Collection: Children, Young People and Families

 

Long-established and featuring over 100 titles, this interdisciplinary list brings together work across Childhood Studies, Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology. The collection includes bestselling textbooks and critical monographs such as The Dynamics of Young Fatherhood, Decolonizing Childhoods, Child Development and the Brain, Children, Family and the State and Understanding Abuse in Young People's Intimate Relationships. It supports students in their successful study, challenges current policy and practice and offers practical guidance to those working with children and young people in often difficult circumstances.

Children, Young People and Families Collection

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This book traces the history of nurseries in the UK, the types and levels of provision, the long-standing splits between welfare care and public education, and community-based attempts to improve the situation. It charts the shifts in public attitudes towards these various forms of childcare and argues that the privatization of childcare, as for many other privatized services, has been a profound mistake that has entrenched inequality and resulted in poor-quality, yet very costly, services for children.

The book recognizes the considerable difficulties in overhauling the way in which nursery education and care are delivered and paid for, but makes practical suggestions about the ways forward. These include more support for flexible state nursery education, a ban on the offshore privatized nursery companies that increasingly dominate nursery ownership, a substantial overhaul of Ofsted’s remit, and involvement of the many unqualified care workers at the fringes of nursery provision.

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Understanding the Parenting Journeys and Support Needs of Young Fathers
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Around 1 in 10 children born in the UK are fathered by men under the age of 25. These men are often from socially disadvantaged areas and frequently overlooked in both research and practice settings. Using findings from a major Economic and Social Research Council study, supplemented with additional data, the authors focus on the transitions of the young men into early parenthood and their unfolding lives thereafter.

As negative popular and media discourse around young fathers begins to shift, policy makers, practitioners, researchers and students will find future policy and practice directions designed to nurture the potential of these young men and their children.

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New Approaches for Young People Affected by Extra-Familial Risks and Harms

EPDF and EPUB available open access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Based on the findings of the Innovate Project, a four year pan-UK study to identify the processes of innovation in care this book asks: how can services be re-envisioned and transformed through innovation? The authors provide an overview of the project findings and offer insights into the core conditions necessary for socially just and practice-congruent social care innovation.

Essential reading for anyone engaged in social care practice and innovation, as well as those undertaking continuing professional development, this book will aid the reader in developing a conceptual understanding of their experiences and support them in designing more informed responses to the challenges they face.

Open access
Children’s Rights and Resistance

Children in the Global South continue to be affected by social disadvantage in our unequal post-colonial world order. With a focus on working-class children in Latin America, this book explores the challenges of promoting children’s rights in a decolonizing context.

Liebel and colleagues give insights into the political lives of children and demonstrate ways in which the concept of children’s rights can be made meaningful at the grassroots level. Looking to the future, they consider how collaborative research with children can counteract their marginalization and oppression in society.

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Life Choices, Identities and Methods

What does mothering mean in different cultures and societies? This book extensively applies biographical and narrative research methods to mothering from international perspectives.

This edited collection engages with changing attitudes and approaches to mothering from women’s individual biographical experiences, illuminating how socially anticipated tasks of mothering shaped through interlinking state, media, religious beliefs and broader society are reflected in their identities and individual life choices. Considering trust, rapport, reflexivity and self-care, this collection advances methodological practice in the study of mothers, carers and childless women’s lives.

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Critical Perspectives on Children’s Services Reform
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Over the last decade there has been a series of Government policy initiatives in respect of children’s services and social work education in England, many of which aim to de-regulate or privatise aspects of these services. Critically considering the impact of the MacAlister Review, this book explores the past, present and future of children’s services in the UK from a range of perspectives – lived, professional and academic.

This accessible guide provides a timely and incisive overview of the current children’s services reform agenda in the UK. It identifies current challenges, analyses both strengths and weaknesses in the current policy agenda and sets out alternative policy and practice directions for a system that can meet families’ needs.

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Female Perspectives on Power, Control and Gendered Social Norms

Ceryl Teleri Davies’ research in female-only spaces informs this illuminating guide to young women’s experience of intimate relationships. Essential reading for those working with young people, the book makes a vital contribution to the study of gender-based violence. Her research reveals young women’s understandings of what it means to have a healthy relationship, and considers the influence of gendered social norms within both healthy and abusive relationships.

While contributing to the debate on how young women negotiate the conflicts inherent in contemporary constructions of gender, the book then suggests a pathway towards gender equality.

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From Embryo to Adolescence
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This bestselling textbook provides social science students with an accessible introduction to neuroscience and the implications for our understandings of child development, considering the links between brain development and social and cultural issues.

Now covering the 0-18+ age range, the new edition critically analyses the relationship between children and young people’s thoughts, behaviours and feelings and the ways in which their developing brains are structured. It includes a new section on emotional development in adolescence, considering the impact of drugs and alcohol on the brain and the role of brain changes in driving risky behaviours.

Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, the text connects the latest scientific knowledge to the practice of understanding and working with children. Incorporating the latest research and debate throughout, the book offers students and practitioners working with children:

  • case studies showing how brain science is changing practice;

  • a companion website including self-test questions;

  • end-of-chapter summaries, further reading and questions to test knowledge;

  • a glossary of neuroscientific terms.

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A Critical Introduction
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For anyone studying childhood or families a consideration of the state may not always seem obvious, yet a good critical knowledge of politics, social policy and social theory is vital to understanding their impacts upon families’ everyday lives. Accessibly written and assuming no prior understanding, it shows how key concepts, including vulnerability, risk, resilience, safeguarding and wellbeing are socially constructed.

Carefully designed to support learning, it provides students with clear guidance on how to use what they have read when writing academic assignments alongside questions designed to support the develop of critical thinking skills.

Covering issues from what the family is within a multicultural society, through issues around poverty, social mobility and life-chances, this book gives students an excellent grounding in matters relating to work with children and families. It features:

  • ‘using this chapter’ sections showing how the content can be used in assignments;

  • tips on applying critical thinking to books and articles – and how to make use of such thinking in essays;

  • further reading.

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Responding to Extra-Familial Risks and Harms

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

During adolescence, young people are exposed to a range of risks beyond their family homes including sexual and criminal exploitation, peer-on-peer abuse and gang-related violence. However, it has only been over the past two decades that the critical safeguarding implications of these harms have started to be recognised. Social care organisations are increasingly experimenting with new approaches but continue to experience challenges in supporting affected young people and their families.

This book analyses the results of the first rapid evidence assessment of social care organisations’ responses to risks and harms outside the home across 10 countries. The authors highlight key areas for service development, give insights into how these risks and harms can be understood, and consider wider implications for policy and practice.

Open access