It has been said that a picture says thousand words, art should speak for itself. Within the social sciences, there is recognition images are not merely illustrations, but “texts” can be read, studied and interpreted in different ways: they visual narratives. When we look at work of art, respond with our own thoughts, feelings ideas about what it communicates. portrait specifically, just lookin...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this paper is to examine how geographical availability of social services is related to foster care entry rates and referrals for child maltreatment investigations. The primary concerns are to (1) determine locations across Los Angeles County where the availability of social services is low but display a high need for those services and (2) begin to examine how the geog...

Children in foster care face a challenging journey through childhood. In addition to the troubling family circumstances that bring them into state care, they face additional difficulties within the child welfare system that may further compromise their healthy development. This article discusses the importance of safety and stability to healthy child development and reviews the research on the ...

The estimated three to four hundred thousand children in foster care represent a population at high risk for medical and psychosocial problems. Their problems are compounded by the lack of adequate resources available to them while in foster care. This study provided a medical and psychosocial screening of 149 abused and neglected children entering the foster care system. The goal was to genera...

The foster care system attempts to prepare children and youth who have suffered child maltreatment for successful adult lives. This study documents the economic advantages of a privately funded foster care program that provided longer term, more intensive, and more expensive services compared to public programs. The study found significant differences in major adult educational, health, and soc...

Youth exiting foster care often experience difficulties transitioning into adulthood. This paper focuses on Latino foster care youth in a major southwestern U.S. city and addresses the importance of peer networks as a crucial form of social capital as youth leave foster care. Case studies illustrate experiences of foster care alumni ranging in age from 18 to 26. Findings suggest that lack of ho...