Quality Matters In Children S Services

Quality Matters in Children's Services brings together authoritative research to explore critical concerns for those working with vulnerable children, young people and their families. Subjects covered include reunification, stability and wellbeing, kinship care, educating vulnerable young people, child protection, domestic violence and parental substance misuse, the participation of disabled young people and advocacy services. Mike Stein discusses key issues for policy and practice in the development of quality services including identifying and sustaining quality through involving stakeholders, integrated working and quality services, the development of policies, procedures and organisational processes and carrying out quality assessments, training and workforce reform. This book is essential reading for practitioners, senior staff, commissioners, managers and anyone involved in developing quality children's services.

Quality Matters in Children's Services brings together authoritative research to explore critical concerns for those working with vulnerable children, young people and their families. Mike Stein discusses key issues for policy and practice in the development of quality services.

Educational achievements for children in care are significantly poorer than for the general school population. This book explores why this is and how to enable children in care to succeed in the classroom. It evaluates the educational experience and performance of a sample of 'difficult' adolescents living in foster families, residential children's homes and residential special schools for pupils with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESD). The book addresses factors such as the failure to prioritise education for children in care, placement instability and disrupted schooling. It investigates care environments, policy changes and young people's background experiences - as well as the costs of services - in order to gauge the effectiveness of targeted initiatives. The authors adopt a multidisciplinary approach to suggest how best to support children in care in educational settings. This book will be essential reading for professionals supporting children in care, including social workers, directors of children's services, policy makers, school leaders, teachers and managers in the public, voluntary and private sectors. It is also highly relevant for social work and education lecturers, researchers and students.

This book draws on a wide range of evidence to explore the facts about the relationship between substance misuse and domestic violence and their effect on children, and examines the response of children's services when there are concerns about the safety and welfare of children. It reveals the vulnerability of these children and the extent to which domestic violence, parental alcohol or parental drug misuse impact on children's health and development, affect the adults' capacity to undertake key parenting tasks, and influence the response of wider family and the community. It includes parents' own voices and allows them to explain what help they feel would best support families in similar situations. The authors explore the extent to which current local authority plans, procedures, joint protocols and training support information sharing and collaborative working. Emphasising the importance of an holistic inter-agency approach to assessment, planning and service provision, the authors draw from the findings implications for policy and practice in both children and adult services. This book is essential reading for all professionals working to promote the welfare and wellbeing of children and those working with vulnerable adults, many of whom are parents.

This book focuses on quality issues in early childhood education and care in New Zealand.

Disability and Child Sexual Abuse examines the ways in which society marginalises, institutionalises and places disabled children in situations of unacceptable risk, and how - as evidenced in the survivors' narratives - patterns of service delivery can contribute to the problem. Based on the accounts of seven disabled individuals who were sexually abused in childhood, the book highlights a wide range of pertinent issues. Through case vignettes and empirical research, the authors ask practitioners to scrutinise their current professional practice, exploring participants' experiences of hospitalisation, education systems and local authorities. They consider the issue of who abuses and why, and highlight issues relating to the complexities involved in revisiting past experiences and confronting unwarranted and unwanted feelings of responsibility. The difficulty of recounting the abuse narrative is also examined within the research context. This book will be relevant for professionals and students in the social, health and education services, such as social workers, teachers and counsellors. It will also offer insights for those seeking a less disablist society, including disabled people themselves.

This book focuses on quality issues in early childhood education and care in Korea.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.