There is a profound crisis in the United States' foster care system, Jill Duerr Berrick writes in this expertly researched, passionately written book. No state has passed the federally mandated Child and Family Service Review; two-thirds of the state systems have faced class-action lawsuits demanding change; and most tellingly, well over half of all children who enter foster care never go home. The field of child welfare has lost its way and is neglecting its fundamental responsibility to ...

The Impossible Imperative brings to life the daily efforts of child welfare professionals working on behalf of vulnerable children and families. Stories that highlight the work, written by child welfare staff on the front lines, speak to the competing principles that shape everyday decisions. The book shows that, rather than being a simple task of protecting children, the field of child welfare is shaped by a series of competing ideas. The text features eight principles that under...

Co-authored by eminent scholars in the field, this book surveys the processes and outcomes of child welfare services in the US, drawing global parallels in order to capture the challenges, tensions, and opportunities facing child welfare services.Written in a clear and accessible manner, the book outlines which child welfare system reforms are likely to have the greatest benefit for at-risk and maltreated children and families. Chapters cover crucial debates and initiatives mapping...

This comprehensive international study provides a cross-national analysis of different understandings of errors and mistakes, as well as lessons to avoid and how to handle them in child protection practice, using research and knowledge from 11 countries in Europe and North America.Divided into country-specific chapters, each examines the pathways that lead to mistakes happening, the scale of their impact, how responsibilities and responses are decided and how practice and policy su...

More than two million child abuse reports are filed annually on behalf of children in the United States. Each of the reported children becomes a concern, at least temporarily, of the professional who files the report, and each family is assessed by additional professionals. A substantial number of children in these families will subsequently enter foster care. Until now, the relationships between the performance of our child welfare system and the growth and outcomes of foster care have no...

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 analyze...

Modern family life raises tough questions: Who should be responsible for children's daily care? How can their financial support be fairly allocated between parents? Should extended family members be paid for their help? Can women have full careers and also be good mothers? In Raising Children, leading scholars take on these questions and more in order to critically assess policy responses to the changing needs of the modern family. As parents struggle to balance professional and personal d...

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 ...