This open access book critically explores what child protection policy and professional practice would mean if practice was grounded in human rights standards. This book inspires a new direction in child protection research – one that critically assesses child protection policy and professional practice with regard to human rights in general, and the rights of the child in particular. Each chapter author seeks to approach the rights of the child from their own academic field of interest and through a comparative lens, making the research relevant across nation-state practices. The book is split into five parts to focus on the most important aspects of child protection. The first part explains the origins, aim, and scope of the book; the second part explores aspects of professionalism and organization through law and policy; and the third part discusses several key issues in child protection and professional practice in depth. The fourth part discusses selected areas of importance to child protection practices (low-impact in-house measures, public care in residential care and foster care respectively) and the fifth part provides an analytical summary of the book. Overall, it contributes to the present need for a more comprehensive academic debate regarding the rights of the child, and the supranational perspective this brings to child protection policy and practice across and within nation-states. .

Child Protection and Child Welfare draws on the knowledge of child protection experts and social care professionals to provide an authoritative international overview of child protection strategy and policy. Devoting particular attention to the role played by culture in determining child welfare issues and child protection responses, this book illustrates the impact of both long-term influences, such as the legacy of the caste system in India, and more recent global events, such as the development of international trade in Ghana and shrinking budgets in Italy on national approaches to supporting families and children. The international perspective aims to enhance our understanding of the range of possible approaches, encouraging researchers, policymakers and practitioners to think critically about current models, and providing insights for developing practice. This important book will be essential reading for social workers, policy makers, child protection service workers, commissioners and managers across child and family welfare services, as well as researchers and academics in the field.

This book covers the children's rights movement and the rights of parents. It examines the implications of children's rights for policy and practice with particular reference to children with disabilities and children in the care of protective services.

"Children's rights": the phrase has been a legal battle cry for twenty-five years. But as this provocative book by a nationally renowned expert on children's legal standing argues, it is neither possible nor desirable to isolate children from the interests of their parents, or those of society as a whole. From foster care to adoption to visitation rights and beyond, Martin Guggenheim offers a trenchant analysis of the most significant debates in the children's rights movement, particularly those that treat children's interests as antagonistic to those of their parents. Guggenheim argues that "children's rights" can serve as a screen for the interests of adults, who may have more to gain than the children for whom they claim to speak. More important, this book suggests that children's interests are not the only ones or the primary ones to which adults should attend, and that a "best interests of the child" standard often fails as a meaningful test for determining how best to decide disputes about children.

A marked change in traditional thinking about children and childhood was promoted by the adoption by the United Nations (in 1989) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In the early 90s sociologists in the United States and the UK developed Childhood Studies to promote a holistic view of children's lives, recognition of their competence and agency, and the impact and value of their everyday experiences. As a result of this impetus, different thinking has emerged about the role and recognition of children, the institutions of childhood, and the way we view and treat children in modern societies. This book focuses on research emerging from Children's Rights and Childhood Studies thinking, which has important implications for developing policies and practices to improve children's well being and rights. The author presents the implications of children's rights for six contexts of children's everyday lives: families; early childhood education; schooling; child protection services; health services; and employment.

Using the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a framework, issues such as child trafficking, child soldiers, and child maltreatment are examined in nations around the world, as well as efforts to solve these problems.