At the end of the 20th century, New York City had one of the worst child welfare systems in the United States: 50,000 children were in foster care; they and their families were often neglected or abused by the system; parents had no voice; and the services designed to protect children were more often harming, rather than helping, them. From Pariahs to Partners tells for the first time the inspiring story of the parents and their allies--child welfare commissioners, social workers, lawyers, and foundation officers--who joined together to change the system. David Tobis situates this remarkable success within the larger history of child services in the U.S., a roller coaster of alternating crisis and reform that failed to produce lasting change. But the major focus of the book is on individual parents-most of them women, many of them black or Latina, and all of them poor-who came back from the "other side" of domestic violence, drug addiction, homelessness, and poverty to fight for their rights and their children. Many of these parents recognized their own role in the wrenching experience of losing custody of their children. They entered drug treatment programs, underwent intensive counseling, left abusive relationships, got jobs, filed lawsuits, and were reunited with their sons and daughters. Some took the next step and trained to become parent organizers. Tobis shows how their efforts increased benefits for families and reduced the number of children in foster care in New York City to 15,000 in 2011. David Tobis was a central figure in the child welfare reform movement, and From Pariahs to Partners draws on his own personal experience, as well detailed case examples from parent advocates, to tell a rare story of the triumph of individual and collective activism over bureaucratic inertia and ineptitude.

Infrastructure at the Crossroads brings together lessons from the last two decades of World Bank engagement in infrastructure. It analyzes trends in the Bank's infrastructure lending, describes the evolution of the external environment and the Bank's own strategic priorities, and presents lessons about project design and appraisal, poverty focus, private sector participation, environmental and social sustainability, the issue of corruption, and stakeholder communications.

The Routledge Handbook of Critical Social Work brings together the world’s leading scholars in the field to provide a cutting-edge overview of classic and current research and future trends in the subject. Comprised of 48 chapters divided into six parts: Historical, social, and political influences Mapping the theoretical and conceptual terrain Methods of engagement and modes of analysis Critical contexts for practice and policy Professional education and socialisation Future challenges, directions, and transformations it provides an authoritative guide to theory and method, and the primary debates of today in social work from a critical perspective. This handbook is a major reference work and the first book to comprehensively map the wide-ranging territory of critical social work. It does so by addressing its conceptual developments, its methodological advances, its value-based front-line practice and as an influence on the policy field. By offering a definitive survey of current academic knowledge as it relates to professional practice, it provides the first comprehensive, up-to-date, definitive work of reference while at the same time identifying emerging, innovative and cutting-edge areas.

Child welfare workers often need cooperation from other agencies that have their own goals and regulations. The tangle of red tape that can result frustrates staff and robs youth of confidence in the system. Child Welfare sets forth real-world examples to guide interagency collaboration.

Government-by-proxy and intergovernmental relations profoundly affect the public administration of foster care. Using examples from foster care systems in the states of Delaware, Michigan, New York, and Rhode Island, Rebecca Padot eloquently combines a rigorous methodology and theory work to expose the conditions under which foster care outcomes can be improved. The cases selected suggest that the federal government has increased its focus on measuring the performance of state programs while simultaneously decreasing its funding of state foster care programs and offering the states very little management or mentorship. Padot turns the page and recommends administrators place a greater priority on building community partners, integrating the advice of mentors, providing leadership from public managers, and cultivating relationships with the federal government. An original and timely resource for scholars and practitioners, this book represents a significant contribution to our understanding of how leadership and management variables may be associated with more positive foster care practices and performance in the United States.

This report presents an assessment of the performance of New York City's child welfare system in meeting its responsibilities to investigate and respond to reports of child abuse and neglect; provide services to children and families to prevent children's entry into foster care whenever possible; provide services to children while in foster care; and ensure that children in foster care exit care in a timely fashion to grow up in permanent families. These are the essential functions of a public child welfare agency. In New York City, the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) is the public child welfare agency responsible for these functions, in conjunction with the New York City Family Court.