The Welfare of Children » (2nd Edition)

About the Author:
Duncan Lindsey is Associate Professor of Social Welfare at the University of California at Los Angeles. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Children and Youth Services Review.

After spending half of his volume critically reviewing the historical development of child welfare systems in the United States, Lindsey (public policy and social research, U. of California at Los Angeles) looks towards long-term structural policies that will provide for the welfare of children. He discusses the welfare "reform" of 1996 and its largely negative impact on the economic circumstances of poor children. Finally, he proposes a "social savings" approach similar to approaches used in Britain's Child Trust Fund. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Library Journal

In a challenging, clearly written work, Lindsey proposes specific programs that, he argues, would do much to ensure adequate support for the largest impoverished age group in the United States today: children in single-parent families. He advocates moving responsibility for child abuse cases to the criminal justice system, leaving social welfare to focus on child neglect. He would establish a Universal Child Support Collection aimed at noncustodial parents, an across-the-board Guaranteed Child Exemption (tax credit) and, to provide "escape velocity" from the poverty/welfare cycle, a Child's Future Security Account (comparable to funding for the elderly or disabled). Like Marion Wright Edelman (Families in Peril, LJ 3/1/87), Lindsey sees neglected children as potentially valuable human resources, if society will commit to investing in them. Strongly recommended for professionals, politicians, academics, and concerned lay readers.-Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred