Protecting Children
Theoretical and Practical Aspects
By Kathleen Kufeldt, Barbara Fallon, Brad McKenzie
Description
Focusing on children who are subject to welfare intervention, Protecting Children addresses the challenges and issues of the child welfare system and provides foundational knowledge on the theoretical and practical aspects of the field. This edited collection begins with a review of key concepts, including child development, attachment, and resilience theories; social policies; family law; and ethics. Highlighting the translation of theory into practice, the contributors discuss current services and the search for best practice internationally, as well as explore Indigenous child welfare and offer conclusions and recommendations to promote positive outcomes for children and families involved in the system.
Scholars, researchers, and practitioners from across the globe provide insight on a wide range of timely issues, such as the risk of reductionism, limits to predictability, pragmatic issues, as well as the disproportional presence in the care system of minority groups, including Indigenous children, children of new immigrants and refugees, children in LGBTQ communities, and children of the poor. This foundational volume is an important resource for courses in social work and child welfare.
FEATURES:
- Includes contributions from researchers, practitioners, and scholars from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States
- Highlights Indigenous authors and personal stories of service users, and includes figures and tables throughout the text, as well as section introductions and conclusions to situate main theories and concepts for students
Details
Number of Pages
462
Dimensions
0.00 " x 0.00”
print ISBN
9781773382555
EPUB ISBN
9781773382579
PDF ISBN
9781773382562
Subjects
“As the science of child development and trauma grows, social workers and allied professionals are tasked in advocating for better services and social policies to meet the needs of abused and neglected children. This new collection from leaders in the field of child welfare research, policy, and practice delivers a clear message: Change is both needed and possible. With plenty of examples of successful programs for children from diverse backgrounds, both in Canada and internationally, the volume shows there is reason to believe that the future of services for vulnerable children will be more responsive, more culturally appropriate, and better at empowering families.”
—Michael Ungar, Canada Research Chair in Child, Family, and Community Resilience, Dalhousie University, and author of Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and the True Path to Success
“First Nations children and young people are loved by their families and communities. They also continue to face systemic racism by governments and others that is often codified as a parental deficit in social work assessments and interventions. This volume presents an opportunity for social workers to recalibrate their practice to actively address the structural risks that First Nations families face. The editors of this volume have long track records of respectful relationships with First Nations, and their works have informed significant and positive change.”
—Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada
“Protecting Children is an exemplary, multi-function work. It quests to serve best interests of infants and adolescents—without overlooking young adults, both before and after majority—who are adrift, or risk immersion, in opaque, stale soups of neglect or mistreatment. The book illuminates professional practices for holistically treating harmed or vulnerable children; furnishes concepts enriching research of the theory underlying child protection; cleverly informs the crafting and revising of germane state policy and legislation; and affords a college or in-service teaching and learning vehicle… Its editors—Kathleen Kufeldt, Barbara Fallon, and Brad McKenzie—ask, forbiddingly: ‘What would you do if this were your child?’ And some authors undertake the Sisyphean task of identifying: What is professional—especially social worker—child protection and rehabilitation ‘best practice’? For reassuring answers, look no further than Protecting Children.”
