This brief explores challenges and strategies for evaluating systems and organizational change in US child welfare settings.

This paper outlines a psychological skills group for unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people with a focus on cultural adaptations in the context of a UK mental health service.

The authors of this paper aimed to examine the available evidence on the impact of overseas parental migration on healthcare seeking for common childhood illnesses and the nutritional status of children left-behind under five years of age.

This study compared the prevalence of mental health and psychosocial problems between left-behind children (LBC) and controls in Sichuan province, China.

The primary aim of this meta‐analysis was to compare the incidence rates and factor scores of behavioural problems in Left‐behind children (LBC), who now account for more than one‐fifth of Chinese children, and non‐LBC.

This comprehensive meta-analysis examined the pooled prevalence of depressive symptoms in ‘left-behind children (LBC)’ in China and its associated factors.

This study examined the effects of grandparent–grandchild cohesion on the cross-lagged associations between depression and cultural beliefs about adversity in a sample of 625 rural left-behind children in China.

This thesis aimed to systematically review literature on the types, measurement and effectiveness of residential staff training, focussed upon psychosocial outcomes.

This article investigates policy in the Philippines relating to the protection of children, which, despite policy efforts in this space, and growing evidence of child maltreatment and its impact, remains unexamined by the literature.

The European Commission Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO) commissioned SOS Children’s Villages International to undertake case studies of arrangements for ‘alternative child care’ in six non-European countries across three continents to help inform the EU’s future strategy for provision of support for children in countries outside Europe.  This report is a case study of one of the six countries, Ecuador.

The European Commission Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers commissioned SOS Children’s Villages International to undertake case studies of arrangements for ‘alternative child care’ in six non-European countries in three continents to help inform the EU’s future strategy for provision of support for children in countries outside Europe. This report is a case study of one of the six countries, Chile.

The overall purpose of this study is to present an ‘introduction’ to alternative care systems in Central and South America (CSA).

The objective of this study is to examine the intergenerational transmission of out-of-home care in Sweden.

This factsheet for families offers tips for helping a child transition from foster care to adoption.

This bulletin for professionals explores concurrent planning, which is an approach that seeks to reduce the amount of time children spend in foster care by considering all reasonable permanency options the moment a child enters the system.

The present longitudinal study explored the impact of initial emergency shelter placement on long-term externalizing behavior (i.e., aggression, delinquency) and internalizing symptom (i.e., anxiety, depression) trajectories, and whether kinship involvement moderated the effect of shelter placement on behavioral outcomes.

In this study, the authors assessed differences in the risk of early motherhood among low-income, maltreated, and foster youth and investigated whether differences likely reflect selection factors versus effects of involvement with Child Protective Services (CPS) or foster care.

This research examined the relationships among family structure (leftbehind status), caregiving, and child depression using archival data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses.

In this chapter of Communicating for Social Change, the author presents an analysis of the micro- and macro-level challenges of transnational separation of Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW)-parents and their left-behind children, which consequently beget psychosocial distresses among transnational family members.

This randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluated the effectiveness of the Incredible Years® (IY) Parenting Program in modifying children's behavioral problems, parenting practices and parents' psychological well-being among families under child protection and using other special support services.

The objective of the mission was to gather data on Honduras as a case study to support the IFRC global study on smart practices for protecting unaccompanied and separated children (UASC) from sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) through health and psychosocial services in last mile locations.

This study examined whether children with Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement who were in foster care had more advanced receptive vocabulary than children with CPS involvement who resided with their birth parents.

This book focuses on the lives of six mothers who had been pariahs and then became partners with child welfare commissioners, social workers, lawyers, foundation officers, and child welfare agency executives. It recounts how their courage and resilience brought about the most significant changes in the history of New York’s child welfare system.

The Routledge Handbook of Critical Social Work brings together the world’s leading scholars in the field to provide a cutting-edge overview of classic and current research and future trends in the subject.

This study tested the effectiveness of Parent Management Training, Oregon (PMTO) model on child social–emotional well-being.

The two goals of this article from the Special Issue on Adoption Breakdown of the journal of Research on Social Work Practice are the analysis of the duration of adoptive placements ending in breakdown and the role of age at placement in the breakdown experience in Spain.

The goal of this article from the Special Issue on Adoption Breakdown of the journal of Research on Social Work Practice is to review the existing research literature on adoption breakdown.

This article, that also serves as an introduction to the remaining articles in this special section on adoption breakdown, considers the multiple reasons why adoption breakdowns occur.

This special section of the journal of Research on Social Work Practice focuses on adoption breakdown.

Using the findings from a qualitative study, this paper explores social workers’ experiences of intervening in affluent families in the UK when there are child protection concerns.

This thesis explores the experiences and meanings that are attributed to kinship care by caregivers, young people of African descent, and social workers.

The aim of this study was to investigate how workers within Child Protective Services (CPS) systems in Colorado and the Netherlands measure and perceive the effectiveness of their CPS system.

This analysis examines both historical and contemporary approaches to addressing religion and race in child welfare policy and practice, with a particular focus on adolescent youth.

This study evaluated the health service needs of left-behind children ages 3-5 years old in Hunan Province, China.

The aims of this study were to systematically evaluate and comparatively analyse the mental health status of left‐behind children (LBC) in China and to provide a scientific basis for mental intervention and healthy education for LBC.

The First International Conference of the Department of Social Work, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, with the theme “Emerging and Contemporary Social Issues: The place of Social Work Education and Practice in Nigeria” was held 10-13 September 2018 and included 96 oral presentations of papers by delegates from across the country. Several papers focused on illegal adoptions of children in Nigeria and the role of social workers in addressing this practice.

This article by staff attorney for family law and child welfare at the Virginia Poverty Law Center's Center for Family Advocacy, Valerie L’Herrou, outlines and analyses several new bills introduced by the Virginia General Assembly in 2018 and their impacts on young people aging out of the foster care system and family reintegration.

This study investigated out-of-home placements in Finland among children with a biological mother having schizophrenia, and their relation to maternal characteristics and adverse perinatal health outcomes of the offspring.

This study explored the personal self-care practices of foster parents in one southeastern state in the US.

This exploratory, qualitative, multi-case study sought to understand, from the perspective of successful foster alumni college students, the role and influence of family members.

Building on discourse analyses of custody deprivation cases, the authors of this paper call for greater understanding of how disability intersects with parenting and the need for an improved support system.

This study compared adolescents in residential care (RC) in Portugal, with a Portuguese community sample on the incidence of mental health problems and psychosocial skills, explored gender differences and the relationships between mental health problems and psychosocial competencies.

This study examined the impact of the model of professional childcare in a three-year project involving fifty-three children and young people and their carers in local-authority children’s homes on two UK areas (Northern and Southern England).

This book takes readers on a journey that spans three decades and five continents, describing the work of SFAC to keep children in their families and communities or to find safe alternatives where this is not possible.

This paper from the Institutionalised Children: Explorations and Beyond Special Issue on Aftercare provides an insight into the lives of two care leavers to understand their experiences in the world outside care. It brings out significant recommendations for reforms in aftercare policies for children leaving care.

This study from the Institutionalised Children: Explorations and Beyond Special Issue on Aftercare describes the mental health outcomes and transition experiences of a group of young adults who are currently transitioning (aftercare) or have already transitioned (alumni) out of a residential care organisation for orphaned and separated children (OSC) in New Delhi, India.

This study from the Institutionalised Children: Explorations and Beyond Special Issue on Aftercare was conducted on 47 young adults who had grown up in various government and non-government child care institutions of New Delhi, India and the aftercare services they did or did not receive. The analysis revealed that the existing aftercare programmes are ill-equipped to prepare Out-of-Home Care (OHC) youth to transition from alternative care to independent living.

This study from the Institutionalised Children: Explorations and Beyond Special Issue on Aftercare is aimed at studying the concept of aftercare from the prism of human rights and the international framework in context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN resolution, Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children. Furthermore, the research is aimed at analysing the legal provisions and standards provided within the Indian legal system and how far it is attuned to the international standards.

This article from the Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond Special Issue on Aftercare explores the outcomes for young people who have transitioned out of alternative care and into independent living in Sri Lanka and the need for policy changes to better meet their needs.

This issue of the ICEB journal is a special edition on the aftercare concerns of young adults who leave the care of agencies and embark on a journey of their own.