Contemporary Developments in Child Protection
A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2014) | Viewed by 303776
Special Issue Editor
Interests: social problems and social welfare; child protection and child welfare; social work; social policy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The last forty years has witnessed increasing public, political and media concern about the problem of child maltreatment and what to do about it. This is now evident in most jurisdictions and is receiving serious attention from many international and trans-national organisations. While the (re)discovery of the problem in the USA in the 1960s was particularly associated with the ‘battered baby syndrome’ this has now broadened to include: physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, abuse on the internet, child trafficking, sexual exploitation, and to effect all children and young people and not just young babies. Similarly the focus of attention has broadened from intra-familial abuse to abuse in a whole variety of settings including schools, day care, the church and the wider community. There has also been a broadening of concern from not simply protecting children and young people from serious harm but to also prevent the impairment of their health and development and to ensure that they are able to grow up in circumstances which are consistent with the provision of safe and effective care so that all children can achieve the best outcomes.
In the process the laws, policies, practices and systems which have been developed to try to identify and prevent child maltreatment have become much more wide-ranging and complex and have themselves been subject to continual criticism and review. Social workers, health and education workers, the police and other criminal justice workers as well as members of the wider community are all seen to have key roles to play in both protecting children and young people and assessing and monitoring actual and potential perpetrators.
While these issues have been subject to often heated and high profile media and political debate they have not received sustained analytic and research based attention in the social sciences. The issue of child protection is often seen as somewhat marginal to a whole range of social science disciplines. The purpose of this Special Issue is to try and act as something of a corrective to this. It encourages the submission of papers from a wide range of disciplines including law, sociology, politics, criminology, psychology, anthropology, education, social work, social policy and gender studies as well as contributions which are cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary.
Professor Nigel Parton
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 papers will be 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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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-blind 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. 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.
Keywords
- child abuse
- child protection
- child maltreatment
- public protection
- the role of state, family and community
- family support
- social surveillance
- risk to children
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.