The Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study found that quality foster care services for children pay big dividends when they grow up. Key investments in highly trained staff, low caseloads and robust complementary services can dramatically reduce rates of mental disorders and substance abuse. This book offers a model foster care programme.

How Does Foster Care Work? is an international collection of empirical studies on the outcomes of children in foster care. Drawing on research and perspectives from leading international figures in children's services across the developed world, the book provides an evidence base for programme planning, policy and practice. This volume establishes a platform for comparison of international systems, trends and outcomes in foster care today. Each contributor provides a commentary on one other chapter to highlight the global significance of issues affecting children and young people in care. Each chapter offers new ideas about how foster care could be financed, delivered or studied in order to become more effective. This book is important reading for anyone involved in delivering child welfare services, such as administrators, practitioners, researchers, policy makers, children's advocates, academics and students.

Working with children in foster care is a demanding and rigorous aspect of social work practice. Difficult decisions in fast-moving and often complex situations have to be made, and for students and practitioners alike, there is a vast array of legislation, law and social policy to understand. This book is written to help social workers and social work students get to grips with the complexity of foster care. The child is placed at the heart of the text and there are substantial chapters on law, policy frameworks and the overreaching theoretical and research evidence to support good practice. There is also a strong focus on practical skills such as empathy and relationship-based practice. This is an essential text for experienced social workers or those currently in training.

Drawing on the findings of the largest recent study into foster care in the UK, and including quotes from children themselves, this book examines the impact on children three years after they have left foster care.

Working with children in foster care is a demanding and rigorous aspect of social work practice. Difficult decisions in fast-moving and often complex situations have to be made, and for students and practitioners alike, there is a vast array of legislation, law and social policy to understand. This book is written to help social workers and social work students get to grips with the complexity of foster care. The child is placed at the heart of the text and there are substantial chapters on law, policy frameworks and the overreaching theoretical and research evidence to support good practice. There is also a strong focus on practical skills such as empathy and relationship-based practice. This is an essential text for experienced social workers or those currently in training.

Sixteen British specialists in child welfare provide an overview of successful evidence-based strategies in social care services for children and families. Coverage includes social case services for adopted and looked after children; what works in relation to the social exclusion of children and young people; and interventions and strategies which can reduce morbidity and mortality. For social workers, teachers, youth workers and health care professionals working with vulnerable children. Distributed by Taylor & Francis. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Overview: More than two million child abuse reports are filed annually on behalf of children in the United States. Each of the reported children becomes a concern, at least temporarily, of the professional who files the report, and each family is assessed by additional professionals. A substantial number of children in these families will subsequently enter foster care. Until now, the relationships between the performance of our child welfare system and the growth and outcomes of foster care have not been understood. In an effort to clarify them, Barth and his colleagues have synthesized the results of their longitudinal study in California of the paths taken by children after the initial abuse report: foster care, a return to their homes, or placement for adoption. Because the outcomes of child welfare services in California have national significance, this is far more than a regional study. It provides a comprehensive picture of children's experiences in the child welfare system and a gauge of the effectiveness of that system. The policy implications of the California study have bearing on major federal and state initiatives to prevent child abuse and reduce unnecessary foster and group home care.