Child Welfare for the Twenty-first Century

This second edition highlights the continuously changing child welfare climate in the U.S., including content on the Fostering Connections Act of 2008.

Gerald P. Mallon is the Julia Lathrop Professor of Child Welfare and executive director of the National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections at the Silverman School of Social Work at Hunter College. He is the author or editor of twenty-two books, including Gay Men Choosing Parenthood; We Don't Exactly Get the Welcome Wagon: The Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Adolescents in Child Welfare Systems; and Let's Get This Straight: A Gay and Lesbian Affirming Approach to Child Welfare.

Peg McCartt Hess has been a social work educator and child welfare practitioner, advocate, and researcher for more than forty years. She has served on the social work faculty of five universities and consults with states and agencies regarding a range of child welfare practice and policy issues. She is the author or editor of numerous books, including Nurturing the One, Supporting the Many: The Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, with Brenda McGowan and Michael Botsko.

Mallon and Hess offer an extraordinarily comprehensive account of child welfare practice, policy, and programming in this updated version of their 2005 classic.... Highly recommended.

Lorraine R. Tempel, Hunter College School of Social Work:
Gerald P. Mallon and Peg McCartt Hess have put together a comprehensive handbook that contains crucial material for individuals and organizations seeking information on the most contemporary child welfare issues in the United States. It provides hands-on, practice-oriented material while staying connected to the most relevant, legislatively driven policy issues and the associated front-line realities faced by those intimately connected to the field of child welfare.

Leslie Hollingsworth, University of Michigan:
The child welfare system in the United States is a complex one—in and of itself and in its intricate association with a number of other systems that directly impact children and families. This text does an excellent job of covering child welfare system national policies, the family and social issues they give rise to, and their implications for services to involved children, adolescents, and families.