There is a surprising dearth of information about the services provided to the children and families being reported to Canadian child welfare authorities, little research on the efficacy of child welfare services in Canada, and limited evidence of new policies and programs designed to address these changes. This paper reports on a research capacity building initiative designed to address some o...

Children of color are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system. In 2005 they comprised 53% of the 513,000 children in out-of-home placements in the United States [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration for Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau (2006). Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting Syste...

Family assessment instruments can enhance the clinical judgment of child welfare practitioners by structuring decision-making processes and demonstrating the linkages between assessment, service provision, and child and family outcomes. This article describes the concept of family assessment in the child welfare context and provides an overview of the theoretical and disciplinary influences in ...

This article provides a brief review of current large-scale, longitudinal data collection initiatives focusing on children. These studies will be available for secondary data analyses in the twenty-first century. In addition to child outcome data, process-oriented information is being collected on child-parent interactions, quality of child care, elementary school teacher reports and classroom ...

Elementary education in Germany includes all institutions which cater for children until they begin school. Its position is ambivalent: On the one hand, it is part of the educational system (elementary level), on the other hand it is part of the welfare system as it is provided by nonpublic and public youth welfare services. Therefore one can also speak of child care institutions, which, howeve...

This study explores opportunities and challenges for the participation of children young people in Norwegian Child Welfare Services (CWS) through analysis from an action research project. The project aimed at collective developing improving child welfare services a circle cooperation between people, social workers CWS researchers. researchers intended to involve directly project, but opposed th...

The Ryan Report, published in 2009, was not the first review of child welfare services to raise disquiet. Nevertheless it was unique in that its recommendations went beyond the deficits exposed by the report to comment on the entire child protection system. It is generally acknowledged that the model of child welfare that was the object of the Ryan Report no longer operates, and has been replac...

a r t i c l e i n f o While the gap between need for and access to mental health services is well documented among children of color in foster care, little is known about why they are sustained. To illuminate barriers of service delivery, thirty-six caseworkers participated in one of five focus group meetings in a large urban Mid-Atlantic City. Ground Theory Methods revealed that there are barr...

a r t i c l e i n f o This paper explores different orientations to child-centered social work as conveyed in the training materials and guidelines of Looking After Children and Assessment Framework in Australia, Canada and Sweden. 'Child centered' is shaped by contextual factors and influences social work practices. We found differences in these approaches as needs based and/or rights based an...