The Family at Risk: Issues and Trends in Family Preservation Services (Social Problems and Social Issues) - Softcover

Berry, Marianne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1570031630 ISBN 13: 9781570031632

Publisher: University of South Carolina Press, 1997

Synopsis

The promise and problems of a controversial effort to keep troubled families together

The Family at Risk offers a comprehensive overview and assessment of the family preservation movement, a relatively new and highly controversial form of service delivery to families at imminent risk of child removal. Mandated by federal legislation and hotly debated by politicians, practitioners, and public citizens, family preservation programs provide flexible, labor-intensive, home-based services that allow families to remain intact while addressing issues that threaten their safety and survival. Marianne Berry examines such programs, which have proliferated throughout the United States, and speculates on the future of this emotionally charged aspect of social work policy and practice.

Berry measures the overall effectiveness of several family preservation models currently in use throughout the United States; defines many commonly misused terms, including "imminent risk" and "reasonable efforts;" and illustrates how principles of family preservation programs are often at odds with the philosophy and constraints of larger public child welfare and child protective services systems.

About this title

About the Author

Marianne Berry is an associate professor of social work and director of the Center for Child Welfare at the University of Texas at Arlington. She is an author of Adoption and Disruption: Rates, Risks and Responses.

Reviews

The often wrenching question of whether children should remain with families even when conditions are considerably less than optimal informs this well-researched book by Berry (social work and director of the Ctr. of Child Welfare, Univ. of Texas at Arlington). Mandated by recent federal legislation, family preservation is of concern to policymakers, practitioners, and public citizens. Berry provides a comprehensive examination of family preservation in four major sections that consider its philosophical, practical, programmatic, and political aspects. Although her goal is to keep the family together, she does not prettify the picture as she details the labor-intensive work involved. This is an important contribution to the growing literature on family preservation and is appropriate to academic, law, agency, and larger public libraries.?Ellen Gilbert, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1570031630
• ISBN 13: 9781570031632
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 197