Suchergebnisse

Various studies suggest that family preservation intervention is less effective with maltreating families characterized by extreme poverty, single-parent status, low educational attainment, and mental health problems. Using a stress-and-coping model, the author explores the interactive effects of these factors in contributing to child maltreatment. Current research findings on the direct and indirect effects of poverty on parenting are cited. Ways of enhancing family preservation programs effectively to address the needs of poor, maltreating families are identified.

This article reviews the historical development in the United States of treatment family foster care as an alternative to the psychiatric hospitalization or long-term residential treatment of children and youth with serious emotional and behavioral disorders. Treatment family foster care has developed in three discrete systems of care: juvenile justice, child welfare, and mental health. The authors examine the relative contribution of each of these systems to its development, its current role in the provision of services to children with emotional and behavioral challenges, and the evidence-base for this form of care.

Preservation of high-risk families and prevention of foster-home placement has become a primary focus of child welfare services. Drawing from current research on the needs of high-risk families and on volunteerism, the authors explore the use of volunteers to help agencies providing family-preservation services meet the dual goals of prevention of abuse and neglect and preserving vulnerable families.

Though the psychosocial needs of children from alcoholic families are well-documented, the effects of parental use of illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine on the psychosocial development of latency-age children are relatively unexplored. The authors examine the current literature on these effects and, drawing on this literature, propose preventive intervention for children at this developmental stage.