Child Welfare Strategy in the Coming Years.

This collection of policy papers by a dozen national experts in subject areas related to child welfare is designed to assist public and voluntary agency program directors in their efforts to update current programs or to design new ones. Sequentially the chapters: (1) set a framework for the following papers, (2) examine the provision of foster care to children as a decision making system, (3) provide analytic reference points about institutional care of children and use them for the projection of program goals, (4) examine change in the roles of the key actors in the adoption system, (5) analyze problems in the implementation of child welfare services, (6) develop a perspective on adolescent pregnancy and parenthood, (7) examine the functions and other dimensions of the child welfare field, (8) describe the national problem of adolescent status offenders and advocate a program outside of the juvenile justice system, (9) develop plans for children of divorce, (10) advocate reforms to protect the rights of neglected children and to restrict state regulation of family relationships, (11) provide an overview of problems of the Spanish speaking/surnamed poor and advocate appropriate programs, and (12) present reasons for developing a federal level, comprehensive, cohesive family policy. (Author/RH)