Taking a novel approach to child support policy analysis, Single Parents and Child Support Systems locates the transfer of payments between separated parents within a wider social policy ecosystem and compares the political, institutional and administrative dimensions of child support policy enactment across the globe.

Within a historical and contemporary context, this book examines major policy practice and research issues as they jointly shape child welfare practice and its future. In addition to describing the major problems facing the field, the book highlights service innovations that have been developed in recent years. The resulting picture is encouraging, especially if certain major program reforms I are implemented and agencies are able to concentrate resources in a focused manner. The volume emphasizes families and children whose primary recourse to services has been through publicly funded child welfare agencies. The book considers historical areas of service—foster care and adoptions, in-home family-centered services, child-protective services, and residential services—where social work has an important role. Authors address the many fields of practice in which child and family services are provided or that involve substantial numbers of social work programs, such as services to adolescent parents, child mental health, education, and juvenile justice agencies. This new edition will continue to serve as a fundamen-tal introduction for new practitioners, as well as summary of recent developments for experienced practitioners.

On August 22, 1996, President William Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. Media and goververnment sources portrayed this act as the most important welfare reform since the passage of Social Security in the New Deal 61 years earlier. The hype around welfare reform overshadowed a significant section of the act entitled, “Title III—Child Support.” This section of the act made major changes in the child support program that is charged with the task of establishing, enforcing and modifying child support orders for children with non-residential parents. This book tells the story of the development and passage of the 1996 child support reforms.

This newly revised and updated edition of a widely adopted text continues to address a broad array of issues in supporting children and strengthening families. It includes key information about federal legislation as well as policy-related outcomes research in child welfare. The first edition of The Child Welfare Challenge was hailed by Social Work as "an excellent source from which to gain an in-depth understanding of the practice and policy dimensions of child maltreatment, foster care, and adoption" and by the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare as "essential reading for anyone interested in knowing more about child welfare practice in social work." Within a historical and contemporary context, this book examines major policy, practice, and research issues as they jointly shape current child welfare practice and possible future directions. In addition to describing the major challenges facing the child welfare field, the book highlights some of the service innovations that have been developed, as these could be used to help address some of these challenges. In child welfare the focus is on families and children whose primary recourse to services has been through publicly funded agencies. The contributors consider historical areas of service--foster care and adoptions, in-home family-centered services, child-protective services, and residential services--in which social work has a legitimate, long-standing, and important mission. This is a comprehensive book, but one that appreciates the fact that many areas, such as daycare and early intervention, invite exploration. It is unique in that each chapter describes how policy initiatives and research can or should influence program design and implementation.

Single-parent families succeed. Within these families children thrive, develop, and grow, just as they do in a variety of family structures. Tragically, they must do so in the face of powerful legal and social stigma that works to undermine them. As Nancy E. Dowd argues in this bold and original book, the justifications for stigmatizing single-parent families are founded largely on myths, myths used to rationalize harshly punitive social policies. Children, in increasing numbers, bear the brunt of those policies. In this generation, more than two-thirds of all children will spend some time in a single-parent family before reaching age 18. The damage done in the name of justified stigma, therefore, harms a great many children. Dowd details the primary justifications for stigmatizing single-parent families, marshalling an impressive array of resources about single parents that portray a very different picture of these families. She describes them in all their forms, with particular attention to the differential treatment given never-married and divorced single parents, and to the impact of gender, race, and class. Emphasizing that all families face significant conflicts between work and family responsibilities, Dowd argues many two-parent families, in fact, function as single-parent caregiving households. The success or failure of families, she contends, has little to do with form. Many of the problems faced by single-parent families mirror problems faced by all families. Illustrating the harmful impact of current laws concerning divorce, welfare, and employment, Dowd makes a powerful case for centering policy around the welfare and equality of all children. A thought-provoking examination of the stereotypes, realities and possibilities of single-parent families, In Defense of Single-Parent Families asks us to consider the true purpose or goal of a family.