title: Engaging parents in child welfare services: bridging family needs and child welfare mandates.
abstract: Calls for expanded use of tested child mental health interventions in child welfare practice add new urgency to the longstanding question of how to enhance parent engagement in child welfare services, where low and uneven levels of engagement are pervasive, and services to parents and children tend to be separated, leaving important opportunities for parent-child interventions underutilized. Tackling these issues requires both expanded understandings of what engagement entails and the incorporation into child welfare practice of systematic, research-based strategies for supporting parental involvement. Drawing on a review of factors that shape (and often confound) efforts to engage parents in child welfare, and on relevant research, this paper lays the initial foundation for such an approach by identifying and describing six core dimensions of engagement and related intervention strategies.
authors: University of Washington School of Social Work, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. spk@u.washington.edu
authors: Susan P
authors: SP
authors: Kemp
authors: Maureen O
authors: MO
authors: Marcenko
authors: Kimberly
authors: K
authors: Hoagwood
authors: William
authors: W
authors: Vesneski
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D019090:Case Management; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005581:Foster Home Care; D006801:Humans; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D012947:Social Work / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States