Child Protection and the Care Continuum: Theoretical, Empirical and Practice Insights

This important new book critically examines the complex policy and practice issues surrounding child protection, including the impact of theoretical orientations, contemporary debates, policy initiatives and research findings, and maintains an emphasis on the ethics and values underpinning child welfare interventions.

The book introduces policies that are central to understanding the position and needs of children and young people, and how policy and practice have been influenced by developments including the children’s rights agenda. It also explores the most significant issues in child welfare. These include: the experience of maltreatment by children, the systems of child protection to safeguard them, the methods and challenges of risk assessment, and the wide range of policy and therapeutic interventions to respond to children’s needs. The book also examines family support to promote children’s wellbeing before considering provision for children and young people who are looked after in out-of-home care. There is also a final section that focuses on best practice in communicating and working with children and young people, drawing on participatory, rights-oriented and resilience-based approaches, and supporting foster and adoptive carers and biological parents.

Contributing in a substantive and clear manner to a growing international conversation about the present function and future directions for child welfare in contemporary societies, this textbook will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate social work students and those from allied disciplines, and professionals who are engaged in child welfare services.

Elizabeth Fernandez is Professor of Social Work, School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Australia. She teaches courses in Life Span Development, Child and Family Welfare Practice and Research. Her research focuses on child and family poverty, early intervention and family support, pathways and outcomes for children in care, including reunification of separated children and outcomes of care leavers. She has led several Australian Research Council funded research studies focusing on these themes and has published widely. She is Associate Editor for Children and Youth Services Review and The Journal of Child and Family Studies. She is recipient of the 2019 International Society for Child Indicators (ISCI) Award in honour of Alfred J. Khan and Sheila Kamerman in recognition of outstanding contribution to the field of child indicators research from an international perspective.

Paul Delfabbro completed his PhD in Psychology in 1998 and has been employed by the School of Psychology at the University of Adelaide, Australia, since 2001 in a combined teaching and research position. He was appointed to Professor in 2014. His principal research areas are behavioural addictions, applied cognition and child protection. He has published over 250 refereed journal articles and another 100 government reports, book chapters and conference papers.