The "orphan trains" : then and now -- Moving toward a racialized child welfare system -- Parents with disabilities -- Foster youth -- Foster parents -- Juvenile "justice" -- Toiling inside the bureaucracy -- The future of child welfare -- Real reform -- Child welfare and social reproduction -- Socialism and the parent-child relationship -- Appendix : from rights to reality : a plan for parent advocacy and family-centered child welfare reform
Summary
"In this groundbreaking look at the history and politics of the US child welfare system, 'When the Welfare People Come' exposes the system in its totality, from child protective investigation to foster care and mandated services, arguing that it constitutes a mechanism of control exerted over poor and working class parents and children. Applying the Marxist framework of social reproduction theory to the child welfare system, the author reveals the system's role in the regulation of family life under capitalism. Don Lash is an attorney who has practiced in the areas of disability rights, education, and child welfare for more than twenty years"--Provided by publisher
