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In At Risk, Karen J. Swift and Marilyn Callahan examine risk and risk assessment in the context of professional practice in child protection, social work, and other human services.

This article explores the possibilities that letters hold for documenting women's experiences and the implications for feminist research and social work practice. The authors propose that letter writing is a promising practice and research tool for feminist social workers who are attempting to build egalitarian relationships.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Contributors -- Foreword -- PART I: LISTENING TO MESSAGES FROM THE FIRST LINE -- 1 Child Welfare on the Eve of the Twenty First Century: What we have Learned -- 2 The Changing Face of Child Welfare: Perspectives from the Field -- 3 Efforts at Empowering Youth: Youth-in-Care and the Youth-in-Care Networks in Ontario and Canada -- PART II: BUILDING FAMILY AND COMMUNITY SUPPORTS -- 4 The Focus on Family when Children are at Risk: Swedish Policy in Practice -- 5 The "Wraparound" Process: Strength-Based Practice -- 6 From Case and Client to Citizen: An Innovation in Child Welfare Practice -- PART III: CHILDREN ON THE MOVE -- 7 Unaccompanied and Asylum-Seeking Children Encounter Sweden -- 8 Offering Relief to Unaccompanied Asylum Seekers in Holland -- PART IV: VALUING DIVERSITY IN CHILD WELFARE COMMUNITIES -- 9 Tackling Racism in Everyday Realities: A Task for Social Workers -- 10 A First Nations Experience in First Nations Child Welfare Services -- 11 It Takes a Village: Building Networks of Support for African Nova Scotian Families and Children -- PART V: VALUING THE FIELD IN SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION -- 12 Developing Partnerships in Social Work Education in Britain -- PART VI: CONCLUSION -- 13 Valuing the Field: Lessons from Innovation -- Bibliography -- Index.

ABSTRACTAlthough teen pregnancy is on the rise in Canada, and while adolescent mothering in general has received considerable recent attention from researchers, there is a paucity of information about the particular experiences of young women who become mothers while in government care. Emerging out of a study guided by a grounded theory methodology to address this knowledge gap, this paper examines the experiences and perspectives of government‐based social workers who work with young mothers in/from care. Our findings indicated that social workers reflect prevailing middle class values, including norms about 'good' and 'bad' parenting, and centred around the belief that adolescent pregnancy is, in and of itself, bad. One of the most significant ramifications of workers' values was their belief about the inevitability of 'the cycle': of children in care begetting children who ultimately came into care. Ironically, though workers and young mothers were both preoccupied by the concept of 'the cycle', and each were determined to break it, the two groups had very different ideas about what the cycle was all about and what perpetuated it. Unfortunately, this disjunction in perspectives, along with major recent shifts in the direction of child welfare policy and practice and related constraints in the resources at workers' disposal, conjoined to create significant barriers to what workers and young women both recognized as supportive practice with youth in care.

ABSTRACTFathers exist in the lives of women and children involved with child welfare authorities, and yet, they are rarely seen by child welfare. This invisibility exists whether or not fathers are deemed as risks or as assets to their families. Using an analysis of fundamental child welfare policies and practices and relevant literature, the paper examines how 'ghost' fathers are manufactured, and how this phenomenon affects families and professionals in child welfare. An analysis of gender, class, race and culture of child welfare discourses shows how these fathers are seen as deviant, dangerous, irresponsible and irrelevant, and even further, how absence in child welfare is inextricably linked to blaming mothers. In failing to work with fathers, child welfare ignores potential risks and assets for both mothers and children.