Towards Transformation: The Application of an Anti-Oppressive Framework in Child Welfare

Dear Colleagues,

The child welfare system, while purported to be an institution of benevolence, continues to produce adverse outcomes for intersectional marginalized children, youth and families. Challenges with systemic and structural barriers hinder the preservation of families and perpetuate the experiences of trauma to children and adolescents. An evolving body of research demonstrates that the application of anti-oppressive models across academia, scholarship, child welfare practice and child welfare policy can be transformative for the child welfare system and mitigate the impact of institutional trauma on children, youth and families.

Child welfare involvement is recognized as a catalyst for subsequent multisystem involvement, including juvenile justice and punitive alternative education systems. Challenges among marginalized populations involved in the child welfare system are unique and can be influenced by a wide range of discriminatory systemic factors. Singular focus on individual discriminatory systemic factors, as well as focus on the types of efforts utilized to foster systemic change, has continued to produce persistent negative outcomes for children and families. As such, there remains an urgent need for radical, interdisciplinary research and scholarship with findings that translate into meaningful global social policy change.

This Special Issue aims to center and advance interdisciplinary scholarship on the engaged Anti-Oppressive models in child welfare. The issue will focus on evidence-based empirical research, critical conceptual and contextual understanding and implications for transformed child welfare practice and policy. Submissions that center lived experiences from system-involved youth and families, that engage critical theoretical frameworks and promote systemic approaches that diverge from traditional reform efforts, are particularly encouraged.

This Special Issue welcomes original empirical research articles, systematic and scoping reviews and conceptual or methodological papers that explore oppressive practice and policy in the child welfare system and systems connected to child welfare. Additionally, topics that center on system-involved youth and family voice are encouraged. Contributions from social work, psychology, public health, education, sociology, criminology, juvenile justice and related disciplines are welcome. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the assistant editor of this Special Issue, Tanya Rollins, Doctoral Candidate, for her valuable contributions. Should you have any inquiries regarding this Special Issue, please do not hesitate to contact her at ivoices2020@gmail.com.

Research areas may include, but are not limited to:

• Addressing systemic oppression in child welfare practice and policy (i.e., mandated reporting, placement moves, Adoption and Safe Families Act)
• Dual-system-involved and multi-system-involved youth
• Structural determinants, including poverty, racism, gender inequality, disability and migration status
• Reimagining child welfare systems through critical theoretical frameworks (i.e., critical consciousness, Black Feminism, Abolitionist Theory, Queer Theory, etc.)
• Re-imagining youth-serving systems (education, health, juvenile justice) through critical theoretical frameworks (i.e., critical consciousness, Black Feminism, Abolitionist Theory, Queer Theory, etc.)
• Empowerment among BIPOC system-involved youth and families
• Anti-oppressive interventions and practices in child welfare and youth-serving systems
• Restorative practices in child welfare
• Centering lived experiences of system-involved youth and families
• Anti-oppressive family court systems
• Intersectional, participatory and innovative methodological approaches in child welfare research

Dr. Sherri Simmons-Horton
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• anti-racism
• anti-oppression
• critical theory
• child welfare
• transformative practice
• lived experience