CONTENTS Introductory Comment Focus of Review -- The Core Group of Studies -- Defining Father Absence Juvenile Delinquency Problems of Differential Treatment -- Are They Really Overrepresented? -- Connection Between Father Absence and Juvenile Delinquency -- Family Factors -- Individual Psychological Factors -- Community Factors -- To Sum up Intellectual and Psychosocial Functioning School Achievement -- SES Controls -- Types of Father Absence Masculine Identity Controls and Replications -- Measures Employed -- Long-term Prognosis -- Mental Illness and Marital Instability -- Recurrent Findings and Questions Some Conclusions. Implications, and Questions Recurrent Themes and Differentiations -- Fathers. Present and Absent Research Considerations The Family -- Un-families -- Context and Perspective -- Misleading Research Models -- The Type III Error Some Practical Implications Programs for all Boys -- Supports for the One-parent Mother -- More Men in Their Lives -- Public Attitudes and Information -- "Prevention" References

In Failed Child Welfare Policy, Janet R. Hutchinson examines child welfare policy in the United States. Since the early 1970's, the controversial family preservation movement has existed in America. The 30 year history of this movement, and the failure of it vividly illustrate many of the problems found in the system charged with caring for our country's abused, neglected, and abandoned children. Hutchinson argues that family preservation is both a philosophy and a program, and has the potential to positively alter the service system nationally. Pointing to the current clash of discourses, Hutchinson contends that a reconceptualized child welfare discourse, created through a renewed commitment by the social work profession and the involvement of disciplines not traditionally involved in child welfare, is the most prudent, perhaps only course of action that can achieve a re-constructed child welfare system. Cecelia E. Sudia contributes to the historical content and background information on prevention programs provided in this book.