Chapter 2. From Risk to At-Risk

Abstract

The American economist, Frank Knight (1921), introduced risk as far back as the early 1920s with his analysis of profit legitimisation. In the profession of law, by the latter part of the 19th century risk had entered into mainstream social law in Europe (Ewald, 1991). Risk discourse seems to have regained popularity since the 1970s. Despite the voluminous work published since then with over three thousand books and articles by the end of the 1990s (Renn, 1998) there is no consensus regarding the risk construct itself, as it is approached from so many differing perspectives and disciplines. Many researchers tended, when writing about risk and children and youth, to focus on single variables such as intense interparental conflict that exacerbates maladjustment in children. This has now changed since the introduction of population health child and youth care perspectives. We are now far more interested in co-occurring adversities and the total, or whole, environment of a child. This chapter explores how and why a child or youth might be considered at risk exploring educational environments, the world of insurance, the natural world, medical discourse, and the world of the individual.     

Double balloon enteroscopy in children:Diagnosis,treatment,and safety

AIM:To assess the feasibility and utility of double balloon enteroscopy(DBE)in the management of small bowel diseases in children. METHODS:Fourteen patients(10 males)with a median age of 12.9 years(range 8.1-16.7)underwent DBE; 5 for Peutz-Jeghers syndrome(PJ syndrome),2 for chronic abdominal pain,4 for obscure gastrointestinal (GI)bleeding,2 with angiomatous malformations(1 blue rubber bleb nevus syndrome)having persistent GI bleeding,and 1 with Cowden‘s syndrome with multiple polyps and previous intussusc...     

重塑心灵:救助中心内流浪儿童的心理干预实践

流浪儿童作为特殊群体,近些年来得到了社会各界的普遍关注。由于流浪儿童自身特殊的心理问题和行为特点,需要中心在救助过程中建立心理干预机制,借助社会力量并运用专业的工作方法帮助流浪儿童改变不良的心理状况,为流浪儿童最终回归家庭、回归社会提供条件。     

A SURVEY OF UNIFIED FAMILY COURTS

The American Bar Association Coordinating Council on Unified Family Courts, with the assistance of Hofstra University's Center for Childre. Family and the Courts, recently conducted a survey of various courts and jurisdictions that either implemented or experimented with a unified family court structure. The purpose of the project was to get a sense of the state of unified family courts with the goal of building more support for the unified family court concept based on demonstrated effectiveness. The findings of the survey have been summarized in this article. The survey, survey data, and list of survey respondents can be found in the article's appendices.     

论体内异质授精子女的身份确认

在传统自然生殖下,法律根据自然联结机制很容易把握亲子身份和亲子关系,然而人工生殖这种不通过男女自然两性结合而产生后代的现代医疗技术手段,对传统的以血缘关系为基础的亲子观念和理论提出了挑战,特别是在异质授精情况下,由于使用的是第三人的精子,该类人工生殖子女身份的认定更加复杂。为了避免因采用特殊规则形成AID子女为特殊子女的不当认识,立法上应力求采用与自然生殖同样的父母认定标准确定人工授精子女的亲子关系,即依据出生事实确定谁是母亲,根据婚生推定及否认制度确定谁是父亲,丈夫的术前同意限制其对子女的婚生否认权的行使。     

Building ‘healthy happy family units’: Aileen Fitzpatrick and reuniting children separated by the Greek Civil War with their families in Australia, 1949–1954

Abstract

This article explores the efforts by Aileen Fitzpatrick, the Australian social worker, who repatriated child refugees from Greece at the height of the Greek Civil War, to reconstruct ‘healthy, happy family units’. I explore several themes. First, Fitzpatrick’s argument for the unification of families echoed the view that the family unit represented democracy and freedom in the post-war period. Second, an appeal to reuniting family became a successful strategy for crossing cold war lines when dealing with several governments. Third, for Fitzpatrick child saving from war and reuniting families was perceived to be essential to democracy, humanitarianism and internationalism. Finally, by taking a biographical approach, the details of the experience of family emerge in new ways. A focus on Fitzpatrick’s strategies suggests family rhetoric could be used to both promote and yet also cross cold war lines. More broadly, this article seeks to embed the history of the family within the general history of the post-war period as a way of highlighting how the ideal of the family was mobilised in rhetoric on freedom, democracy and the future and which in practice revealed the severe challenges facing families after the war.     

Crossover Cases of High‐Conflict Families Involving Child Protection Services: Ontario Research Findings and Suggestions for Good Practices

Child protection services (CPS) are increasingly becoming involved in high‐conflict separations and the related custody and access proceedings. CPS involvement is often necessary to respond to abuse or neglect allegations or protect children from emotional harm. However, these crossover cases are very challenging for family justice professionals. This article reports on research on crossover cases in Ontario, including an analysis of reported court decisions, a survey of CPS staff, and interviews with family justice professionals. We suggest clearer CPS policies; improved understanding of respective professional roles; CPS summary reports for family courts; increased interagency coordination, communication, and training; and use of judicial case management.     

Sexual Orientation,Gender Identity,and Adoption Law

The legal landscape surrounding adoption by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning/queer (LGBTQ) parents continues to be dynamic and variable across the United States, yet the topic is generally viewed favorably by Americans and increasing numbers of LGBTQ adults are becoming adoptive parents. In this essay, we explore intersections of sexual orientation, gender identity, and adoption law. We discuss connections between parenting (including adoption) and marriage rights, highlight the influence of varying legal contexts and discrimination for LGBTQ adults who pursue adoption (including case examples from Florida after the gay adoption ban was lifted), and incorporating the perspectives of adoption‐agency personnel working with LGBTQ clients.     

Children and Young People who have Sexually Harmful Behaviours: From Fixed to Transformative Risk Assessment

Risk, risk assessment and risk management have become central to contemporary policies and practices in criminal justice, with consequences for those who apply and receive such approaches. It has been argued that risk has been the key organising principle of contemporary correctional practice and offender management, and that actuarial risk in particular has taken on a hegemonic dominance that supersedes other models of governance, such as welfare and disciplinary forms of regulation. This article focuses on the construction and deployment of two assessment frameworks for young people with sexually harmful behaviour to illustrate the epistemological differences between a clinical/actuarial guided approach and that of constructing safety. It identifies current theorising about risk/technologies as being within a neo-liberal political and governance agenda and the opportunities for moving from a fixed to a transformative risk subject.

Perceptions and Predictors of Children's Credibility of a Unique Event and an Instance of a Repeated Event

Perceptions of children's credibility were studied in two experiments wherein participants watched a videotape of a 4- to 5- or a 6- to 7-year old child report details of a play session that had been experienced once (single-event) or was the last in a series of four similar play sessions (repeat-event). The child's report was classified as high or low accurate. In Experiments 1 and 2, reports of repeat-event children were judged to be less believable on several measures. In Experiment 1, younger children were viewed as less credible than older children. In both experiments, neither undergraduates nor community members correctly discriminated between high- and low-accurate reports. Content analysis in Study 3 revealed the relationship between age and event frequency and children's credibility ratings was mediated by the internal consistency of children's reports. Recent research on children's reports of instances of repeated events has identified several challenges facing children who report repeated abuse. These data bring to light another potential difficulty for these children.