Faced with rapidly changing social and economic conditions, service professionals, policy developers, and researchers have raised significant concerns about the Canadian child welfare system. This book draws inspiration from experiences with three broad, international child welfare paradigms-child protection, family service, and community healing/caring (First Nations)-to look at how specific practices in other countries, as well as alternative experiments in Canada, might foster positive innovations in the Canadian child welfare approach.

Foundational values and purposes, systems design and policy, and organization and management are discussed, as are front-line service delivery, service provider work environments, and the realities of daily living for families. Informed by recent research, the contributors provide clear directions for policy, administration, and service-delivery reforms. Informing policy debates addressing child maltreatment and family welfare, this book will serve as a vital resource for managers, service providers, professionals, and students in the fields of social work, child and youth care, family studies, psychology, and special education.

Table of Contents for
Moving Toward Positive Systems of Child and Family Welfare: Current Issues and Future Directions edited by Gary Cameron, Nick Coady, and Gerald R. Adams

Finding a Fit: Family Realities and Service Responses | Gary Cameron

Positive Possibilities for Child and Family Welfare: Options for Expanding the Anglo-American Child Protection Paradigm | Gary Cameron, Nancy Freymond, Denise Cornfield, and Sally Palmer

Mothers and Child Welfare Child Placements | Nancy Freymond and Gary Cameron

Canadian Child Welfare: System Design Dimensions and Possibilities for Innovation | Gary Cameron and Nancy Freymond

Using Intermediary Structures to Support Families: An International Comparison of Practice in Child Protection | Nancy Freymond

Aboriginal Child Welfare | Deena Mandell, Joyce Clouston Carlson, Marshall Fine, and Cindy Blackstock

Service Participant Voices in Child Welfare, Children's Mental Health and Psychotherapy | Marshall Fine, Sally Palmer, and Nick Coady

Placement Decisions and the Child Welfare Worker: Constructing Identities for Survival | Nancy Freymond

Professional Burnout in Social Service Organizations: A Review of Theory, Research and Prevention | Carol Stalker and Cheryl Harvey

Understanding and Preventing Employee Turnover | Cheryl Harvey and Carol Stalker

Treatment of Choice or a Last Resort? A Review of Residential Mental Health Placements for Children and Adolescents | Karen M. Frensch, Gary Cameron, and Gerald R. Adams

Fundamental Considerations for Child and Family Welfare | Nick Coady, Gary Cameron, and Gerald Adams