Attachment-based interventions in child protection cases

This dissertation focused on the role of attachment-based interventions in child protection cases involving young children. The results confirmed that placement decisions are impacted by subjective factors, including professionals’ own attitudes and mind-set. Because we argue that the influence of subjective factors can be reduced by inserting relevant evidence into the decision-making process, we tested the effectiveness of one procedure that might produce such information. Evidence for the notion that implementing an attachment-based intervention in parenting capacity assessments can enhance the quality of placement decisions was partially found in this dissertation. We found initial evidence for improved reliability, but not for improved validity, of placement decisions.

Taking these findings together with international evidence, we do tentatively conclude that attachment-based interventions can contribute to an improved quality of placement decisions. However, more research is needed to determine what implementation would be most fruitful in the Dutch child protection context. Finally, our finding that maltreating parents with more severe levels of childhood trauma benefited less from an attachment-based intervention implicates that we need to consider families’ individual needs when conducting interventions in this setting. This way, not only more parents will benefit from these interventions, their responses to these interventions might also be a more valid source of information to support placement decisions.

A Photographic Declaration for Kids

The 30 rights set down in 1948 by the United Nations are incredibly powerful. According to the UN, every human – just by virtue of being human – is entitled to freedom, a fair government, a decent standard of living, work, play, and education, freedom to come and go as we please and to associate with anyone we please, and the right to express ourselves freely. Every Human Has Rights offers kids an accessibly written list of these rights, commentary – much of it deeply emotional – by other kids, and richly evocative photography illustrating each right. At the end of this deceptively simple book, kids will know – and feel – that regardless of individual differences and circumstances, each person is valuable and worthy of respect.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of children’s human rights, collecting the works of leading authorities as well as new scholars grappling with emerging ideas of ‘children’ and ‘rights.’ Beginning with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world, this book explores the theory, doctrine, and implementation of the legal frameworks addressing child labor, child soldiers, and child trafficking, as well as children’s socio-economic rights, including their rights to education.

Children’s rights law is a relatively young but rapidly developing discipline. The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, the field’s core legal instrument, is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. Yet, like children themselves, children’s rights are often relegated to the margins in mainstream legal, political, and other discourses, despite their application to approximately one-third of the world’s population and every human being’s first stages of life. Now thirty years old, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) signalled a definitive shift in the way that children are viewed and understood–from passive objects subsumed within the family to full human beings with a distinct set of rights. Although the CRC and other children’s rights law have spurred positive changes in law, policies, and attitudes toward children in numerous countries, implementation remains a work in progress. We have reached a state in the evolution of children’s rights in which we need more critical evaluation and assessment of the CRC and the large body of children’s rights law and policy that this treaty has inspired. We have moved from conceptualizing and adopting legislation to focusing on implementation and making the content of children’s rights meaningful in the lives of all children. This book provides a critical evaluation and assessment of children’s rights law, including the CRC. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners from around the world, it aims to elucidate the content of children’s rights law, explore the complexities of implementation, and identify critical challenges and opportunities for children’s rights law.

A Commentary on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Protocols

This Commentary is a fully up-to-date, solid legal work on children’s rights. It offers a contemporary legal perspective on the inherently interdisciplinary field of children’s rights. It responds to the scarcity of legal commentaries in a landscape where several handbooks covering different disciplines have been published in recent years. It is succinct and seeks to capture the essence, yet offers a sophisticated analysis of children’s rights law and branches out into other disciplines where relevant in light of the recent legal and social developments.

The Tragedy of Children’s Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate

Hidden in Plain Sight tells the tragic untold story of children’s rights in America. It asks why the United States today, alone among nations, rejects the most universally embraced human-rights document in history, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This book is a call to arms for America to again be a leader in human rights, and to join the rest of the civilized world in recognizing that the thirst for justice is not for adults alone.

Barbara Bennett Woodhouse explores the meaning of children’s rights throughout American history, interweaving the childhood stories of iconic figures such as Benjamin Franklin with those of children less known but no less courageous, like the heroic youngsters who marched for civil rights. How did America become a place where twelve-year-old Lionel Tate could be sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 1999 death of a young playmate? In answering questions like this, Woodhouse challenges those who misguidedly believe that America’s children already have more rights than they need, or that children’s rights pose a threat to parental autonomy or family values. She reveals why fundamental human rights and principles of dignity, equality, privacy, protection, and voice are essential to a child’s journey into adulthood, and why understanding rights for children leads to a better understanding of human rights for all.

This beautifully illustrated picture book introduces the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It takes the key articles of the Convention and translates them into language children can relate to with full-page artwork, offering ways for teachers to open discussions about our ‘rights’. Topics include food and water, healthcare, housing, gender, the environment, race, education, poverty, disability, citizenship, family, war and freedom of speech.

A Commentary on the UNCRC, Optional Protocol 1

This volume constitutes a commentary on the First Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, dealing with the involvement of children in armed conflicts. It is part of the series, A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides an article by article analysis of all substantive, organizational and procedural provisions of the CRC and its two Optional Protocols. For every article, a comparison with related human rights provisions is made, followed by an in-depth exploration of the nature and scope of State obligations deriving from that article. The series constitutes an essential tool for actors in the field of children’s rights, including academics, students, judges, grassroots workers, governmental, non- governmental and international officers.

A Commentary on the UNCRC, Articles 43-45

This volume constitutes a commentary on Articles 43-45 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is part of the series, A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides an article by article analysis of all substantive, organizational and procedural provisions of the CRC and its two Optional Protocols. For every article, a comparison with related human rights provisions is made, followed by an in-depth exploration of the nature and scope of State obligations deriving from that article. The series constitutes an essential tool for actors in the field of children’s rights, including academics, students, judges, grassroots workers, governmental, non- governmental and international officers.

A Commentary on the UNCRC, Article 40

This volume constitutes a commentary on Article 40 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is part of the series, A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides an article by article analysis of all substantive, organizational and procedural provisions of the CRC and its two Optional Protocols. For every article, a comparison with related human rights provisions is made, followed by an in-depth exploration of the nature and scope of State obligations deriving from that article. The series constitutes an essential tool for actors in the field of children’s rights, including academics, students, judges, grassroots workers, governmental, non- governmental and international officers.