Child Welfare: Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice

Henry G. MacLeod teaches sociology at both Trent University and the
University of Waterloo.

In the early 1990s, Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) partnered
with the provincial and territorial directors of child welfare to
develop a child welfare research agenda to focus on outcomes and
prevention for children at risk and to undertake research. As part of
that agenda HRDC and Bell Canada funded a follow-up Child Welfare,
Research, Policy and Practice Symposium in October 2000 to look at the
progress since the first child welfare symposium in 1994. This book
comprises the papers presented at the 2000 symposium. The editors have
done an excellent job of organizing it under four themes/sections: The
Incidence and Characteristics of Child Maltreatment; The Continuum of
Care; Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice; and The Future of Child
Welfare. Each section has a brief overview and a concluding summary
chapter.

There is an excellent balance of quantitative and qualitative studies.
One study documents the incidence of reported child abuse and neglect;
another interviews grandparents who are raising their grandchildren.
Several chapters look at outcomes, while others address issues relevant
to the Aboriginal population. Significant emphasis is given throughout
the book to improving discontinuities in care, to improving the quality
of outcomes, and to reducing risk. The second-last chapter provides a
comprehensive list of critical issues in child welfare. The final
chapter looks at the eight-point research agenda from the 1994 symposium
to determine what has been accomplished.

Child Welfare is an important contribution to the current debate on the
difficulties in practice and service delivery in child welfare. There
will always be readers who wish that more were said on topics reflecting
their personal interests, such as the consequences of workplace stress
on child welfare workers. Nonetheless, this collection of 34 essays will
interest policy-makers, social workers, teachers, anyone working with
children at risk, and those in the academic community. It will be useful
to any person who wants a better understanding of the current crisis in
child welfare.