This book highlights the myriad factors that can impact the children of incarcerated parents. It is no secret that the United States continues to be the leading nation for the incarceration of men and women, and this this large prison population includes approximately 120,000 incarcerated mothers and 1.1 million incarcerated fathers. Incarceration of a parent is recognized as an 'adverse childhood experience', an acute or chronic situation that for most people is stressful and potentially traumatic. Children of incarcerated parents may experience other adverse childhood experiences such as poverty, homelessness, parental substance abuse and other mental health problems, and family violence. The chapters in this book document some of the challenges as well as some promising ways that can help parents and families begin to meet these challenges. It is our hope that the compendium of chapters presented in this book will be a resource for practitioners, policy makers, educators, researchers, and advocates in their work to ensure that the children of incarcerated parents, their caregivers, and their mothers and fathers, are provided the support they need to address the challenges they face during and after parental incarceration. This book was originally published as a special issue of Smith College Studies in Social Work.

This book highlights the myriad factors that can impact the children of incarcerated parents. It is no secret that the United States continues to be the leading nation for the incarceration of men and women, and this this large prison population includes approximately 120,000 incarcerated mothers and 1.1 million incarcerated fathers. Incarceration of a parent is recognized as an 'adverse childhood experience', an acute or chronic situation that for most people is stressful and potentially traumatic. Children of incarcerated parents may experience other adverse childhood experiences such as poverty, homelessness, parental substance abuse and other mental health problems, and family violence. The chapters in this book document some of the challenges as well as some promising ways that can help parents and families begin to meet these challenges. It is our hope that the compendium of chapters presented in this book will be a resource for practitioners, policy makers, educators, researchers, and advocates in their work to ensure that the children of incarcerated parents, their caregivers, and their mothers and fathers, are provided the support they need to address the challenges they face during and after parental incarceration. This book was originally published as a special issue of Smith College Studies in Social Work.

The number of children of color entering the child welfare system in the United States is disproportionately high. This is especially true among African-American children, who, though they comprise 15% of children in the U.S., account for 37% of the total children placed in foster care. The numbers are also high for Native American and Latino children. Not only are children of color removed from parental custody and placed in care more often than their white counterparts, but they also remain in care longer, receive fewer services, and have less contact with the caseworkers assigned to them. This book identifies the practice and policy changes required to successfully address the unequal treatment of children of color in the child welfare system and their implications for social work education, caseworker training, and institutional change. The work critiques many of the existing social welfare acts and policies in terms of their treatment of children of color, and it provides best practices for each decision point in the child welfare process and for cultural competency measures and training.The text offers extensive measurement instruments that agencies can use to assess and correct institutional racism. To improve social work education, the book includes several model syllabi for the social work curriculum, and to deepen the discipline's engagement with this issue, the text concludes with a discussion of future directions for research and policy.