Vulnerable Children and Families in Child Protection

The notion of vulnerability has been spreading in the humanities and social sciences for several years. It is not without problems as in its time the notion of exclusion. The challenge of this work is to show that by putting forward the question of families' resources, their precariousness, it opens for researchers and professionals a possibility of renewing their points of view on these, that is to say to move from an analysis based on failures and a certain psychologization to an analysis which takes into account capacities, contexts, environments. The first part of the book seeks to clarify the contours and uses of the concept of vulnerability in child protection. The second part brings together different research works to describe certain aspects of the vulnerability of families, to question practices and to open perspectives in terms of the participation of children and families in the definition of projects that concern them.

Introduction: Vulnerability and Child Protection
Abstracts

Part One

Reflecting on Vulnerability

1. Education and Vulnerability: Social Diagnosis and Ethical Concerns
2. The Ethics of Ordinary Vulnerability and Philosophy of Trauma: Two Convergent Approaches for Rethinking Youth-Protection Practices
3. Vulnerability or Risk? When an Ecosystemic Analysis of Cases of Neglect in Child Protection Reveals the Shortcomings of the French Child Protection System

Part Two

Reflecting on Vulnerability in Child Protection Research

4. Family Reunification: a Challenge for Socio-Educational Action with Families in the Child Protection System
5. Vulnerabilities and Families: Conceptual Issues Associated with the Development of Vocational Training
6. The Lack of Family Support in the Immediate Postpartum Period and the Risk of Breakdown Associated with the Transition to Parenthood
7. The Placement of Children at Risk in Institutional or Individual Substitute Care in the Czech Republic
8. De te Fabula Narratur: Neglect and Vulnerabilities of Families, Professionals, and Researchers in the P.IP.P.I Programme
9. Interactional Dynamics in Child Protection
10. When Social and Health Vulnerabilities are Both at Play: the Trajectoriesof Child in Protection
11. Defining Cases of Neglect Within the Youth Protection System: the Importance of Parental Participation
12. The Dynamics of Supporting Vulnerable Couples within Parenting Centers
13. Immigrant Families Receiving Child Protection Services: an Experience at the Intersection of Multiple Vulnerabilities
14. The Challenges Associated with Reflecting on Children’s Trajectories and the Project in Day-to-Day Work

Conclusion: From Vulnerability to Participation

General Bibliography

Biographical Notes