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Family Preservation: Policy Implications
Public officials, agency administrators, practitioners, and academics have long debated whether child welfare agencies, in their efforts to prevent placement and reunify children with their families, were adequately addressing children's safety needs. The Adoption and Safe Families Act and amendments to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act seek to strike a balance between protecting children and preserving families.
Since this discussion began, family preservation programs have incorporated additional techniques and practices to ensure safety. At the same time, many communities have piloted new approaches, such as family group decision-making, community-based child protection, and community-based foster care, that aim to create broader circles of protection for children and support for families.
Best Interests and Family Preservation in America
Chapin Hall Center for Children (1997)
Discusses the idea of “best interest” and whether child welfare decision-making in the United States follows these principles when providing services to families. Presents recommendations for program design.
Controversies in Family Preservation Programs
Gelles
Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, 3(1), 2000
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Examines controversial policies and practices in family preservation by outlining research questioning its effectiveness. The author proposes that better assessments and decision-making could improve outcomes for children and families.
Does Family Preservation Serve a Child's Best Interests?
Alstein & McRoy (2000)
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Presents the opposing viewpoints of two social work experts about whether family preservation or adoption is the best method for ensuring stable homes for children.
Failed Child Welfare Policy: Family Preservation and the Orphaning of Child Welfare
Hutchinson & Sudia (2002)
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Discusses structural and procedural barriers in child welfare agencies that interfere with their ability to provide adequate family preservation services. The authors present a vision of a reorganized child welfare system that encourages flexibility and collaboration to provide better services to families.
Family Preservation and Child Maltreatment
Family Violence Research Program, Rhode Island University (1999)
In Rethinking Orphanages for the 21st Century
View Abstract
Presents research that indicates the priorities and policies of family preservation place some children in danger of re-abuse. Recommends that orphanages, or congregate care facilities, be reestablished and included in a continuum of care that offers options such as family preservation, kinship placement, and adoption.
Family Preservation: A Potential Not Yet Realized
Kelly & Blythe
Child Welfare, 79(1), 2000
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Traces the recent history of family preservation services, examines why efforts to implement family preservation have been less than successful, and proposes a strategy for ensuring these services reach their potential in the future.
Is There Justice in Children's Rights? The Critique of Federal Family Preservation Policy
Institute for Policy Research
Journal of Constitutional Law, 2, 1999
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This critique of the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act contends the law will serve to permanently remove a disproportional number of poor black children in foster care from their families, while facilitating their adoption into white middle-class homes.
Learning From the "Family Preservation" Initiative
Maluccio & Whittaker
Children and Youth Services Review, 19(1-2), 1997
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Looking at previous trends and research on family preservation, this article suggests that child welfare policy should offer a continuum of services that provide a range of alternatives between in-home and out-of-home placement.
Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative
Bartholet (1999)
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Discusses the negative consequences of family preservation policies, outlines areas for improvement in the child welfare process, and describes innovative service delivery models to improve outcomes for children and families.
The Shifting Policy Impact of Intensive Family Preservation Services
Chapin Hall Center for Children (2001)
Traces the evolution and impact of Intensive Family Preservation Services on State and national policy during the past 20 years.
Somebody's Children: Sustaining the Family's Place in Child Welfare Policy
Guggenheim
Harvard Law Review, 113, 2000
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In this critical review of Bartholet's book Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative, the author asserts that greater efforts should be made to support birth families and address the social conditions that contribute to maltreatment.
Whose Children? A Response to Professor Guggenheim
Bartholet
Harvard Law Review, 113, 2000
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In response to Guggenheim's critical review of her book, Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative, Bartholet clarifies and offers further support for her views.