African American Men, Child Welfare, and Permanency Planning

Examining African American fathers' involvement in permanency planning: An effort to reduce racial disproportionality in the child welfare system

“…Social workers' apprehension and unwillingness to work with fathers may be racially based or influenced by agency practices that are not culturally competent. According to Leashore (1997), some Caucasian social workers spend less time working with African American fathers because of their negative perceptions about their race. This kind of discrimination is consistent with the disparities in how African American men are perceived and treated in the larger society compared to Caucasian men.…”

Gender Biases in Child Welfare

“…Many researchers have argued that the majority of the families who are referred to CPS are headed by single mothers and hence it is the mothers who are available for study. In other words, mothers are easy targets for study and subsequently for blame (see, e.g., Caplan & Hall-McCorquodale, 1985b;Leashore, 1997).…”

Perspectives on being a father from men involved with child welfare services

“…Predominantly female service personnel may fear that men may become violent, particularly in situations of domestic violence when men may be actively and automatically avoided (O'Hagan 1997; Featherstone 2003). There are recommendations in the literature for a more concerted effort to engage fathers in child welfare services through intervention models that are physically and psychologically more accessible to men (Hopkins 1972; Hendricks 1987, 1988; Harris 1991; Leashore 1997; Dalla & Gamble 1998; Daniel & Taylor 1999; Peled 2000; Franck 2001; Connor 2002).…”