Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't: Working in Child Welfare

This text explores the lives of eight child welfare workers in an inner city office in Chicago, Illinois, USA. These men and women work in stressful conditions which frustrated and circumvented their child protection mission. Among the stressful working conditions were large and ever increasing case loads, bureaucratic deprofessionalization of their skills, antagonistic courts, and dangerous neighbourhoods. Each of the workers had native American children on their caseloads. These children, in particular, were made invisible within the child welfare bureaucracy. This book seeks to capture the workers' point of view. The reader is taken to meetings with children and their families, to Juvenile Court and discussions with judges and attorneys, to staff meetings and informal discussion. Above all, the book critically examines the practice of those employed to protect neglected and abused children and ends with arguments to address the current mis-directed focus of child welfare in the United States.