Explore the vast range of titles available.

The 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has inspired advocates and policy makers across the globe, injecting children’s rights terminology into various public and private arenas. Children’s right to participate in decision-making processes affecting their lives is the acme of the Convention and its central contribution to the children’s rights discourse. At the same time the participation right presents enormous challenges in its implementation. Laws, regulations and mechanisms addressing children’s right to participate in decision-making processes affecting their lives have been established in many jurisdictions across the globe. Yet these worldwide developments have only rarely been accompanied with empirical investigations. The effectiveness of various policies in achieving meaningful participation for children of different ages, cultures and circumstances have remained largely unproven empirically. Therefore, with the growing awareness of the importance of evidence-based policies, it becomes clear that without empirical investigations on the implementation of children’s right to participation it is difficult to promote their effective inclusion in decision making. This book provides a much-needed, first broad portrayal of how child participation is implemented in practice today. Bringing together 19 chapters written by prominent authors from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and Israel, the book includes descriptions of innovating programs that engage children and youth in decision-making processes, as well as insightful findings regarding what children, their families, and professionals think about these programs. Beyond their contribution to the empirical evidence on ways children engage in decision-making processes, the book’s chapters contribute to the theoretical development of the meaning of “participation”, “citizenship”, “inclusiveness”, and “relational rights” in regards to children and youth. There is no matching to the book’s scope both in terms of the diversity of jurisdictions that it covers as well as the breadth of subjects. The book’s chapters include experiences of child participation in special education, child protection, juvenile justice, restorative justice, family disputes, research, and policy making.

Creating Trauma-Informed Schools: A Guide for School Social Workers and Educators provides concrete skills and current knowledge about trauma-informed services in school settings. Children at all educational levels, from Early Head Start settings through high school, are vulnerable to abuse, neglect, bullying, violence in their homes and neighborhoods, and other traumatic experiences. Research shows that upward of 70% of children in schools report experiencing at least one traumatic event before age 16. The correlation between high rates of trauma exposure and poor academic performance has been established in the scholarly literature, as has the need for trauma-informed schools and communities. School social workers are on the front lines of service delivery through their work with children who face social and emotional struggles in the pursuit of education. They are in a prime position for preventing and addressing trauma, but there are scant resources for social workers to assist in the creation of trauma-informed schools. This book will provide an overview of the impact of trauma on children and adolescents, as well as interventions for direct practice and collaboration with teachers, families, and communities. Readers of this book will discover valuable resources and distinct examples of how to implement the ten principles of trauma-informed services in their schools to provide trauma-informed care to students grounded in the principles of safety, connection, and emotional regulation. They will also gain beneficial skills for self-care in their work.

Violence in the home is one of the most damaging and widespread of social problems. It is an issue that cuts across all socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, gender, and age boundaries. Abuse and neglect can be found in all types of families and interpersonal relationships, and can take many forms including emotional, physical, financial, and sexual abuse. This book brings together the scholarly research and professional experience of numerous disciplines and reviews theoretical explanations. Taking a unique approach to defining family, it examines the complex, multidimensional phenomena of family violence. To further broaden an understanding of interpersonal violence, the book addresses violence against pseudo families, animals, siblings, and parents. It investigates the evolution of systems and institutions that interact with families and are mandated to provide protection and services, and explores the current debates surrounding public policy. In addition, the book explores the role of power in abusive relationships and considers the short- and long-term consequences of abuse. Also discussed are potential solutions for violence prevention.

Little is known about the effects of having a loved one on death row, and alternative visions of punishment that offer the possibility for forgiveness and recovery are also underrepresented in our system of justice and within the academic literature. In the Shadow of Death uses narrative accounts of individuals affected by the death penalty and crime to explore what it means to have a loved one on death row. The in-depth examination of this under-studied population adds to the literature on loss, trauma, grief, and recovery. In addition to theory on trauma and loss, the book also uses restorative justice theory, which holds offenders accountable while searching for ways to mend communities and lives torn apart by crimes, and explores options for the offenders' family members to be brought into the justice equation and the process of healing and recovery. The book uses myriad interviews with offenders' and victims' families, legal teams, and leaders in the abolition and restorative justice movement, as well as court documents that include in-depth psychosocial histories of offenders, in order to help ground a vision of justice rooted in the social fabric of community.

During the 1990s lone mothers reached the top of the political agenda, viewed as both a drain on public expenditure and a moral threat. What has been missing from the debate is an understanding of how we have got to where we are. This timely new study, by three leading experts in the field, sets out first to investigate the demographics of lone motherhood - how the pathways into lone motherhood have changed, and whether the changes of the last quarter of a century are as dramatic as they appear. Second, it looks at the wider context for the changes in lone motherhood in terms of ideas about marriage, and the changes in the construction of the never-married mother, from victim in the 1950s to parasite in the late 1980s. Finally, it examines the way in which policies have defined the problem of lone motherhood over time and the way in which lone mothers have been treated with regard to housing, social security, and employment. The study concludes that there is little possiblility of putting the genie back in the bottle in terms of reducing the number of lone mothers—efforts to do so by reducing public expenditure on them may be effective, but at the expense of the children involved. Instead, the authors urge policy-makers to change focus again, and pay more attention to investing in children.

The vast changes in family life—the rise of single, same-sex, and two-paycheck parents—have often been blamed for declining morality and unhappy children. Drawing upon pioneering research with the children of the gender revolution, Kathleen Gerson reveals that it is not a lack of “family values,” but rigid social and economic forces that make it difficult to live out those values. In the controversial public debate over modern American families, The Unfinished Revolution takes a measured approach, looking at the young adults who grew up in the tumultuous post-feminist period. Despite the entrance of women into the workforce and the blurring of once clearly defined gender boundaries, men and women live in a world where the demands of balancing parenting and work, autonomy and commitment, time and money are left largely unresolved. Gerson finds that while an overwhelming majority of young men and women see an egalitarian balance within committed relationships as the ideal, today's social and economic realities remain based on traditional-and now obsolete-distinctions between breadwinning and caretaking. In this equity vacuum, men and women develop conflicting strategies, with women stressing self-reliance and men seeking a new traditionalism. With compassion for all perspectives, Gerson argues that whether one decides to give in to traditionally imbalanced relationships or to avoid marriage completely, these approaches are second-best responses, not personal preferences or inherent attributes, and they will shift if new options can be created to help people achieve their egalitarian aspirations. The Unfinished Revolution makes clear recommendations for the kinds of workplace and community changes that would best bring about a more egalitarian family life—a new flexibility at work and at home that benefits families, encourages a thriving economy, and helps women and men integrate love and work.

Most Americans are insulated from the poor; it is hard to imagine the challenges of poverty, the daily fears of crime and victimization, the frustration of not being able to provide for a child. Instead, we are often exposed to the rhetoric and hyperbole about the excesses of the American welfare system. These messages color our perception of the welfare problem in the United States and they close the American mind to a full understanding of the complexity of family poverty. But who are these poor families? What do we know about how they arrived in such desperate straits? Is poverty their fate for a lifetime or for only a brief period? Faces of Poverty answers these questions as it dispels the misconceptions and myths about welfare and the welfare population that have clouded the true picture of poverty in America. Over the course of a year, the author spent numerous hours as a participant-observer with five women and their families, documenting their daily activities, thoughts, and fears as they managed the strains of poverty. We meet Ana, Sandy, Rebecca, Darlene, and Cora, all of whom, at some point, have turned to welfare for support. Each represents a wider segment of the welfare population, ranging from Ana (who lost a business, injured her back, and temporarily lost her job, all in a short period of time) to Cora (who was raised in poverty, spent ten years in an abusive relationship, and now struggles to raise six children in a drug-infested neighborhood). As the author documents these women's experiences, she also debunks many of the myths about welfare: she reveals that welfare is not generous (welfare families remain below the poverty line, even with government assistance); that the majority of women on welfare are not long-term welfare dependents; that welfare does not run in families; that “welfare mothers” do not keep having children in order to increase their payments (women on welfare have, on average, two children); and that almost half of all women on welfare turned to it after a divorce. At a time when welfare has become a hotly debated political issue, Faces of Poverty gives us the facts. The debate surrounding welfare will continue as each of the 50 states struggles to reform their welfare programs, and this debate will turn on the public's perception of the welfare population. The author offers insight into each of the reforms under consideration, and starkly demonstrates their implications for poor women and children. She provides a window into these women's lives, portraying their hopes and fears, and their struggle to live with dignity.

It is a cool, clear morning in Oceanside Terrace, a working-class suburb where American flags are almost as plentiful as family pets. As Josh answers the doorbell, I anticipate the story he will tell. His brief answers to a telephone survey tell a straightforward tale of growing up in a stable, two-parent home of the kind Americans like to call “traditional.” He reported, for instance, that his dad worked as a carpenter throughout his childhood, his mom stayed home during most of his preschool years, and his parents raised three sons and were still married after thirty years. After we settle into overstuffed chairs in his parents’ cozy living room, where he is home for a brief visit, the more complete life story Josh tells belies this simple image of family life. Despite the apparent stability and continuity conveyed in the telephone survey, Josh actually felt he lived in three different families, one after the other. Anchored by a breadwinning father and a home-centered mother, the first did indeed take a traditional form. Yet this outward appearance mattered less to him than his parents’ constant fighting over money, housework, and the drug and alcohol habit his father developed in the army. As Josh put it, “All I remember is just being real upset, not being able to look at the benefits if it would remain like that, having all the fighting and that element in the house.”

Born into an era of tumultuous shifts in the way their parents organized and balanced their work and family lives, the children of the gender revolution inherited a complicated mix of new options, challenges, and uncertainties. As they move into and through adulthood, they have an unprecedented opportunity to create new ways of living, working, and building families, but they also face entrenched patterns of working and caretaking that pose unavoidable dilemmas. This unique position gives their lives special significance. As a window onto the causes, processes, and limits of social change, their experiences call on us to reframe the broader debate about gender, work, and family. How they negotiate life paths amid the persistent obstacles also provides telling lessons about what social policies will allow new generations to achieve the lives they seek.

The children of the gender revolution are preparing for an irreversibly transformed world, in which unpredictable personal and social challenges make gender flexibility and work-family balance not just appealing but essential. Yet the realities of resistant social and economic institutions make these ideals seem distant and elusive. With no way back to a dimly perceived past and no clear path toward their desired goals, young adults must formulate “second best” strategies to cope with an uncertain future. These fallback strategies take women and men in different and potentially clashing directions in their quest for security and personal happiness. Yet ideals do not perish simply because they are difficult to achieve. Few of my interviewees wish to return to a time when work and family “roles” were clear, distinct, and taken for granted. When asked to compare their options with those of their parents and grandparents, women and men overwhelmingly agree that, despite the obstacles, women are better off today. In response to the question “On balance, do you think women have it better today than they did in the past, worse today, or is there no difference,” 83 percent of women and 76 percent of men say today’s women have it better.