This newly revised and updated edition of a widely adopted text continues to address a broad array of issues in supporting children and strengthening families. It includes key information about federal legislation as well as policy-related outcomes research in child welfare. The first edition of The Child Welfare Challenge was hailed by Social Work as "an excellent source from which to gain an in-depth understanding of the practice and policy dimensions of child maltreatment, foster care, and adoption" and by the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare as "essential reading for anyone interested in knowing more about child welfare practice in social work." Within a historical and contemporary context, this book examines major policy, practice, and research issues as they jointly shape current child welfare practice and possible future directions. In addition to describing the major challenges facing the child welfare field, the book highlights some of the service innovations that have been developed, as these could be used to help address some of these challenges. In child welfare the focus is on families and children whose primary recourse to services has been through publicly funded agencies. The contributors consider historical areas of service--foster care and adoptions, in-home family-centered services, child-protective services, and residential services--in which social work has a legitimate, long-standing, and important mission. This is a comprehensive book, but one that appreciates the fact that many areas, such as daycare and early intervention, invite exploration. It is unique in that each chapter describes how policy initiatives and research can or should influence program design and implementation.

Takes a critical look at the child welfare system, finding that the emphasis on abuse has produced a system that serves largely as a last resort for only the worst and most dramatic cases in child welfare. This book is a blueprint for the comprehensive reform of the child welfare system.

Travels in the Trench Between Child Welfare Theory and Practice examines how the child welfare field's rush to establish credibility and permanence through program growth during the post World War II era gave rise to a massive but fragile conglomerate unprepared to prove its merits when challenged by an increasingly dubious public. Author George Thomas proposes a broad-based shift from program growth to knowledge-based growth in policy, management, education, research, and information technology initiatives to revitalize performance and restore public confidence in the system.Thomas's book proposes to shift the leadership emphasis away from the "big business" flavor of child welfare and re-define it into a mediator role of trusting worker and client competencies. Travels in the Trench Between Child Welfare Theory and Practice shows how the two sides merge and concentrate on five key issues: Policy--Contrasts the impact of the two orientations on shaping the field's sense of mission, defining its role, establishing its priorities for growth relative to size, specialization, and knowledge base, and stimulating or reducing client adversarialism and public perceptions of chronic mission failure. Management--Examines how the priorities of the two orientations differ relative to preserving hierarchical authority, rewarding work that exceeds mandates, promoting innovation and experimentation, and relying on process as distinct from client outcome accountability. Education--Examines how the priorities of the two orientations differ relative to relying on manpower and brain power, on "one right way" of doing things versus doing what is legal and ethical. Research--Examines how the priorities of the two orientations differ relative to confirming the "rightness" of the field's existing knowledge base and testing it to expand its scientifically validated portion through discovery. Information Technology--Explores how the priorities of the two orientations differ relative to disclosing and preserving privileged communications, developing common and specialized language, and breaking down or protecting authority and status differentials.This historical and cross-sectional analysis forms a framework proposing that the field's future value in meeting the nation's child welfare needs must have a willingness to shift its commitments from problem to competency-oriented theory and practice, to accept a de-emphasis on growth and a reduction in specialization, and to redirect investments in education, research, and information technology. According to Thomas, this enables readers to revitalize practice wisdom, grow the scientifically validated portion of the field's knowledge base, and begin to restore public confidence in the system.The book's contents are presented in interview style to enliven the material and make it more accessible to a wide audience. The reader determines the sense and direction of the analysis and the appropriateness of the questions from which it flows. Travels in the Trenches is intended to promote critical analysis of the link between long range vision and its impact on daily practice.

Each year, child protective services receive reports of child abuse and neglect involving six million children, and many more go unreported. The long-term human and fiscal consequences of child abuse and neglect are not relegated to the victims themselves-they also impact their families, future relationships, and society. In 1993, the National Research Council (NRC) issued the report, Under-standing Child Abuse and Neglect, which provided an overview of the research on child abuse and neglect. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research updates the 1993 report and provides new recommendations to respond to this public health challenge. According to this report, while there has been great progress in child abuse and neglect research, a coordinated, national research infrastructure with high-level federal support needs to be established and implemented immediately. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research recommends an actionable framework to guide and support future child abuse and neglect research. This report calls for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to child abuse and neglect research that examines factors related to both children and adults across physical, mental, and behavioral health domains-including those in child welfare, economic support, criminal justice, education, and health care systems-and assesses the needs of a variety of subpopulations. It should also clarify the causal pathways related to child abuse and neglect and, more importantly, assess efforts to interrupt these pathways. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research identifies four areas to look to in developing a coordinated research enterprise: a national strategic plan, a national surveillance system, a new generation of researchers, and changes in the federal and state programmatic and policy response.