Child welfare services currently operate in an environment characterized by increasing need for services, and calls for cost containment and system reform. To survive in this environment, foster care agencies will have to reexamine their use of resources to ensure that they are used to achieve the best possible outcomes for the children in their…

This book brings together sources of material on poverty and family health and makes it accessible to health and welfare teams working with families with young children. It draws on a wide range of disciplines and uses both "hard" and "soft" data to provide facts and figures and first-hand accounts of how poverty affects family…