Child Welfare Removals by the State

<em>Child Welfare Removals by the State </em>addresses a most important (but little-researched) legal proceeding: when the State intervenes in the private family sphere to remove children at risk to a place of safety adoption or in other forms of out-of-home care. It is an intervention into the private family sphere that is intrusive contested and a last resort. States' interventions in the family are decided within legal and political orders and traditions that constitute a country's policies welfare state model child protection system and children�s position in a society. However we lack a cross-country analysis of the different models of decision-making in a European context. <p/>This text aims to present new research at the intersection of social work law and social policy concerning child protection proceedings for children in need of alternative care. It explores the role of court-based and voluntary decision-making systems in child protection proceedings its effects dynamics and meanings in seven European countries and the United States and analyses the tensions and dilemmas between children parents and socio-legal professionals. <p/>The book consists of eight country chapters plus an introduction and conclusion chapters. The range of countries of countries represented in the book covers the social democratic Nordic countries (Finland Norway and Sweden) the conservative corporatist regimes (Germany and Switzerland) the neo-liberal (England Ireland and the United States) and related child welfare systems.<br>