Kelso, John Joseph

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Moscovitch
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Child Welfare System ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
First Child ◽  
Protection Legislation ◽  
Children's Aid Societies ◽  
Similar Legislation

John Joseph Kelso (March 31, 1864–September 30, 1935) was a young journalist when he became involved in child welfare in his adopted home of Toronto. He was instrumental in the passage of the first child protection legislation in Canada, and in spreading the need for voluntary children’s aid societies across Ontario and for similar legislation across Canada. He became superintendent of child welfare in 1893 and remained in that post for 40 years, shaping the development of the child welfare system in Ontario and Canada.

scholarly journals Exploring dominant child protection discourses: new possibilities for practice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nimo Samater
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Reflective Practice ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Child Welfare System ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Child Protection Workers ◽  
Emerging Themes

This research study focuses on attachment theory as a dominant discourse in child protection and the experiences of child protection workers. The literature on attachment theory and its influence on Eurocentric/Western knowledge is reviewed. As well, the use of reflective practice in child protection practice is discussed. This study includes qualitative interviews with three child protection workers in Southern Ontario who discuss their practice. Four emerging themes were derived from the narratives of the participants: recognition of attachment theory as being the pinnacle of child protection practice, use of observation as a tool to assess attachment, use of reflective practice and lastly, the stigma of Children’s Aid Society and impacts on practice. The findings in this study suggest how practice is led by policies and standards of the child welfare system and is rarely challenged. The need for the child welfare system to validate parent/child beliefs, values and practices from various ethnicities is discussed.

scholarly journals Child protection, capitalism and the settler state

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Hyslop
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Child Welfare System ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
The State ◽  
Family Court ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Role Of The State

The year 2019 represented a watershed moment for Aotearoa New Zealand’s child welfare system, as a public spotlight was shone on systemic ethnic inequities during ongoing legislative changes aimed at centering Te Tiriti o Waitangi and whänau, hapü, and iwi considerations in policy and practice. In the midst of this dialogue, Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Government hosted the “Children, Families, and the State”– a seminar series focused on the historical, current, and future role of the state in the lives of families and children. The seminars, and the discussion it generated, was due to the calls to action from speakers across the system, including leadership at Oranga Tamariki, within the family court, non-profit providers, commissioners and advocates, and academics. The four brief essays in this edition of Policy Quarterly capture viewpoints from several of the seminar speakers. Despite their different perspectives, common threads unite them. A greater recognition of the structural causes of the historical and current patterns of ethnic inequities in child welfare system contact, a commitment to whänau, hapü, and iwi-centred policy, practice, and partnership, the authors argue, are vital for a more just and empowering system. Here, Ian Hyslop highlights the ways in which New Zealand’s history of racism and colonialism has shaped the child welfare system today, and how a radical redistribution of power to whānau and iwi can help restore the social protection of children.  

scholarly journals “It's the Only System We've Got”

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria A. Copeland
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Child Welfare System ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Service Workers ◽  
Protective Service ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Intermediary Role

Front-line public “Child Welfare” caseworkers, also known as emergency response or investigative caseworkers, play a significant role in the “Child Welfare” system. Placed in an intermediary role within the system, investigative caseworkers are tasked with making critical decisions while attempting to advocate for families and uphold the system’s policies. To understand the caseworker decision-making processes more in-depth, a qualitative study was conducted with eighteen investigative caseworkers in four different counties. The guiding research question of the current study was: “What impacts the decisionmaking processes in which child protective service workers investigate and substantiate referred cases of child maltreatment?” Findings revealed several nuances and extensive complexities in how workers navigated often contradictory roles within the system. Important emerging themes include caseworkers’ use of surveillance during investigation and multi-institution partnership indecision-making processes. This Comment discusses the ways in which caseworkers react to and navigate ambiguity and parental resistance during investigations, lending an often-overlooked exploration into various nuances within the decision-making apparatus. Understanding nuances in the complex web of decision-making and information-gathering may lead to novel ways of thinking about how the “Child Welfare” system addresses child protection.

scholarly journals case for an inequalities perspective in child protection

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Keddell
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Child Welfare System ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
The State ◽  
Family Court ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Number Of Children ◽  
Role Of The State

The year 2019 represented a watershed moment for Aotearoa New Zealand’s child welfare system, as a public spotlight was shone on systemic ethnic inequities during ongoing legislative changes aimed at centering Te Tiriti o Waitangi and whänau, hapü, and iwi considerations in policy and practice. In the midst of this dialogue, Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Government hosted the “Children, Families, and the State”– a seminar series focused on the historical, current, and future role of the state in the lives of families and children. The seminars, and the discussion it generated, was due to the calls to action from speakers across the system, including leadership at Oranga Tamariki, within the family court, non-profit providers, commissioners and advocates, and academics. The four brief essays in this edition of Policy Quarterly capture viewpoints from several of the seminar speakers. Despite their different perspectives, common threads unite them. A greater recognition of the structural causes of the historical and current patterns of ethnic inequities in child welfare system contact, a commitment to whänau, hapü, and iwi-centred policy, practice, and partnership, the authors argue, are vital for a more just and empowering system. In this essay, Emily Keddell reflects on how a lack of an inequalities perspective in policymaking has shaped New Zealand’s unequal child welfare system, and the ways in which this perspective can drive down the number of children who enter the system in the future.

scholarly journals Foreword

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy D. Polikoff ◽  
Jane M. Spinak
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Current System ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Child Welfare System ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Regulation System ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Transformative Change

The 2001 book, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, by Dorothy Roberts, called out the racism of the child welfare system and the harms that system perpetrates on families and communities. Twenty years later, despite numerous reform efforts, the racism and profound harms endure. It is time for transformative change. In this foreword to the symposium Strengthened Bonds: Abolishing the Child Welfare System and Re-Envisioning Child Well-Being, honoring the 20th anniversary of Shattered Bonds, we highlight Professor Roberts’ articulation of her development as a family policing abolitionist and summarize the articles and comments contributed from scholars in numerous disciplines and well as impacted parents, family defense advocates and systemchange activists. These contributions help us learn from history and political theory; focus on the unique and shared circumstances of Native American families; critique, and call for repeal of, much of current law; condemn the punitive, and racially disproportionate, surveillance of families; and demand a new approach that diverts the massive funding of the foster-care industrial complex into support, services, and healing for families, tribes, and communities. We call for abolition of the family regulation system, the term we use as a more accurate description of what is commonly called the child welfare or child protection system. We situate this call in the context of the more developed movement for prison abolition. The current system is predicated on seeing individual parents as a risk to their children. It fails to see the strengths and resilience of parents and families; the harms of surveillance and removal; and the structural forces that harm children by failing to invest in adequate housing, income, child care, health and mental health services, and educational opportunities for all families. Abolition provides the transformative mind-set that will enable loving and strengthened families to raise happy, healthy, safe, educated, and imaginative children.

scholarly journals Child Maltreatment and Public Health: Do Gaps in Response during the COVID-19 Pandemic Highlight Jurisdictional Complexities?

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (13) ◽  
pp. 6851
Author(s):  
Colleen M. Davison ◽  
Susan J. Thanabalasingam ◽  
Eva M. Purkey ◽  
Imaan Bayoumi
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Maltreatment ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Child Welfare System ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Professional Journals ◽  
Increased Risk

Objective: Countermeasures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic produced an environment that placed some children at increased risk of maltreatment at the same time as there were decreased opportunities for identifying and reporting abuse. Unfortunately, coordinated government responses to address child protection since the start of the pandemic have been limited in Canada. As an exploratory study to examine the potential academic evidence base and location of expertise that could have been used to inform COVID-19 pandemic response, we undertook a review of child maltreatment research across three prominent Canadian professional journals in social work, medicine and public health. Methods: We conducted a pre-pandemic, thirteen-year (2006–2019) archival analysis of all articles published in the Canadian Social Work Review (CSWR), the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) and the Canadian Journal of Public Health (CJPH) and identified the research articles that related directly to child maltreatment, child protection or the child welfare system in Canada. Results: Of 11,824 articles published across the three journals, 20 research papers relating to child maltreatment, child protection or the child welfare system were identified (CJPH = 7; CMAJ = 3; CSWR = 10). There was no obvious pattern in article topics by discipline. Discussion: Taking these three prominent professional journals as a portal into research in these disciplines, we highlight the potential low volume of academic child maltreatment research despite the importance of the topic and irrespective of discipline. We believe that urgent transdisciplinary collaboration and overall awareness raising for child protection is called for at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as beyond in Canada.

scholarly journals Exploring dominant child protection discourses: new possibilities for practice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nimo Samater
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Reflective Practice ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Child Welfare System ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Child Protection Workers ◽  
Emerging Themes

This research study focuses on attachment theory as a dominant discourse in child protection and the experiences of child protection workers. The literature on attachment theory and its influence on Eurocentric/Western knowledge is reviewed. As well, the use of reflective practice in child protection practice is discussed. This study includes qualitative interviews with three child protection workers in Southern Ontario who discuss their practice. Four emerging themes were derived from the narratives of the participants: recognition of attachment theory as being the pinnacle of child protection practice, use of observation as a tool to assess attachment, use of reflective practice and lastly, the stigma of Children’s Aid Society and impacts on practice. The findings in this study suggest how practice is led by policies and standards of the child welfare system and is rarely challenged. The need for the child welfare system to validate parent/child beliefs, values and practices from various ethnicities is discussed.

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