28 October 2022
While there have been ongoing calls to reform child welfare so that it better meets children’s and families’ needs, to date there have been no comprehensive summaries of child welfare reform strategies. For this systematic scoping review,...
This review explores the conceptualization of “child participation” in a child welfare context. The analyses are based on the theories, models and concepts researchers apply when framing their studies. Central to the authors’ conceptualizing is the u...
Even if numerous children and young people are looked after by child and youth welfare, there are only a few scientific studies on the reasons for this support. The aim of this retrospective descriptive study was to examine the reasons why child and...
Research has highlighted racial and socioeconomic disparities for families in child welfare, with calls to address inequities through trainings and structural change. However, few measures have been developed to assess the recognition of racial and c...
Although there have been developments in family and child welfare services, these have not been prioritized from a sustainability perspective. This article aims to provide a framework for supporting sustainable provisions for family and child welfare...
14 October 2017
Formal university–child welfare partnerships offer a unique opportunity to begin to fill the gaps in the child welfare knowledge base and link child welfare services to the realities of practice. With resources from a knowledge mobilization grant, a...
By the end of the 20th century, social class appeared to be an old-fashioned and outdated concept. Serious doubts were expressed about the theoretical and empirical relevance of social class in understanding inequalities in contemporary society. Howe...
The sustainability of Africa’s existing child welfare systems remains uncertain, potentially owing to the maltreatment of children amid the competing worldviews of the continent’s indigenous and non-indigenous practices and international childcare mo...
This article introduces the Third Space of Indian child welfare to theorize how Indigenous nations simultaneously engage and disrupt settler legal systems while building sovereign, care-based alternatives. Drawing from legal analysis, Indigenous poli...
This article discusses the safeguarding movement in the context of child protection. After providing it’s key principles and precepts, the relevant provisions of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child which link to safeguarding ar...
Due to harmful narratives within child welfare and child protection services and systems, mothers in contact with these services who aim to meet the symbolic representation of the ‘ideal mother’ frequently find themselves being portrayed...
Background: Two disciplines that work in the child welfare arena, social welfare and healthcare, are crucial for addressing families’ and children’s needs in social, emotional, and physical healthcare situations. How child welfare workers are trained...
Kinship caregivers encounter complex issues when interfacing with the child welfare system. Most kinship care families are not connected to child welfare. The experiences and extent of child welfare connection among older grandparents raising adolesc...
3 July 2019
Trauma informed care (TIC) is a whole system organisational change process which emerged from the seminal Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, establishing a strong graded relationship between the number of childhood adversities experienced and...
Professionals in charge of designing individualized plans for children and adolescents in the child welfare system often lack the necessary information, either because it has not been systematically collected or because there are doubts about the rel...
This article investigates the family and child welfare system in Lithuania in terms of social sustainability, with an emphasis on children’s rights. The conceptual framework of Gilbert et al. (2011a) on child welfare was used as the substance of the...
The use of information systems in public child welfare agencies of different countries is challenging primarily for frontline practitioners. This paper unveils how material information system properties are involved in the interactions of child welfa...
Youth who age out of foster care face a constellation of challenges associated with navigating the transition to adulthood and often do not have opportunities to express their perspectives. The purpose of this project was to partner with these youth...
In the United States, child welfare reform efforts have dominated three decades of landscape. With glimmers of systemic promise and innumerable individual success stories, data suggest insufficient improvements, resulting in calls for transformation...
Background: The purpose of this article is to explore how a sample of young mothers in contact with child welfare services in Norway narrate their transition to motherhood and their relation with child welfare services. Methods: The article is based...
Child welfare-affected parents of color (CW-PaoC) are often described using language that is deficit-focused, their families depicted as fragile and living in a near constant state of crisis and need. This commentary challenges the stereotypes create...
Universities are uniquely positioned to provide the very best training opportunities to public child welfare workers. However, university–child welfare agency training partnerships require a significant commitment of time and resources by university...
Parents with cognitive difficulties are consistently overrepresented in child welfare proceedings, yet such difficulties in themselves are poor predictors of parenting capacity. Research shows that many parents succeed when provided with tailored sup...
In this article, our intention is to provide an in-depth framework to inform the management of the inevitable complexity of day-to-day practice and supervision in child protection and welfare. It is based on what is now well evidenced about child pro...
Empirical analysis has found that mandatory reporting legislation has positive effects on case identification of child sexual abuse both initially and over the long term. However, there is little analysis of the initial and ongoing impact on child pr...
This qualitative study explores the experiences of child welfare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic through virtual interviews, focusing on the challenges and adaptations in their work and support systems. Participants reported significant difficul...
28 February 2023
The one-child policy, i.e., of having only one child per couple, was adopted as the essential family policy in China from 1979, and since the beginning of the 21st century, it has given rise to problems of special families under the one-child policy...
Victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) and their children may be at an increased risk for negative health outcomes and may present to healthcare settings. The objective of the current study is to examine the profile of medical-referred child welf...
The science of early childhood development underscores that maltreatment and other adversities experienced during infancy heightens the risk for poor developmental and socio-emotional outcomes. Referrals to supportive services by the child welfare sy...
Poor outcomes and several complaints to the judicial system against residential services for children have triggered a deep review of the Chilean child welfare services, particularly in relation to family reunification. This paper offers strategic gu...
This article considers selected drivers of decision variability in child welfare decision-making and explores current debates in relation to these drivers. Covering the related influences of national orientation, risk and responsibility, inequality a...
29 March 2021
Child welfare workers often experience work-related traumatic events and may be at risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can hinder early interventions for child abuse. This study examined the association between each single work-relat...
Truth-telling, a community intervention to increase reconciliation after systemic injustices, has been employed recently to increase public awareness of harms perpetuated by the child welfare industry in the U.S. Guided by participatory action resear...
This study explores how racialized migrant youth navigate Ontario’s child welfare, criminal justice, and immigration systems. Insights from youth, academics, practitioners, lawyers, policymakers, and social workers were gathered from a conferen...
Schools play an important role in ensuring the well-being of children, although the process of mandatory reporting of concern for children is not widely understood. This qualitative focus group study investigated the process from the perspectives of...
23 June 2022
When addressing child and youth mental health, policy makers around the world call for collaboration between welfare providers. Research shows, however, that cross-sector collaboration is challenging. This article aims to scrutinize the issue of sust...
In 1978, the United States enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) “to protect the best interest of Indian Children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families by the establishment of minimum Federal standards fo...
The NYC Administration for Children’s Services and MDRC have partnered since 2021 to develop a rigorous research agenda leading to an impact evaluation of the Family Treatment and Rehabilitation (FT/R) model, a “home-grown” New York...
This special issue deals specifically with the sustainability of families and child welfare with respect to sustainable social development [...]
27 June 2021
Studies show that a significant proportion of children in the Child Welfare System (CWS) have suffered adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which have led to well documented serious consequences. This study assessed and compared the ACE status of ad...
24 August 2022
Objective: We tested the efficacy of standard Parent–Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), a live-coached, behavioral parent-training program, for modifying problematic eating behaviors in a larger effectiveness trial of PCIT for children involved...
Combating child poverty is desirable to ensure equality of opportunities across children, as well as fostering the sustainability of the societal well-being for future generations. This paper focuses on the study of child poverty in the 28 Member Sta...
Most research on factors related to physical child abuse risk rely heavily on direct self-report measures, which is a methodological strategy susceptible to participant response distortions. Such methodological reliance obfuscates the interpretations...
Following a care order, children and parents are entitled to contact with each other in accordance with the conditions established by the Child Welfare Tribunals. How child welfare employees understand what contact visits can be and how they can be s...
In Spain, an average of 480 children per 100,000 is receiving some type of temporary care, and the reunification process is typically lengthy. Providing the biological family with specific training as part of the reunification process is key to sol...
27 June 2022
When parents are unable to raise their children or to meet the minimum acceptable standards for their care, this can lead to involvement with child welfare services [...]
The theme of this article is how child welfare workers understand children’s reactions when they assess visitation between parents and children in public care in Norway. The data material consists of 35 transcribed, anonymised recordings of chi...
Our children are our future. As noted in the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), “There is no resource that is more vital to the continued existence and integrity of Indian tribes than their children”. Native Americans have always fought for...
This study analyzed data from the 1998, 2003 and 2008 Canadian Incidence Study of reported child abuse and neglect (CIS) and compared the profile of children who were reported for an urgent protection investigation versus any other investigation or a...
This article discusses contact and interaction between children, siblings and parents after a care order. We have collected and analyzed audio recordings of discussions between child welfare employees in Norway. In these meetings, the employees discu...
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