Welfare Reform on the Web (March 2010): Child welfare - overseas

Improving school stability: an exploratory study of the work of the AB 490 liaisons in California

N.M. Shea, A.G. Zetlin and L.A. Weinberg

Children and Youth Services Review, vol. 32, 2010, p. 74-79

Children in foster care in the US are at high risk of academic underachievement. California Assembly Bill (AB) 490, which took effect on January 1st 2004, is a comprehensive set of laws designed to correct some of the educational problems that children in foster care face, particularly the adverse impact of school instability on educational progress. This study examined the effectiveness of the provision of AB 490 that required each local education agency to designate a foster care liaison to ensure proper school placement and facilitate enrolment and transfer of school records.

The travelling idea of looking after children: conditions for moulding a systematic approach in child welfare into three national contexts - Australia, Canada and Sweden

L. Nygren, U. Hyvonen and E. Khoo

Australian Social Work, vol. 62, 2009, p. 491-506

Looking after children (LAC) is an approach used to assess the psycho-social development of children in public care. It was developed in England but later applied in Australia, Canada and Sweden. This analysis of social workers' and managers' responses to an open-ended question in a larger survey has shed light on a number of key issues regarding the process of implementing LAC in new national contexts.

Ukrainian adoptive families

V. Groza and others

International Social Work, vol.53, 2010, p.19-31

In order to reduce the number of children living in residential institutions, the Ministry of Family, Youth and Sport in the Ukraine has redeveloped a domestic adoption programme. In this study, 365 families who had successfully adopted children were surveyed about their experiences of the system. Implications for policy, practice and future research are outlined.