Researchers have identified four common co-occurring parental risk factors--substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, and child conduct problems--that lead to child maltreatment. The extent to which maltreatment prevention programs must directly address these risk factors to improve responsiveness to parenting programs or can directly…

Kimberly Howard and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn examine home visiting, an increasingly popular method for delivering services for families, as a strategy for preventing child abuse and neglect. They focus on early interventions because infants are at greater risk for child abuse and neglect than are older children. In their article, Howard and Brooks-Gunn…

Providing health care services for foster children, who frequently have significant health care needs, can be challenging. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) oversees foster care, but state child welfare agencies are responsible for ensuring that these children receive health care services, which are often financed by Medicaid. In…

Proposes a comprehensive definition of permanency planning and delineates its major components. (Author/RH)

A three-phase model for decision making at intake for both protective services and voluntary child welfare services is described in this manual. These phases include (1) reception, in which decisions are made as to whether a case seems appropriate for agency services; (2) investigation and problem assessment, which involves assessments regarding…

This paper examines the nature of the harm created by child abuse, both harm resulting from maltreatment itself and harm arising from professional responses to the discovery of maltreatment. The paper then explores ways of studying such harm in more detail and offers a pragmatic view of future child protection possibilities. (JDD)

Describes a continuum of services to families in their homes to prevent the necessity of child placement. Presents four categories of services--general case management, the comprehensive social worker, the in-house team, and the intraagency team--to aid families who demonstrate psychological difficulty and resource deficits. (Author/JAC)

This report presents an evaluation of the Intensive Services Project in Lincoln and McCook, Nebraska, which was designed to demonstrate that caseworkers with smaller child protective caseloads could offer more effective home-based services. The background of the project is described focusing on staffing and service setting. Service principles and…

Explores the Navajo Nation Division of Social Services' efforts to transform the Bureau of Indian Affairs service delivery paradigm into a more holistic case management paradigm for child and family services congruent with Navajo culture and rural location. Discusses a composite case to illustrate issues experienced by many Navajo clients.…

This booklet describes a state subsidy program designed to facilitate the adoption of black children in need of permanent homes. Program participants were children, ages 3 months to 17 years of age living in foster homes in Chicago and East St. Louis, Illinois. Some of the children had serious emotional and/or physical problems, but all were free…

This book of objectives, one of a series designed to provide a competency-based analysis of employment categories in human services, deals with the core competencies necessary for social workers. Addressed in the individual sections of the volume are the following skill areas: counseling, income assistance, administration, courtwork, government…