Mandatory reporting is the first step in a troubling and common cascade: Poverty, reframed as "neglect," precipitates far too many reports, with roughly one-third of children enduring a CPS investigation. Investigated families are monitored and coerced to change their parenting (usually without support for alleviating their poverty),…

The Youth Transitions Partnership (YTP) in Alameda County, California blends service coordination, intensive case management, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help transition-age youth in foster care engage with available support systems and subsequently improve their outcomes. As part of a formative evaluation of YTP, Chapin Hall…

Coyle and Pinkerton identify gaps in the care leaving system in Northern Ireland regarding social work training and meeting the challenges of transitioning from care. The primary focus of this article is to provide a perspective of care and leaving care which could contribute to social work education and practice in these areas. Framed within a…

Since the early 1950s, trends in children's mental health have moved care from residential and office-based treatment to community-based interventions. The Pressley Ridge Treatment Foster Care (PRTFC) program was developed in 1981 in response to these trends. Currently, Pressley Ridge provides PR-TFC treatment in 15 programs in six states and the…

Discusses foster care with potential for adoption, describes eight legal categories identified as appropriate for foster care/adoption planning, and indicates aspects of cooperation between social work and legal personnel. Rights of biological parents, the importance of trust among parties concerned, and misuses and pitfalls of the foster…

Describes the principal features of a multisystems approach to family preservation that involves placement prevention and permanency planning. The approach is being taught to family preservation workers in Illinois. Discussion concerns the approach's theoretical premises, tasks, significant assessment areas, and ways of understanding the approach.…

Describes a caseload weighting system used by a voluntary child welfare agency which successfully increased caseworker-client contact and improved the quality of the delivery of child and family services. (BB)

Describes the roles of judges and social workers in Dutch child welfare. Briefly outlines training efforts designed to help social workers give their assessments greater structure, case-planning scope, and clarity. (BB)

Summarizes the objectives, conceptual model, results, and implications of a project called Foster Care Training: A Comprehensive Approach, in British Columbia, Canada, which was designed to illustrate ways in which a networking model can provide increased support and training for participating foster parents. (BB)

Noting that improving practice in all child welfare services is a major goal of the Child Welfare League of America, this handbook presents goals and standards for services to strengthen and preserve families with children. The handbook begins with introductory sections describing standards development, detailing how to use the standards, and…