Adoption research commonly uses parents' reports of satisfaction when examining openness in adoption arrangements. This qualitative study aimed to fill a gap in the adoption research by using adolescents' voices to gain a better understanding of their adoption experiences. Adopted adolescents (n = 152) were interviewed concerning their…

This article examines the community-level impact of concentrated child welfare agency involvement in African American neighborhoods. Based on interviews of 25 African American women in a Chicago neighborhood, the study found that residents were aware of intense agency involvement in their neighborhood and identified profound effects on social…

This paper identifies some of the obstacles to telling the truth that are found in the work and practice of social agencies for children. (MS)

Describes Statewide Adoption Network (SWAN) of Pennsylvania and its impact on increasing and improving quality of special-needs adoptions. Notes that program resulted from increases of children in out-of-home care, program is a public and private initiative, and that since its inception, special-needs agencies have increased, financial and…

Collaboration of a public social service department and a public adoption department demonstrated that it was possible to find permanent adoptive homes for many children who were in foster care. (Editor)

Discusses the new problems faced by voluntary agencies as patterns of financial support change. Decreasing general contributions, limitations of United Way campaigns, and aspects of purchase of service are considered. (DP)

Describes observations and interventions made by a social services agency in Israel as it attempted to develop a low-cost, efficient method of early intervention. Skilled social workers were hired and given special training. They then worked with caregivers in day care centers where children and parents were defined as at-risk. (SKC)

Potential problems of agency sponsorship of programs for disadvantaged children are discussed. (BRT)

Describes Tayari, an adoption service organized by black personnel with special procedures designed to reach black clientele. Tayari is a division of the San Diego County Department of Public Welfare. (BRT)

Describes an innovative program designed to train teachers to play an important role in school social work. (Author/CS)

Describes group education program for adoptive parents developed by a social service agency. The program aims at assuaging the fears raised in adoptive parents by the controversy over sealed records and the adoptee's search for biological parents. (CM)

Rather than being a by-product of the social activism of the 1960s, modern child advocacy began and evolved immediately after World War II in the context of the welfare state. The rise and fall of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York, begun in 1945, illustrates the changing content and meaning of postwar child advocacy. (TM)

Describes a program of peer supervision, consultation and specialized training that was implemented when the supervisor of four caseworkers (providing services to children living at home) was laid off. (Author/RH)