The second edition of Deciding Children’s Futures addresses the thorny task of assessing parents and children who belong to struggling families where there are issues of neglect or significant harm, and when separating parents are contesting arrangements for the care of their children in the family court. This practitioner’s guide discusses how to create relationships and pose questions that breach natural parental defences to understand their histories, anxieties, and needs. Drawing on practice knowledge, theory, and research findings, it integrates the accounts of parents and children with safeguarding imperatives and government guidance, to enable informed decisions that positively impact children’s futures. Chapters address issues such as drug and alcohol misuse, mental health difficulties and learning disabilities, Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII) abuse, and alienation of children, and encourage readers to consider the impact of their own values, histories, and beliefs on the assessment process. This edition is completely updated to reflect all the factors that have impacted assessments for the family court, including updates to case law and procedure rules, devolution of governments, and updates to DSM and ICD diagnostic categories. Providing a comprehensive understanding of assessment for the family court, this user-friendly volume will be of great interest to expert witnesses, social workers, mental health professionals, solicitors, and anyone working in the family court system.

Deciding Children’s Futuresaddresses the thorny task of how to assess parents and children who belong to struggling families where there are issues of neglect or significant harm, and when separating parents are contesting arrangements for the care of their children. This is a practitioner’s guide: it discusses how to create relationships that are capable of breaching natural parental defences to assessment; the importance of keeping an open mind, how to ask questions that fathom people’s experiences, and how to develop understanding of their histories, narratives, worries, hopes and fears. Joyce Scaife’s approach draws on practice knowledge, theory and research findings with a view to integrating the accounts of parents and children with safeguarding imperatives and government guidance, thereby enabling professionals to make informed decisions designed to impact positively on children’s futures. This accessible and comprehensive book will be of great interest to ‘expert’ witnesses, practising social workers, children’s guardians, solicitors, barristers, magistrates and mental health professionals. Joyce Scaifeis a clinical psychologist with over 15 years of experience in carrying out assessments for the family court. She is former Director of Clinical Practice for the Doctor of Clinical Psychology training course at the University of Sheffield.

In many Western societies there is concern that children from less advantaged social backgrounds have limited aspirations, and are disproportionately unlikely to go to university. Children's Lives, Children's Futures explores how children in their first year of secondary school feel about school, its place in their lives and its role in their futures. The authors use child voice to look at the ways in which children are active constructors of their lives, and the implications this has for the alignment between education and ambition. The authors explore the nature of children's engagement with education, the choices and constraints they experience and the reasons some young people fail to take advantage of educational opportunities.

"Are you having trouble deciding whether or not to become a parent? Are you under pressure from family and friends? Unsettled by feelings of guilt or ambivalence? Unsure whether you will regret your decision in later years? The Baby Decision offers a clear path to finding the answers to all of these questions"--Back cover.

The baby boom of 1945-65 produced the biggest, richest generation that Britain has ever known. Today, at the peak of their power and wealth, baby boomers now run the country; by virtue of their sheer demographic power, they have fashioned the world around them in a way that meets all of their housing, healthcare, and financial needs. In this original and provocative book, David Willetts shows how the baby boomer generation has attained this position at the expense of their children. Social, cultural, and economic provision has been made for the reigning section of society, whilst the needs of the next generation have taken a back seat. Willetts argues that if our political, economic, and cultural leaders do not begin to discharge their obligations to the future, the young people of today will be taxed more, work longer hours for less money, have lower social mobility, and live in a degraded environment in order to pay for their parents' quality of life. Baby boomers, worried about the kind of world they are passing on to their children, are beginning to take note. However, whilst the imbalance in the quality of life between the generations is becoming more obvious, what is less certain is whether the older generation will be willing to make the sacrifices necessary for a more equal distribution. The Pinch is a landmark account of intergenerational relations in Britain. It is essential reading for parents and policymakers alike.

To what extent should parents be allowed to use reproductive technologies to determine the characteristics of their future children? And is there something morally wrong with parents who wish to do this? Choosing Tomorrow's Children provides answers to these (and related) questions. In particular, the book looks at issues raised by selective reproduction, the practice of choosing between different possible future persons by selecting or deselecting (for example) embryos, eggs, and sperm. Wilkinson offers answers to questions including the following. Do children have a 'right to an open future' and, if they do, what moral constraints does this place upon selective reproduction? Should parents be allowed to choose their future children's sex? Should we 'screen out' as much disease and disability as possible before birth, or would that be an objectionable form of eugenics? Is it acceptable to create or select a future person in order to provide lifesaving tissue for an existing relative? Is there a moral difference between selecting to avoid disease and selecting to produce an 'enhanced' child? Should we allow deaf parents to use reproductive technologies to ensure that they have a deaf child?

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.