Reach children and families and help them navigate the child welfare system Case planning is one of the fundamental steps in working with dependent children, yet it is also one of the most challenging. Essentials of Child Welfare presents the key information clinical social workers, child advocates, family law attorneys, and other human services personnel need to work successfully with children and families in the child welfare system. Essentials of Child Welfare is packed with step-by-step guidelines for intervening proactively with foster care children and their caretakers. Techniques are presented for handling a number of related topics, including attachment issues, substance abuse, sexual abuse (victim and perpetrator), suicidal ideation, eating disorders, learning disabilities, juvenile delinquency, domestic abuse, and many more. As part of the Essentials of Social Work Practice series, this book offers a concise yet thorough overview of child welfare, numerous tips for best practices, and a prioritized assembly of all the information and techniques that must be at one's fingertips to practice knowledgeably, effectively, and ethically. Each concise chapter features numerous callout boxes highlighting key concepts, bulleted points, and extensive illustrative material, as well as "Test Yourself" questions that help you gauge and reinforce your grasp of the information covered.

A brief text presenting conflicts and controversies surrounding social welfare policy. This book is part of the Connecting Core Competencies Series. This series helps students understand and master CSWE's core competencies with a variety of pedagogy highlighted competency content and critical thinking questions for the competencies throughout. Essentials of Social Welfare: Politics and Public Policy (a briefer version of Social Welfare: Politics and Public Policy, 7/e) introduces the major social welfare policies and programs in the United States and encourages readers to think about conflicts in social welfare today. It emphasizes the current political aspects of policymaking and major social welfare programs. In this book, social welfare policy is portrayed as the ever-evolving result of public conflict over social problems, the resources Americans choose to allocate to those problems, the debate over whether these problems can best be solved through government, and the political choices involved in reaching even tentative consensus. Teaching & Learning Experience Improve Critical Thinking -- Includes critical thinking questions in margins and end of chapter review questions that 'build' on each other. Explore Current Issues -- Includes the most recent data on healthcare reform, the midterm elections, and public policy changes, and more. Apply CSWE Core Competencies -- Integrates the 2008 CSWE EPAS throughout -- highlights competencies and practice behaviors and includes expensive pedagogy. Support Instructors -- An Instructor's Manual and Test Bank, Computerized Test Bank (MyTest), Blackboard Test Item File, and PowerPoint presentations are included in the outstanding supplements package.

Explore legal issues that often hinder the work of child welfare practitioners! Child Welfare in the Legal Setting: A Critical and Interpretive Perspective is a revolutionary study of the child welfare system that is essential for practitioners, educators, and students interested in public child welfare work. It examines the legal system surrounding child welfare workers and highlights their need for agency-specific training. This insightful book challenges the traditional rules of child welfare and paves the way for alternate methods of conceptualizing and organizing child protection. It explores why many family interventions fail and others never even occur. By identifying incongruities between the philosophy of child welfare and its function, this book advocates a more individualistic and efficient technique for assisting clients. Addressing issues and challenges from the initial identification of problems to navigating the legal system, this book is also thorough enough for public child welfare workers who want to take their skills to the next level. The large-system perspective in this book uses the concentric circle model, the rational legal model of legal and court action, and the ritualized process model to examine child welfare practice. Learn why terms such as child abuse and neglect have become social constructions that vary depending on the values of social workers, judges, attorneys, agencies, and communities. Child Welfare in the Legal Setting: A Critical and Interpretive Perspective examines the standardization of the organizational activities of child welfare systems and how this limits professionals’ ability to accurately recognize unique problems and intervene in the most beneficial manner. Child Welfare in the Legal Setting also provides controversial opinions on emerging issues including: family investigations sanction for Child Protective Services intervention the legal setting as a host environment the function of the child welfare system rationalization of child welfare intervention trained incapacity of social workers Title IVE programs the court system Child Welfare in the Legal Setting: A Critical and Interpretive Perspective identifies vital issues by analyzing the ethical and moral foundations of the child welfare system. This insightful book also takes a close look at how practitioners inadvertently devalue their clients by using language that creates stigmatized social categories such as victim and convicted felon. Supervisors, managers, social workers and child welfare practitioners will benefit from this information. The vignettes that supplement the narrative also make the book an important resource in any child welfare course.

Research has already been a significant factor in child welfare policy in recent years, but this essential new volume demonstrates that it has taken a leading role in the field to spur and guide change. In the incisive chapters gathered here, some of the field's top investigators present their work and assess its effect on the full spectrum of child welfare services. Future generations of researchers, as well as students, practitioners, and service providers, will find the resulting text indispensable. Edited by Duncan Lindsey and Aron Shlonsky, two of the discipline's most articulate voices, the book covers every base. The opening chapters situate child welfare research in the modern context; they are followed by discussions of evidence-based practice in the field, arguably its most pressing concern now. Recent years have seen historic rises in the number of children adopted through public agencies and, accordingly, permanent placement and family ties are critical topics that occupy the book's core, along with chapters broaching the thorny questions that surround decision-making and risk assessment. The urgent need for a more effective use of research and evidence is highlighted again with looks at the future of child protection and how concrete data can influence policy and help children. Finally, in recognition of the growing importance of a global view, closing chapters address international issues in child welfare research, including an examination of policies from abroad and a multinational comparison of the economic challenges facing single mothers and their children. With its insightful treatment of child welfare services in terms of the broader welfare system and acknowledgment of the myriad problems child welfare agencies face, this exceptional compendium offers a rich understanding of the social conditions that influence contemporary child welfare and enables the field to move ahead without losing sight of valuable lessons that have been learned.

This comprehensive handbook is a useful tool for practitioners in understanding the casework process. Chapters cover child development, intervention with families and medical evaluation of child abuse and neglect and how to interview in child protective services.

Get up-to-date information on children’s and parent’s rights Children have a basic human right to be free of abuse and maltreatment. The late Dr. John Pardeck’s Children’s Rights: Policy and Practice, Second Edition comprehensively explores the latest legal, psychological, sociological, policy, and child advocacy issues dealing with children’s rights. Essential issues are clearly discussed involving children at home, in school, in foster care, and in residential facilities. This new edition of The Haworth Social Work Practice Press classic examines the practical and ethical issues inherent in balancing a child’s right to self-determination against the same child’s need to be protected. Children’s Rights: Policy and Practice, Second Edition delves deep into the causes of abuse and neglect and offers help for families at risk. Techniques are presented for case and cause advocacy, as well as venues for family and individual therapy. Other discussions address the role and function of child protective services and the juvenile justice system, a review of effective social policy to protect and care for children, family health and children’s rights issues, and children’s rights in schools and day care facilities. This essential exploration includes extensive references and notes, a list of Web sites, and a comprehensive glossary of influential legal rulings focusing on children’s rights. Children’s Rights: Policy and Practice, Second Edition includes over 100 pages of new and updated material on: new rulings of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that have implications for children’s rights legal case studies an overview and analysis of the Leave No Child Behind Act children’s rights and school violence an expanded discussion on practice interventions focusing on various approaches for helping children adjust to substitute care an expanded examination on advocacy and children’s rights, with emphasis on legal case studies as a tool for enhancing the rights of children Balancing theoretical considerations, solid information, and practical advice, Children’s Rights: Policy and Practice, Second Edition is an essential resource for child welfare workers, attorneys, educators, students, parents, and social workers.