This topical book, now available in paperback, comprehensively draws together diverse perspectives from key leaders in the field to address critical issues for children in relation to their rights, welfare and protection at a critical time in Ireland. The broad array of chapters addresses the changing and complex landscape of policy, practice and law. It discusses the politics of children's rights, the impact of child abuse within the Catholic Church, diverse approaches to service delivery and professional practice, the media and representations of child protection practice and the relationship between research evidence and practice. It offers a critique of governance in children's services and identifies key barriers to fundamental progress in the area of children's rights and the protection of children. This original book fills a gap in publications in this area in Ireland. It is vital reading for academics, practitioners, managers, students and policy-makers, as well as being accessible to individuals with a broad interest in child welfare and protection. -- .

Child Welfare Removals by the State addresses a most important (but little-researched) legal proceeding: when the State intervenes in the private family sphere to remove children at risk to a place of safety, adoption, or in other forms of out-of-home care. It is an intervention into the private family sphere that is intrusive, contested, and a last resort. States' interventions in the family are decided within legal and political orders and traditions that constitute a country's policies, welfare state model, child protection system, and childrens position in a society. However, we lack a cross-country analysis of the different models of decision-making in a European context. This text aims to present new research at the intersection of social work, law, and social policy concerning child protection proceedings for children in need of alternative care. It explores the role of court-based and voluntary decision-making systems in child protection proceedings, its effects, dynamics, and meanings in seven European countries and the United States, and analyses the tensions and dilemmas between children, parents, and socio-legal professionals. The book consists of eight country chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion chapters. The range of countries of countries represented in the book covers the social democratic Nordic countries (Finland, Norway, and Sweden), the conservative corporatist regimes (Germany and Switzerland), the neo-liberal (England, Ireland, and the United States), and related child welfare systems.

This book examines a key issue in the field of human and social services: how to retain workers in child protection and welfare organisations. Research over the last decade has highlighted the turnover of these workers as being a pressing and perennial issue that impacts upon service users, staff welfare, resources and the reputation of this sector. This book presents the findings of a study examining social workers' retention in child protection and welfare. The findings from this study highlights how workers' retention is influenced by exchanges relationships with colleagues and managers, and this book presents a unique 'career preference' typology which expands our understanding of how workers make decisions to stay or leave based upon their pre-conceptions of career pathways post-qualification. The book also examines findings associated with the employment mobility of these workers within child protection and tracks their next post after leaving, which provides some surprising findings regarding how we understand and measure turnover for these workers. The book also examines rich qualitative data from these workers' experiences of being a social worker in child protection associated with; job satisfaction, commitment to child protection and welfare work, making a difference, quality of supervision, autonomy, and exchange relationships with peers, all of which emerged as important factors in social workers' decisions to stay or leave. The implications of this study's findings for theory are also explored. Kenneth Burns is deputy course director of the Master of Social Work and a research associate with the Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century at University College Cork, Ireland.