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.

The various contributors are leading academics in the children's rights field drawn from a wide range of countries and jurisdictions (including those with common law, civilian and mixed traditions) in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND. This book explores how children's rights are practised and weighed against birth and adoptive parents' rights and examines how governments and professionals balance rights when it is decided that children cannot return to parental care. From different socio-political and legal contexts in Europe and the United States, it provides an in-depth analysis of concepts of family, contact, the child's best-interest principle and human rights when children are adopted from care. Taking an international comparative approach to these issues, this book provides detailed information on adoption processes and shares learning from best practice and research across country boundaries to help improve outcomes for all children in care for whom adoption may be the placement of choice.

Societies and states are at a crossroad in how children are treated and how their rights are respected and protected. Childrens new position and their strong rights create tensions and challenge the traditional relationships between family and the state. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted unanimously by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1989 and came into force in 1990. Article 2 places states under an obligation to accord primacy to the best interests of the child in all actions concerning children and to ensure and regulate child protection. This book offers a comparative and critical analysis of the implementation of Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In order to examine how Article 2 is being implemented, it is essential to have a sound understanding of the obligations it emposes. The opening chapters will explore the precise content of these obligations in terms of the legislative history of the text, its underlying philosophy, its amplification by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, and subsequent authoritative interpretations of it by courts around the world. The book will then drill down into the conceptual and theoretical challenges posed by the very nature of the obligations and will offer in-depth exploration of the long-running 'rights v welfare' debate that has always presented something of a challenge in giving effect to children's rights. Contributors are leading academics in the children's rights field drawn from a wide range of countries and jurisdictions worldwide, including those with common law, civilian and mixed traditions. Disciplines represented in the book include law, psychology, political science, childhood studies, social work and anthropology. By drawing together the various facets of Article 2 and analysing it from a range of perspectives, the volume provides a coherent and comprehensive inter-disciplinary analysis on discrimination and the rights of the child.

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.

Child Protection Systems is a comparative study of the social policies and professional practices that frame societal responses to the problems of child maltreatment in ten countries: USA, Canada, England, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway. Focusing on the developments in policy and practice since the mid-1990s, this volume provides a detailed, up-to-date analysis of the similarities and differences in how child protection systems operate and their outcomes. The findings highlight the changing criteria that define child maltreatment, trends in out-of-home placement, professional responses to allegations of maltreatment, and the level of state responsibility for child and family welfare, providing an in-depth understanding of the different ways modern welfare states assume the sensitive responsibility of balancing children's rights and parents' rights.
The changing character of child protection systems worldwide reflects dramatic and rapid organizational, policy, and legislative changes; the expansion of child welfare systems; the rise of formal procedures and evidence-based initiatives; the increased challenges posed by race and ethnicity; and the extent to which countries adopt either a child protection or a family service approach to child abuse. Each chapter analyzes these developments and the directions in which they are heading, such as movements toward privatization and devolution of child welfare service delivery. Against this backdrop, a third approach begins to emerge-a child-focused orientation-that aims to promote and improve children's development and well-being.
A vital book for understanding contemporary trends and policy issues in the design of child protection systems, this will be must reading for comparative scholars of child welfare, family policy, and the welfare state.

Over 30 years ago, the United Nations developed the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), heralding the importance of protecting children from a range of human rights violations. Among these are the right to be free from abuse and neglect at the hands of parents or other caregivers, and the responsibility of states to devise a protective response. How nations conceptualize harm and even how they define childhood varies markedly across the globe. This Handbook describes and analyzes the ways in which 50 countries from every continent, except Antarctica, have devised measures for child protection emphasized in the UNCRC. The Handbook discusses the legislative responses, public administrative systems, and the social service networks that governments have put in place to secure the protection of children against maltreatment and exploitation. Synthesizing data from across the world, the authors suggest a global typology of child protection systems for understanding the diversity of service responses. The typology consists of five ideal types that have as their emphasis protection against an array of risks to childhood and that represent the focal point for government intervention in the lives of families. They include child exploitation protective systems, child deprivation protective systems, child maltreatment protective systems, child well-being protective systems, and child rights protective systems. The Handbook is a valuable resource for researchers, students, and policymakers attempting to craft thoughtful state responses to children's needs