This Week's Suggested Book
from the Ashbrook Center
(Monday, June 26, 2000)
 | | Rethinking Orphanages for the 21st Century
by Richard McKenzie, ed. |
Sage Publications
301 pages, January 1998
Hardcover, 27.95
ISBN: 0761914447
A percentage of the proceeds from your purchase of this book from Amazon.com will benefit the
Ashbrook Center.
With welfare reform at the top of the U.S. Congress agenda, the orphanage debate has resurfaced. The current child welfare system is obviously flawed, operating to the detriment of tens of thousands of children. Foster care, intended to act as a temporary solution, has become inadequate permanent care. While adoption is a solution for some children, many children are difficult to place or legally unavailable for permanent placement. Editor Richard B. McKenzie contends that the resurgence of private orphanages or children's homes will become a favorable option for those children. Rethinking Orphanages for the 21st Century reviews the policy reforms necessary for these homes to become reliable solutions for many of the nation's disadvantaged and abused children. This volume comprises the most contemporary work in that area, and maintains continuity and cohesiveness as it explores a variety of topics, including judicial issues, child maltreatment,
the history of orphanages, regulation and funding, and solutions for reform. McKenzie, who grew up in an orphanage in the 1950s, also includes the first and only large-scale survey of orphanage alumni, involving 1,600 respondents.
Child welfare professionals, policymakers, sociologists, social workers, and family studies scholars will find this timely volume of great interest.
Table of Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1. Rethinking Orphanages: An Introduction
- Part I. Child Care in the United States
- 2. The State of Child Welfare
- 3. The Nation's Child Welfare Problems as Viewed From the Bench
- 4. Family Preservation and Child Maltreatment
- Part II. The History and Impact of Orphanages
- 5. The Rise and Fall of American Orphanages
- 6. The 1994 Orphanage Debate: A Study in the Politics of Annihilation
- 7. Orphanage Alumni: How They Have Done and How They Evaluate Their Experience
- 8. Research on the Psychological Effects of Orphanage Care: A Critical Review
- 9. Fostering the Demand for Adoptions: An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Orphanages and Foster Care on Adoptions in the United States
- Part III. Problems in Bringing Back Orphanages
- 10. Social Security, Social Workers, and the Care of Dependent Children
- 11. A Public Choice Analysis of Child Care Dollars: The Political Bias in Favor of the Status Quo
- 12. Who Will Mow the Lawn at Boys Town? Child Labor Laws in an Institutional Setting
- 13. The Regulation of Orphanages: A Survey and Critique
- 14. Funding Our Children's Future: The Interplay of Funding and Regulatory Philosophies on Private Children's Homes
- 15. The Cost of Care in Institutions and Families
- Part IV. The Path to Reform
- 16. Rethinking Orphanages for the 21st Century: A Search for Reform of the Nation's Child Welfare System
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