Manufacturing 'Bad Mothers'

A complex and punitive child welfare system has emerged, based on a view that the children of mothers providing deficient childcare require legally sanctioned rescue by those better suited to care for them. Karen Swift challenges both the accepted view of child neglect and the present official response to it.

Karen J. Swift is a professor in the School of Social Work at York University.

'Offers an explanation of why solutions to the problem of child neglect remain beyond the grasp of child-welfare services. The explanation is insightful and alarming - insightful because the author uncovers contradictions in the ways child-welfare services are constructed and delivered to families accused of neglecting their children and alarming because child-welfare organizations and workers are implicated as part of the problem.'

Maureen Stone:

'Offers an explanation of why solutions to the problem of child neglect remain beyond the grasp of child-welfare services. The explanation is insightful and alarming - insightful because the author uncovers contradictions in the ways child-welfare services are constructed and delivered to families accused of neglecting their children and alarming because child-welfare organizations and workers are implicated as part of the problem.'

Jane Heath:

'Offers an explanation of why solutions to the problem of child neglect remain beyond the grasp of child-welfare services. The explanation is insightful and alarming - insightful because the author uncovers contradictions in the ways child-welfare services are constructed and delivered to families accused of neglecting their children and alarming because child-welfare organizations and workers are implicated as part of the problem.'