The Handbook on Child Welfare Practice

This unique, multidisciplinary resource incorporates cutting-edge research and best practices in child welfare into a text that aims to teach and refine advanced child welfare skills for aspiring child welfare professionals. Featuring real-life examples and stories from the field, the handbook discusses existing methods and challenges in the field of child welfare practice. Chapters also include materials for instructors to use in classrooms or training settings.

Among the topics covered:

• Overview of child welfare policies and how the child welfare system works
• Assessment tools and strategies used to identify various types of child abuse and neglect
• Individual, family, and community-level approaches to preventing child maltreatment and preserving families
• Promoting stability after foster care placement
• Effective collaboration while working with special populations
• Clinical supervision in child welfare practice
• Strategies for healthy professional development of child welfare practitioners

The Handbook on Child Welfare Practice is a valuable resource as both a textbook in child welfare practice courses and a practical reference for child welfare professionals. This book will help develop a more knowledgeable and skilled child welfare workforce prepared to address the significant public health concern of child maltreatment.

Jennifer M. Geiger, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research focuses on promoting access and success for youth in care and foster care alumni in higher education settings. She also conducts research to support and promote resilience among caregivers (kin and non-relative) for children and youth in care. Dr. Geiger has co-authored 35 peer-reviewed journal articles, and 6 book chapters on foster care and child maltreatment. She co-authored “Intergenerational Transmission of Child Maltreatment” and “Assessing Empathy” in 2017. 

Dr. Geiger received her Master of Social Work in 2004 and PhD in Social Work in 2014 from Arizona State University (ASU) in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Geiger was a Doris Duke Fellow for the Promotion of Child Well-being and continues to be an active member of the network. Prior to returning to work on her PhD, she worked at the Maricopa County Office of the Legal Advocate as a Child Welfare Specialist. She worked alongside dedicated attorneys appointed to advocate for the best interests of children in foster care and ensure their social-emotional, psychological, educational, and medical needs were met. 

Dr. Geiger is the Principal Investigator (PI) for the Cook County Permanency Enhancement Project (PEP), a statewide partnership with the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services, which provides technical assistance to action teams in Cook County to address issues related to racial disproportionality and disparity in the child welfare system and communities. She is the Co-Founder for the National Research Collaborative for Foster Alumni in Higher Education (NRC-FCA), a national research collaborative to promote access and success for youth in care and alumni in higher education. She helped develop and implement Bridging Success at Arizona State University and the Sparking Success Scholars Program, recruitment and retention programs for foster care alumni, and was Co-PI for Bridging Success Early-Start, a pre-college program for foster care alumni designed to orient new students to college life and expectations at a higher education institution. 

Lisa Schelbe, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Florida State University College of Social Work in Tallahassee, Florida. Additionally, she is a Faculty Affiliate at the Florida Institute for Child Welfare. Dr. Schelbe is co-editor of the Child Adolescent Social Work Journal and editor of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) Advisor and Alert. Dr. Schelbe’s research focuses on youth aging out of the child welfare system with a special interest in their experiences with post-secondary education and early parenting. She is a qualitative methodologist with experience working on interdisciplinary teams. Dr. Schelbe has written over 35 journal articles and co-authored “Intergenerational Transmission of Child Maltreatment.” 

Dr. Schelbe earned her doctorate in social work from University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania where she was a Doris Duke Fellow for the Promotion of Child Well-being. Her Master of Social Work is from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.  Dr. Schelbe is a co-Director of the Child Well-being Research Network and served as co-chair of the Leadership Committee for the Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Well-being. She is a member of ReSHAPING (Research on Sexual Health and Adolescent Parenting IN out-of-home environments Group), an interdisciplinary network of scholars dedicated to research on understanding needs and improving outcomes related to sexual health and parenting for youth who are homeless, trafficked, or in out-of-home environments, whether in child welfare, juvenile justice, or other systems. Dr. Schelbe has served as a co-chair of the National Research Collaborative for Foster Alumni in Higher Education (NRC-FCA).