African American children are disproportionally overrepresented in the U.S. child protection system. Because educational personnel are a significant source of reports of suspected child maltreatment across the country and in all states, the present study examines the impact of these reports on racial disproportionality and disparity at the…

For more than a decade, the Foundation for Child Development, through the Young Scholars Program (YSP), funded studies about the early education, health, and well-being of children from low-income, immigrant families. Through YSP, the Foundation aimed to fill a gap in policy and practice-relevant research on young immigrant children. It invested…

This report documents the efforts underway in 12 states and localities to tackle the enduring problem of African American, Native American, and Latino families faring worse than others being served by the child welfare systems. The publication, produced by Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) as part of the work of the Alliance for Racial…

This series of papers brings together distinguished experts writing on the use of class action litigation to reform public child welfare systems. It is an effort to tease out of four decades of experience in this work, the factors that increase the likelihood that litigation will result in successful system reform. This publication is an outgrowth…

Purpose: The Multiple Family Group (MFG) service delivery model to reduce childhood disruptive behavior disorders has shown promise in engaging child welfare-involved families. This qualitative study examines caregivers' perceptions of factors that influence retention in MFGs among child welfare-involved families. Methods: Twenty-five…

Since the mid-20th century, instructional technologies and educational media in social work education have undergone significant development with the goals of improving learning and performance and enhancing access. This growth has been marked by technical advances in hardware and by innovations in media, or so-called soft formats. Current…

Over the past decade, the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services (hereinafter referred to as "the Committee") has examined a number of rural issues that touch upon the social determinants of health. The Committee's past work has focused on understanding how conditions and outcomes such as homelessness, childhood…

Identification of the causes of child maltreatment perpetration is prerequisite for developing efficacious prevention initiatives to reduce its occurrence. Earlier maltreatment victimization is often suggested as an important cause of subsequent maltreatment perpetration. This study investigates a) whether maltreatment victimization causes…

The increasing ability of social policy researchers to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs) at low cost could revolutionize the field of performance-based government. RCTs are widely judged to be the most credible method of evaluating whether a social program is effective, overcoming the demonstrated inability of other, more common methods…

The understanding of the factors impacting MSW students' interests and motivation to learn child welfare competencies, and how they affect learning transfer of the subject is important for the development of a knowledgeable, competent, and committed workforce that serves children and families in the United States. Practitioners need to attain…

The role of parental trauma exposure and related mental health symptoms as risk factors for child maltreatment for parents involved with the child welfare (CW) system has received limited attention. In particular, little is known about the extent to which mothers receiving CW services to prevent maltreatment have experienced trauma and suffered…

Differential response (DR), also referred to as alternative response (AR), family assessment response (FAR), or multiple track response, was developed to incorporate family-centered, strengths-based practices into child protective services (CPS), primarily by diverting lower risk families into an assessment track rather than requiring the…

Proponents of "homeschooling" routinely claim it is legal for parents to rear their children as they see fit. This view ignores the "parens patriae" doctrine--the primary legal basis for the judicial regulation of custody and the legislative enactment of compulsory schooling laws for the benefit of all children. This article…

This paper serves as the introduction to the State Children's Cabinets and Councils Series, a set of reports intended to capture and organize the decisions and experiences of more than 20 children's cabinets and councils and present them against an emerging set of expectations about what the public and policy makers could and should expect from…

This study describes predictors of secondary traumatic stress and burnout in a national sample of helping professionals, with a specific focus on the unique responses of child welfare (CW) workers. Specific worker and exposure characteristics are examined as possible predictors of these forms of occupational distress in a sample of 669…