Child Welfare Services For Minority Ethnic Families

Thoburn, Procter (both U. of East Anglia), and Chand (U. of Nottingham) present an extensive overview of recent research into the nature and outcomes of child welfare services for children and parents of minority ethnic origin. Coverage includes four extended commentaries on the research in family support, child protection, child placement, and social work practice, identifying where ambiguities, contested areas, and gaps lie, and suggesting a future research agenda. The commentaries are followed by a listing of the 70-plus publications and research reports of the main research studies referred to in the commentaries, summarizing the aims, methods, and findings of the studies. For educators, researchers, and child welfare practitioners, managers, and service planners. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

June Thoburn is Professor of Social Work at the School of Social Work and founding Director of the Centre for Research on the Child and Family at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. She has an international reputation for her research and writing on child and family social work, child protection, adoption and foster care. She was awarded the CBE in 2002 for services to social work. Ashok Chand is a Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Nottingham where he teaches child and family social work on qualifying and post-qualifying programmes. He is currently researching family support and child protection services to South Asian families. Joanne Procter is responsible for the statistical aspects of this study. She has a degree in social policy and is currently researching the place of in-court mediation in helping separating parents to reach agreements in disputes about children.