Shadd Maruna, Professor of Justice and Human Development and Director of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Queen's University, Belfast, UK.

Policy reforms to children's services in the UK and elsewhere encourage a greater focus on outcomes defined in terms of child well-being. Yet for this to happen, we need not only a better understanding of what child well-being is and how services can improve it, but also the ability to measure child well-being in order to evaluate success. This book investigates the main approaches to conceptualising child well-being, applies them to the child population using household survey and agency audit data, then considers the implications for children's services. The author: provides a clear conceptual understanding of five perspectives on well-being: need, rights, poverty, quality of life and social exclusion demonstrates the value of each perspective charts levels of child well-being in an inner-London community, including violated rights and social exclusion sets out the features that children's services must have if they are to improve child well-being defined in these terms This book should be read by everyone involved in developing, implementing and evaluating children's services, including researchers, policy makers and practitioners.

When struggling photojournalist Harper tries to return a dress she bought that morning for a job that's fallen through something catches her eye: the same little girl who was waiting there that morning is still there. The sales assistant doesn't know whose she is. The security guard at the mall hasn't had anyone come looking for her. Same goes for the local police, and the media. In fact, no one seems to be looking for little May at all. Harper knows from bitter experience what awaits May in Child Protection Services. But, without any clues, how do you put the needle back in the haystack? And who would just leave a child like this? And what if finding her home was the worst thing you could do? From the chilly streets of New York City to the electric blue skies of coastal Florida - this is an emotional, page-turning road trip that follows a trail of theories, all the way to a devastating revelation.

There is an increasing emphasis on post-qualifying training for social workers, especially in the complex and demanding area of working with children and families. This essential textbook is especially designed for practitioners studying at this level.

Accessible and thorough, the text focuses on a mixture of conceptual and organisational topics, skills, law, policy and key practice issues. It includes chapters on:

• Social work values and ethics
• Risk, uncertainty and accountability
• Direct work with children and young people
• Promoting security and stability
• Working with reluctant service users
• Assessment of parenting
• Working with poverty, drugs and alcohol
• Going to court and the legal framework
• Children and young people going home
• Supporting others in their professional development.

Using case studies and activities to link research, theory and practice, Social Work with Children and Families takes a wider look at the role and tasks of an experienced social work practitioner, and the skills and knowledge needed to develop professionally from this point.

Forensic mental health assessment (FMHA) has grown into a specialization informed by research and professional guidelines. This series presents up-to-date information on the most important and frequently conducted forms of FMHA. The 19 topical volumes address best approaches to practice for particular types of evaluation in the criminal, civil, and juvenile/family areas. Each volume contains a thorough discussion of the relevant legal and psychological concepts, followed by a step-by-step description of the assessment process from preparing for the evaluation to writing the report and testifying in court.
Volumes include the following helpful features:
- Boxes that zero in on important information for use in evaluations
- Tips for best practice and cautions against common pitfalls
- Highlighting of relevant case law and statutes
- Separate list of assessment tools for easy reference
- Helpful glossary of key terms for the particular topic
In making recommendations for best practice, authors consider empirical support, legal relevance, and consistency with ethical and professional standards. These volumes offer invaluable guidance for anyone involved in conducting or using forensic evaluations.
This book addresses evaluations for child protection, one of the most delicate legal arenas in which forensic mental examiners play a part. The evaluations are highly specialized, requiring child clinical specialization, a knowledge of the legal and social context, and a thorough understanding of the professional and ethical guidelines for child protection evaluations. This volume provides the foundation that any mental health professional needs when pursuing specialization in evaluating children and parents before the court in child abuse and neglect cases.

William Seraile uncovers the history of the colored orphan asylum, founded in New York City in 1836 as the nation's first orphanage for African American children. It is a remarkable institution that is still in the forefront aiding children. Although no longer an orphanage, in its current incarnation as Harlem-Dowling West Side Center for Children and Family Services it maintains the principles of the women who organized it nearly 200 years ago.
The agency weathered three wars, two major financial panics, a devastating fire during the 1863 Draft Riots, several epidemics, waves of racial prejudice, and severe financial difficulties to care for orphaned, neglected, and delinquent children. Eventually financial support would come from some of New York's finest families, including the Jays, Murrays, Roosevelts, Macys, and Astors.While the white female managers and their male advisers were dedicated to uplifting these black children, the evangelical, mainly Quaker founding managers also exhibited the extreme paternalistic views endemic at the time, accepting the advice or support of the African American community only grudgingly. It was frank criticism in 1913 from W. E. B. Du Bois that highlighted the conflict between the orphanage and the community it served, and it wasn't until 1939 that it hired the first black trustee.
More than 15,000 children were raised in the orphanage, and throughout its history letters and visits have revealed that hundreds if not thousands of old boys and girlslooked back with admiration and respect at the home that nurtured them throughout their formative years.
Weaving together African American history with a unique history of New York City, this is not only a painstaking study of a previously unsung institution of black history but a unique window onto complex racial dynamics during a period when many failed to recognize equality among all citizens as a worthy purpose.

ROBERT C. GRANGER William T. Grant Foundation During the past 10 years or so, a number of researchers, policymakers, and prac- tioners have made important progress on the identi?cation and use of indicators of children's well-being. The United States federal government, via the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health, as well as such private funders as the Annie E. Casey Foundation, have supported many of these efforts. During this time, the William T. Grant Foundation, who was not a primary funder of such activities, was nevertheless one of the many institutions bene?ting from the work. Fortunately, Asher Ben-Arieh, Larry Aber, and Bob Goerge persuaded us to support a working conference on how to assess the effects of indicator usage on policiesandprograms.Thisvolumeistheresultoftheirtalentsandtheclearthinking of many of their colleagues. It is my pleasure to introduce the volume with a few thoughts about its contributions and the questions that remain.

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.

..".is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature in an area that has sorely needed it. The authors cite the latest studies and best practices on the subject, referencing the current list of resources available from leading children advocacy organizations. The result offers an invaluable resource on the challenges of providing for the needs of children during crises and natural hazard events." --Mark K. Shriver, Chairman of the National Commission on Children in Disasters and Senior Vice President of Save the Children's U.S. Programs Each year, disasters such as house fires, car accidents, tsunamis, earthquakes, and hurricanes impact hundreds of thousands of children. Child victims can suffer disproportionately and the physical and psychological damage sustained can far outweigh the same effects in adults, often requiring years of therapy. Sadly, emergency planners to date have largely failed to adequately recognize and accommodate the particular requirements of children in times of disaster. Highlighting the infrastructure that supports children in a safe and secure community, Managing Children in Disasters begins by identifying the special needs of children, including physical security, emotional stability, family unity, and ongoing education. It looks at how hazard mitigation actions can reduce the long term impact of a disaster on this infrastructure, and outlines the many steps that can be taken by parents, emergency managers, school officials, and child care providers to prepare for a future incident. The book reviews what agencies and organizations can do to ensure that children are protected and families remain intact. It examines evacuation plans and processes, emergency shelters, and the recovery and rebuilding process. The final chapter provides a list of resources in emergency planning, psychosocial recovery, training and education courses, technical assistance, and other organizations and examples of existin

The media today suggests that many young people are becoming involved in anti-social behaviour. But increasing amounts of legislation and ASBOs neither seem to have addressed the real issues nor solved the problem, and may simply add to the frustrations of all those involved.

Kathy Hampson s comprehensive guide is based on up-to-date, grass-roots experience of working with young people with anti-social behaviour. Including ready-to-use, photocopiable resources suitable for a wide variety of settings, it examines the background to these highly topical issues, enabling the reader to contextualise and better identify with the problems faced by the young people they work with. The easy-to-reproduce, tried-and-tested exercises:

• are for use with individuals or groups
• address the issues involved in offending behaviour
• can be easily modified to cater for a range of learning styles, abilities and maturity, (and shows how you can identify which exercises suit which young people)
• include discussion scenarios, worksheets, cartoons, card games and creative activities
• can be used to dissuade young people from getting involved in anti-social behaviour, and to enable them to make better decisions

The book includes an appraisal of current research on the issues surrounding anti-social behaviour and, in particular, risk factors that may be involved behind the scenes in young people s lives. A section on working with parents helps them to support their children, improve their parenting skills and to know where, and how, to ask for help.

This is an essential resource offering constructive, practical solutions to anti-social behaviour in young people between the ages of 10 and 18. It will be invaluable for those working professionally or voluntarily in schools, with youth groups, youth offending teams, youth inclusion projects, faith groups, anti-social behaviour teams, or for anyone whose work offers the opportunity, or requires them, to challenge anti-social and offending behaviour.

Because of their previous damaging experiences, many children and young people enter the care system having already developed emotional problems or at a greater risk of developing them. However, in addition to this, research and experience consistently show that being in care is likely to aggravate or worsen developmental problems. Why does public care have these negative effects on children and what is needed to alleviate their problems?

This important book looks at how children in care can best be helped to attain desirable developmental outcomes. Owusu-Bempah introduces his notion of socio-genealogical connectedness to help explain why children in kinship care fare better than children in non-relative foster care. He argues, using recent empirical research as well as a wide range of literature from the adoption field and attachment theory, that knowledge about one s hereditary background is an essential factor in looked-after children s long-term adjustment to placement. As with all children, this knowledge forms the basis of their identity, self-worth, and general outlook.

An invaluable contribution to the area, this book offers promising routes to understanding better and working more effectively with virtually all families, irrespective of their cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds. It will interest researchers and students of attachment theory, adoption and fostering, child development and children s mental health.

Since 1997, child welfare services have been faced with new demands to engage fathers or develop father-inclusive services. This book emerges from work by the author as a researcher and educator over many years on the issues posed by this agenda for child welfare practitioners in a variety of contexts. In locating fathers, fathering and fatherhood within a historical and social landscape, the book addresses issues seldom taken up in practice settings. It explores diversity and complexity in fathering in different disciplines such as psychoanalysis, sociology and psychology and analyses contemporary developments in social policies and welfare practices. The author employs a feminist perspective to highlight the opportunities and dangers in contemporary developments for those wishing to advance gender equity. A key strength of the book is its inter-disciplinary focus. It will be required reading for students, graduate and postgraduate, of social work, social policy, sociology and child and family studies. Academic researchers will also find the book invaluable because of its breadth of scholarship.

Examining the efforts of leaders in American child support, this book explores the topic of policy innovation over a 100-year period. It tracks the evolution of multiple sets of political entrepreneurs as they grapple with the child support problem: charity workers with local law enforcement in the 19th century; social workers through the 1960s; conservatives during the 1970s; women's groups and women legislators in the 1980s; and fathers' rights groups in the 1990s and beyond. Jocelyn Elise Crowley employs methodological tools from both political science and economics to highlight key stages in the innovation process.

A landmark publication in the field, this state-of-the-art reference work, with contributions from leading thinkers across a range of disciplines, is an essential guide to the study of children and childhood, and sets out future research agendas for the subject.

Residential child care is a crucial, though relatively neglected area of social work. And yet, revelations of abuse and questions of effectiveness have led to increasingly regulatory and procedural approaches to practice and heightened political and professional scrutiny. This book provides a broad and critical look at the ideas and policy developments that have shaped the direction of the sector. The book sets present-day policy and practice within historical, policy and organisational context. The author applies a critical gaze to attempts to improve practice through regulation and, fundamentally, challenges how residential child care is conceptualised. He argues that it needs to move beyond dominant discourses of protection, rights and outcomes to embrace those of care and upbringing. The importance of the personal relationship in helping children to grow and develop is highlighted. Other traditions of practice such as the European concept of social pedagogy are also explored to more accurately reflect the task of residential child care. The book will be of interest to practitioners in residential child care, social workers and students on social work and social care courses. It should be required reading for social work managers and will also be of interest to policy makers and students of social policy, education and childhood studies.

Many policy and practice initiatives that aim to prevent social exclusion focus on children and young people. This book seeks to consider new approaches to understanding the complexities of prevention, and how these new understandings can inform policy and practice. The authors use evidence from the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund to illustrate and explore the experiences of children and families who are most marginalised. They consider the historical context of approaches to child welfare, and present a new framework for understanding and developing preventative polices and practice within the context of social exclusion. Preventative initiatives such as the Children's Fund have supported large-scale complex evaluations that have generated rich and important data about strategies for addressing social exclusion and what they can achieve. The findings of this book have direct relevance for all those engaged in developing preventative policy and practice and will therefore be of interest to policy makers, practitioners and students of child welfare and social policy more broadly, in providing a timely discussion of key debates in designing, delivering and commissioning preventative services.