The tender years: Toward developmentally sensitive child welfare services for very young children

This work offers an overview of child welfare systems. It examines child abuse reporting patterns and discusses placement in foster care, reunification, and adoption. It also looks at public child welfare practice, and features examples of the children and families served by this system. 1 - Child development and child welfare; 2 - child abuse and neglect of very young children; 3 - from child maltreatment to placement; 4 - foster care, reunification, and adoption; 5 - group care; 6 - focus on infants; 7 - understanding children and families served by the child welfare systems; 8 - public child welfare practice; 9 - reconceptualizing the child welfare system for very young children; appendix: study methods; references.