Adoption has been a politically charged subject since the Progressive Era, when it first became an established part of child welfare reform. In A Home for Every Child, Patricia Susan Hart looks at how, when, and why modern adoption practices became a part of child welfare policy. The Washington Children�s Home Society (now the Children�s Home Society of Washington) was founded in 1896 to place children into adoptive and foster homes as a means of dealing with child abuse, neglect, and homelessness. Hart reveals why birth parents relinquished their children to the Society, how adoptive parents embraced these vulnerable family members, and how the children adjusted to their new homes among strangers. Debates about nature versus nurture, fears about immigration, and anxieties about race and class informed child welfare policy during the Progressive Era. Hart sheds new light on that period of time and the social, cultural, and political factors that affected adopted children, their parents, and administrators of pioneering institutions like the Washington Children�s Home Society.

This collection focuses on child welfare in its specific sense: welfare and social interventions with children and young people undertaken by State bodies or NGO's. The term 'child welfare' is deployed differently in diverse international settings. In the United Kingdom child welfare tends to refer to individualised programmes for children who have experienced problems in their lives. In India, to take a contrasting example, it can also refer to major housing and nutrition programmes. This collection takes an inclusive approach to international perspectives.The collection is completed by a new general introduction by the editor, individual volume introductions, and a full index.Titles also available in this series include, Medical Sociology (November 2004, 4 Volumes, 495) and the forthcoming collection Health Care Systems (2005, 3 Volumes, c.395).

Ecological Assessment of Child Problem Behavior: A Clinical Package for Home, School, and Institutional Settings discusses sampling methods to assess the problem child's behavioral interactions in the environment of the real world. The book focuses on the following facets of ecological assessment: (1) format of interview for the stage during the observational sampling procedures; (2) use of an observational procedure by adult members of the child's natural community; and (3) the employment of a standardized category coding system. In general, the book deals with devising a standardized category codes that will be used in direct observations of a clinical nature. The book shows that investigators of various theoretical merits attempt to construct category systems to systematize coding behavior such as those of Heyns and Lippit (1954), of Baker and Wright (1955) or of McGrew (1972). The authors enumerate the category codes to describe different aspects of children's social environments and their common behaviors that result from these settings. Behavioral scientists, psychiatrists, child psychologists, students and professors in the sciences of human behavior, particularly concerning children, are encouraged to read this book.

Home Truths About Child Sexual Abuse brings together the findings of research and clinical work by leading figures in the UK and USA. It makes visible the prevalence of sexual abuse and exploitation of children by normal, ordinary, heterosexual family men, both within and outside the family. Comprehensive and multidisciplinary in approach, it covers the many different aspects of child sexual abuse including: *phenomenology *definitions and terminology *epidemiology *explanatory frameworks *concepts and theory *the contribution of radical feminism *constructs, classifications and typologies *policy *treatments *multi-disciplinary and multi-agency work *medical advice *gender issues *criminal justice. The book provides the evidence and knowledge base necessary to begin to achieve effective prevention. It offers professionals, researchers and policy makers an invaluable source of reference and an informed basis for action.