Background: The current literature has established that prejudice in child protection cases with parents with intellectual disabilities continues to persist. However, complexities of these cases are not well-understood from the perspective of child protection workers. This study aimed to identify the needs of child protection workers and their…

Many children taken into care tend to be in need of psychiatric treatment as well as child protection services, and thus the professional expertise of both systems must be coordinated in their care. However, it is widely known across Europe that collaboration between child protection services and mental health services is not working well and the…

Coyle and Pinkerton identify gaps in the care leaving system in Northern Ireland regarding social work training and meeting the challenges of transitioning from care. The primary focus of this article is to provide a perspective of care and leaving care which could contribute to social work education and practice in these areas. Framed within a…

As states work to strengthen supports for young children's mental health, often with the goal of reducing the incidence of costly conditions at later ages, they face the question of how to finance new or expanded services. This brief examines states' use of Medicaid as a key source of funding for early childhood mental health (ECMH) services. It…

This report presents findings from a review and analysis of literature on the importance, effectiveness, and availability of support services for participants in job training programs in the United States. It assesses current knowledge about these services by examining reports on training and education programs, as well as literature on the…

In the absence of mandatory planning and support to assist all young people who leave care in Ireland, after-care provision is a "neglected" area of service provision and has been criticised for being inconsistent and ad hoc. The benefits of keyworker support for young people making the transition out of care is more clearly articulated…

Despite huge investment over the past 10 years, improving outcomes for looked-after children remains elusive. A challenge for practitioners, researchers and policy-makers alike has been the absence of a shared conceptual framework for considering and responding to the needs of looked-after children. A second challenge relates to the measurement of…

Older adults have always been important parts of children's lives, playing a variety of roles including grandparent, caregiver, friend, and neighbour. Grandparents also play a variety of roles in families. Often a child's first encounter with serious illness or death involves a grandparent or other older adult. Grandparents are also increasingly…

This study explored the mechanisms for culturally relevant training and coaching for early child care providers, especially family, friend, or neighbor (FFN) caregivers. In particular, given the evidence that coaching early care practitioners may have more significant effects than traditional training programs, the main objective of this research…

The Promising Practices Network (PPN) on Children, Families and Communities (www.promisingpractices.net) began as a partnership between four state-level organizations that help public and private organizations improve the well-being of children and families. The PPN website, archived in June 2014, featured summaries of programs and practices that…

This article provides an overview of the history, development, and conceptual framework guiding a national certification initiative for child and youth care workers. Summarized are descriptions of three certification assessment measures (supervisor assessment, situational judgment certification exam, and portfolio assessment), integrated with…

The implications of the practitioner's personal values are explored in relation to the professional issues of child and youth care practice. Values are inevitably a component of decision-making and therefore are integrally connected to ethics in the field. The prevalence of subjectivity over objectivity is emphasized in relation to in-the-moment…

Major strides have been made in the field of youth development. However, youth transitioning into adulthood have not received similar attention. These older youth have frequently been overlooked by policymakers and practitioners who have been more focused on designing programs and services for adolescents and young children. Because older youth…

The nation's child protection system (CPS) has historically focused on preventing maltreatment in high-risk families, whose children have already been maltreated. But, as Jane Waldfogel explains, it has also begun developing prevention procedures for children at lower risk--those who are referred to CPS but whose cases do not meet the criteria for…

The Comprehensive Services Program of Palm Beach County, Florida, was an ambitious and innovative effort to improve the school readiness of low-income children in Palm Beach County by identifying needs early and providing early intervention services to support physical, cognitive, and emotional health and development. Services were delivered to…