Call for Abstracts

American Humane's Protecting Children journal dedicated to Promising Results in Research and Practice: Understanding Disproportionality and Reducing Disparity in Child Welfare

Call for Abstracts

American Humane's Protecting Children journal dedicated to

Promising Results in Research and Practice:
Understanding Disproportionality and Reducing Disparity in Child Welfare

Research in child welfare regarding disproportionality and disparities has focused mainly on demonstrating the existence, locus and extent of the problem (Hill, 20061; Wulczyn and Lery, 20072 ). It is imperative that agencies not only know the facts, but are armed with practices that address this widespread issue.

This edition of Protecting Children will focus on providing key strategies in practice transformation, evidenced-based research and evaluation for addressing disproportionality and disparities in child welfare. This issue will highlight innovative approaches that address the long-term redefinition of practice. It will also change the way strategies are implemented in the system and encourage others to reduce the gap between the values, attitudes and behaviors of child welfare practitioners and the systems they work in to meet the needs of culturally diverse families and ensure service equity.

The Children's Division of American Humane, in partnership with the Colorado Department of Human Services, Division of Child Welfare, recently launched the Colorado Disparities Resource Center (CDRC) to address longstanding issues of service disparities in child welfare based on race and ethnicity. American Humane is dedicated to exploring the following questions, regarding both the practice and research of disproportionality and disparity in child welfare:

· How are child welfare systems addressing the issue of disproportionality and disparity?
· What policies, practices, tools and strategies have made a significant impact on reducing disproportionality and disparity? What is the evidence-based or evidence-informed research?
· Can true cultural responsiveness be integrated into current systems and practice? If so, how?
· While training is often cited as an important tool in addressing disproportionality and disparity, how can we assure that the knowledge gained in training carries over into real-life practice?
· How have child welfare agencies partnered with community-based organizations in order to serve clients from a more culturally responsive framework?
· What research-based evidence is there to help understand the source of disproportionality and disparities in child welfare?

American Humane is committed to asking these questions and to working with people in the field to find answers.

The Children's Division of American Humane

American Humane strives to disseminate knowledge and develop resources so children, families and communities can maintain or develop positive and lasting connections. We also strive to ensure that child protection professionals are invigorated through research, knowledge and practices that help achieve safety, permanency and well-being for all children regardless of race or ethnicity.
The Children's Division of American Humane is a national leader in developing programs, policies, training, research and evaluation to prevent and respond to child abuse and neglect. We work to strengthen families and communities and enhance child protection systems at the state, county and tribal levels.

Calling All Authors

As part of our continued commitment to eradicating child abuse and neglect, American Humane will publish an issue of Protecting Children dedicated to addressing disproportionality and disparities in child welfare. The intent of this issue is to identify and share best practices, approaches, research and knowledge on overcoming disproportionality and disparity in child welfare.
Original conceptual, practice-based or empirical papers are invited. Submitted abstracts should address one of the following areas:

· Effective policies, tools and strategies that have made a significant impact on reducing disproportionality and addressing disparity.
· Effective use of relevant, culturally responsive tools, strategies and approaches that have had an impact on the disproportionate overrepresentation of children of color in the child protection system.
· Research and evaluation on the efficacy of programs, policy and training designed to address the causality and consequences of disproportionality and disparities.
· Leadership and system or practice improvement strategies that create a climate of learning, growth and organizational change.
· Community-based programs or other efforts designed to enhance culturally responsive services and a reduction in the disproportionate representation of children and families in child welfare.

For additional information on American Humane, please visit www.americanhumane.org.

If you have questions regarding the appropriateness of content for submission, please email Donna Parrish at donnap@americanhumane.org or John Fluke at johnf@americanhumane.org.

Procedures for Submitting an Abstract

American Humane encourages researchers, evaluators, academics, public child welfare administrators, supervisors, frontline workers, tribes, service providers in community-based agencies and policymakers to submit an abstract for consideration. Each abstract should:

· Describe the proposed article in approximately 500 words, following APA style.
· Illustrate the uniqueness of the proposed article and how it contributes to the literature.
· Identify the primary and secondary authors in the header.
· Include contact information for the author(s).
· Provide a list of proposed references for the article (not included in the word limit).

American Humane accepts abstracts for articles that are original and have not been published previously. Articles in Protecting Children typically range from 2,000 to 5,000 words. Invited authors will be provided with a specific word count in their acceptance letter.

For consideration, email abstracts to Ingrid Porter at ingridp@americanhumane.org by Feb. 5, 2010.

All abstracts will be blind-reviewed by a guest editor and content reviewers. Authors will be notified of the outcome of their abstract submissions in early September. If accepted, authors will be notified of a target word count, and full papers will be due July 1, 2010.