Child Welfare
4 results
Building Solutions in Child Protective Services
Insoo Kim Berg & Susan Kelly
How does one change the attitudes and practices of child protective services (CPS)—a statewide bureaucracy often overwhelmed and understaffed? First, take an outsider to the system, Insoo Kim Berg, who has a vision and a solution-focused model. Add an insider, Susan Kelly, who understands the system. Spend many hours with CPS workers in the field, learning from them and helping them make the shift from a deficit perspective to a collaborative model that emphasizes strengths and solutions. Envision and implement change throughout the system. Celebrate small successes on the way to building family self-sufficiency and integrity.
This recipe for reforming child protective services is being followed in many public child welfare agencies, with growing success. In Building Solutions the authors explain how to conceptualize, implement, and sustain this hopeful and positive frame in a daily practice for dedicated frontline workers as well as for those in supervision, management, and administration.
The book has two parts. In the first, the authors put child protective services in context, introducing the system and their new approach, giving a brief history of child protection in the United States, and setting the stage for change. In the second part, the authors walk readers through the nuts and bolts of implementation, from the first phone call to case closure—including discussions about placing a child out of the home. Berg and Kelly also discuss supervision, consultation, and ongoing training, as well as their vision of the future of CPS.
This book is not a manual; it is a challenge to step out of the traditional CPS "box" and think differently—to create client-driven services that make sense. The authors challenge CPS administrators, supervisors, and workers to begin conversations about how the system can be more helpful and respectful to the families so that the parents can get what they need to care for their children. Building Solutions should have a place on the desk of everyone involved in child protective services.
Book
Tender Mercies: Inside the World of a Child Abuse Investigator
Keith N. Richards
This first-person, emotional account of a child protection service worker in New York State gives the reader an intimate look at all aspects of handling child abuse cases: interviewing parents who have been accused of abusing their children, talking to abused children removed from their parents' guardianship, working with an uncaring system, ironically designed with the best of intentions, and keeping up with the mounds of paperwork each case generates.
Lucid and disturbing, eloquent and passionate, Tender Mercies is a must-read for professionals and laypeople alike.
Professionals, Child Welfare, Effects of Trauma
Book
Child Welfare and the Law
Theodore J. Stein
Child Welfare and the Law Third Edition, by professor of social welfare and attorney Theodore J. Stein, PhD, provides and overview of the child welfare and judicial systems. Inside Dr. Stein examines the federal and state legislative and judicial foundations of modern child welfare practice; court decisions and their impact on the rights of birthparents, foster parents, and children; class action suits and their impact on child welfare; and the role of child welfare workers in the legal process. Appendices provide detailed instruction on conducting legal research and exerpts from a consent decree. The third edition of Child Welfare and the Law offers new chapters on adoption law and professional liability. Dr. Stein has also expanded his original chapers on the rights of birth parents & foster parents and legal research strategies.
Book
Peace in the Streets: Breaking the Cycle of Gang Violence
Arturo Hernandez
This is a compelling true-life story of gang life transformed in South Central Los Angeles, and a practical guide to parents, teachers, and communities. In 1982, Arturo Hernandez, an inexperienced yet committed teacher, changed the lives of 30 South Central gang members, ages 12-20. During that year, none of his students participated in violence, was arrested, or failed school. It was a year that transformed lives and created lifelong friendships.
A teacher and community organizer in South Central/East Los Angeles for the past 20 years, Hernandez's dramatic retelling of life on the streets challenges stereotypes and sheds important new light on the growing problem of urban gang violence. He also offers straightforward, step-by-step advice for communities to prevent and counteract gang delinquency.
Parenting, Professionals, Child Welfare
Book