M. F. Föster and I. G. Tóth
Journal of European Social Policy, vol. 11, 2001, p. 324-341
Article describes trends in child poverty and family cash transfers in three transition countries of central and Eastern Europe. Finds that child poverty worsened in all three countries during the transition to a market economy, but that rates differed considerably from country to country. In 1995/97 the rate was 5% in the Czech Republic, almost twice that level in Hungary and three times that level in Poland. All three countries implemented social security reforms around 1995 which introduced means testing. These reforms signalled the abandonment of the aim of universal coverage. Finally notes that child poverty rates in all three countries would have been much worse without public social transfers.
Social Work in Europe, vol. 8 no. 3, 2001, p. 53-56
Article outlines the evolution and reform of the child protection system in France. The system is based on the concept of a democratic partnership between the state and the family for the benefit of the child. This legitimises the intervention of the juvenile justice system in wide areas of family life and identifies a number of common features in the legal bases of competence as these relate both to administrative (Child Welfare Services of the Départements) and to judicial powers (Children's judges).
J. Lawrence and P. Starkey (eds).
Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001.
This book brings together a selection of essays taken from an international conference on Child Welfare and Social Action held at the University of Liverpool in July 1998. Themes covered include child migration, child 'delinquency', fostering and residential care, and the physical and psychological traumas of children in care.