Jacquelyn McCroskey

Family-centered services: approaches and effectiveness

Much of the emphasis in the nations system of child protection focuses on investigations to determine whether child abuse or neglect has occurred, and procedures for arranging out-of-home care for children who are not safe at home. Less attention often goes to the capacity of public and private agencies to provide services that help stressed families prevent child maltreatment before it begins, or that enable families with serious child-rearing problems to stabilize the home and provide more appropriate care for their children. This article examines the current understanding of the most promising and effective means of serving families. It highlights the family-centered service approach, which encompasses family support services for families coping with normal parenting stresses, and family preservation services designed to help families facing serious problems and possible out-of-home placement. The article explains the characteristics of family support and family preservation services, and discusses how these services are accessed and financed. It reviews available evaluation findings regarding the effectiveness of the two types of family-centered services, and considers the challenges faced when evaluating such services. Finally, the article discusses issues related to planning and service delivery, such as coordination and system reform, financing, targeting, relationships between workers and families, and efforts to strengthen entire communities.

A Model Curriculum for Occupational Social Work

Social issues in the workplace are of increasing concern to social services agencies, Corporate America, and organized labor. Increasing numbers of social workers are practicing in occupational and industrial settings, but the profession is still struggling with conceptualizing and implementing a curriculum that will prepare students for these careers and, at the same time, will be consistent with social work values and ethics. Few U.S. schools of social work, however, offer courses in the area, and even fewer offer a concentration or a specialization in occupational social work. The University of Southern California School of Social Work was one of the pioneers; it has offered a concentration in industrial/ occupational social work since 1982. During the decade of its existence, the faculty teaching in the concentration have developed a comprehensive model for teaching social work in work-related settings. The authors present a model curriculum for teaching occupational social work in a master’s program ...

Program and policy considerations for school age child care: the California experience

In 1985, the State of California enacted The School Age Community Child Care (SACCC) Act, a program of before and after school child care administered by the State Department of Education. During its first year of implementation, the act provided funds for subsidized child care for 190 public and private non-profit agencies to serve approximately 14,000 children in grades kindergarten through nine. Five conceptual bases for Californias SACCC are discussed: a developmental model of child care; comprehensive service delivery; public-private collaboration; a unified system of care; and system coordination. Administrative and public policy issues relevant to the program are presented.