The APSAC Advisor is a peer reviewed quarterly news journal for professionals in the field of child abuse and neglect.
The APSAC Advisor provides succinct, data-based, practice-oriented articles that keep interdisciplinary professionals
informed of the latest developments in policy and practice the field of child maltreatment. It is designed to highlight
best practices in the field and publish original articles and current information about child maltreatment for professionals
from a variety of backgrounds including medicine, law, law enforcement, social work, child protective services, psychology,
public health and prevention in the U.S.
If you wish to learn more about submitting an article to the Advisor, please click here.
This library contains Advisor issues dating back to the first issue in 1988. The most recent issue appears at the top.
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In the listing below, click on a year and issue number to see the articles in that publication.
2009 Number 2
Motivational Interviewing and Child Welfare: What Have We Learned?
It has been a decade since motivational interviewing (MI) has been proposed as a promising approach that could be used in child welfare practice (Hohman, 1998). MI was originally developed as an alternative counseling style for use in the substance abuse treatment field, using a collaborative and nonjudgmental approach to clients. The goal of MI in any field of social work is to enable clients to resolve their ambivalence about change and to begin to take steps in a positive direction.
Interviewing Immigrant Children and Families for Suspected Child Maltreatment
Interviews with children and their families concerning child maltreatment may influence a host of important decisions, including the child’s placement, the caretaker’s criminal guilt or innocence, and termination of parental rights. When the alleged offenders in question are noncitizen immigrants, a finding of child maltreatment that is followed by criminal prosecution may also result in a parent’s deportation. This article aims to help professionals conduct productive interviews, investigations, assessments, evaluations, and medical exams related to child abuse in ways that are empowering to immigrant interviewees from a variety of cultures.
The purpose of Journal Highlights is to alert readers to current literature on child abuse. Selected articles from journals representing the variety of disciplines reflected in APSAC's membership are presented in the form of an annotated bibliography.
At Issue: Do Child Protection Workers Deserve Immunity When They Misrepresent or Fabricate Evidence?
The critics and plaintiffs’ attorneys are out there. They seethe with frustration in their assertion that there are child protection workers who are as dysfunctional and flawed as some of the abusive and neglectful parents they investigate. They feel mistreated, ambushed, and without recourse to a neutral oversight authority and fume that the courts will believe the word of child protection workers over their clients. And yet, when there is a credible allegation that a child protection worker has knowingly made misleading or false statements that resulted in the wrongful removal of a child, their criticism and anger seem justified.
APSAC Advisor 21(2): Full Issue