Books in the Advances in Child and Family Policy and Practice series

This open access book focuses on the public health crisis of youth suicide and provides a review of current research and prevention practices. It addresses important topics, including suicide epidemiology, suicide risk detection in school and medical settings, critical cultural considerations, and approaches to lethal means safety. This book offers cutting-edge research on emerging discoveries in the neurobiology of suicide, psychopharmacology, and machine learning. It focuses on upstream suicide prevention research methods and details how cost-effective approaches can mitigate youth suicide risk when implemented at a universal level. Chapters discuss critical areas for future research, including how to evaluate the effectiveness of suicide prevention and intervention efforts, increase access to mental health care, and overcome systemic barriers that undermine generalizability of prevention strategies. Finally, this book highlights what is currently working well in youth suicide prevention and, just as important, which areas require more attention and support.Key topics include:The neurobiology of suicide in at-risk children and adolescents.The role of machine learning in youth suicide prevention.Suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention in schools.Suicide risk screening and assessment in medical settings.Culturally informed risk assessment and suicide prevention efforts with minority youth.School mental health partnerships and telehealth models of care in rural communities.Suicide and self-harm prevention and interventions for LGBTQ+ youth.Risk factors associated with suicidal behavior in Black youth.Preventing suicide in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID).Youth Suicide Prevention and Intervention is a must-have resource for policy makers and related professionals,graduate students, and researchers in child and school psychology, family studies, public health, social work, law/criminal justice, sociology, and all related disciplines.

This brief examines the U.S. foster care system and seeks to explain why the foster care system functions as it does and how it can be improved to serve the best interest of children. It defines and evaluates key challenges that undermine child safety and well-being in the current foster care system. Chapters highlight the competing values and priorities of the system as well as the pros and cons for the use of foster care. In addition, chapters assess whether the performance objectives in which states are evaluated by the federal government are sufficient to achieve positive health and well-being outcomes for children who experience foster care. Finally, it offers recommendations for improving the system and maximizing positive outcomes.Topics featured in this brief include: Legal aspects of removal and placement of children in foster care.The effectiveness of prior efforts to reform foster care.The regulation and quality of fosterhomes.Support for youth aging out of the foster care system.Racial and ethnic disparities in the foster care system.Foster Care and the Best Interests of the Child is a must-have resource for policy makers and related professionals, graduate students, and researchers in child and school psychology, family studies, public health, social work, law/criminal justice, and sociology.

This Brief reviews the past, present, and future use of school corporal punishment in the United States, a practice that remains legal in 19 states as it is constitutionally permitted according to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This brief highlights several of the most pressing challenges in addressing the needs of families who are experiencing homelessness and presents a set of strong policy recommendations for assessment, intervention, research, and service delivery related to homeless children and their parents.

Because jails in the United States handle more admissions per year than prisons - and studies of jailed parents and their children are not common in the literature - two of the three studies presented focus on jails.

The second volume of this SpringerBrief presents a series of papers compiled from a conference addressing how after-school programs can promote positive youth development (PYD) hosted by Youth-Nex, the University of Virginia Center to Promote Effective Youth Development.

The first volume of this SpringerBrief presents a series of papers compiled from a conference about how after-school programs may be implemented to promote positive youth development (PYD) hosted by Youth-Nex, the University of Virginia Center to Promote Effective Youth Development.