The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), which became law in 1997, elicited a major shift in federal policy and thinking toward child welfare, emphasizing children’s safety, permanency, and well-being over preserving biological ties at all costs. The first edition of this volume mapped the field of child welfare after ASFA’s passage, detailing the practices, policies, programs, and research affected by the legislation’s new attitude toward care. This second edition highlights the continuously changing child welfare climate in the U.S., including content on the Fostering Connections Act of 2008. The authors have updated the text throughout, drawing from real-world case examples and data obtained from the national Child and Family Services Reviews and emerging empirically based practices. They have also added chapters addressing child welfare workforce issues, supervision, and research and evaluation. The volume is divided into four sections—child and adolescent well-being, child and adolescent safety, permanency for children and adolescents, and systemic issues within services, policies, and programs. Recognized scholars, practitioners, and policy makers discuss meaningful engagement with families, particularly Latino families; health care for children and youth, including mental health care; effective practices with LGBT youth and their families; placement stability; foster parent recruitment and retention; and the challenges of working with immigrant children, youth, and families. Reviews: "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." — Leslie Hollingsworth, University of Michigan "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." — Lorraine R. Tempel, Hunter College School of Social Work Contents: Preface and Acknowledgments Part 1 by Gendering the Divide 1. Religion, the Secular, and the Politics of Sexual Difference: An Introduction, by Linell E. Cady and Tracy Fessenden 2. Secularism and Gender Equality, by Joan Wallach Scott 3. Sexuality and Secularism, by Saba Mahmood 4. Must It Be Either Secular or Religious? Reflections on the Contemporary Journeys of Women’s Rights Activists in Egypt, by Azza Karam 5. Religion and Women’s Political Mobilization, by Ann Braude Part 2 by Gender and the Privatization of Religion 6. Secular Liberalism, Roman Catholicism, and Social Hierarchies: Understanding Multiple Paths, by Gene Burns 7. Gendering the Secular and Religious in Modern Egypt: Woman, Family, and Nation, by Margot Badran 8. Women, Religion, and Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Zilka Spahi?-Šiljak Part 3 by Gender, Sexuality, and the Body Politic 9. Bodies-Politics: Christian Secularism and the Gendering of U.S. Policy, by Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini 10. Crimes of Moral Turpitude: Questions at the Borders of Religion, the Secular, and the U.S. Nation-State, by Molly K. McGarry 11. On French Religions and Their Renewed Embodiments, by Nacira Guénif-Souilamas Part 4 by Bridging the Divide 12. Rescued by Law? Gender and the Global Politics of Secularism, by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd 13. The Brahmin Widow and Female Religious Agency: Anticaste Critique in Two Modern Indian Texts, by Rajeswari Sunder Rajan 14. Issues with Authority: Feminist Commitments in a Late Secular Age, by David Kyuman Kim Bibliography Contributors Index
About the Editors:
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. | 
