On any given day, nearly half a million children are served by foster care services in the U.S. at an annual cost of over $25 billion. Growing demand and shrinking funds have so greatly stressed the child welfare system that calls for orphanages have re-entered the public debate for the first time in nearly half a century. New ideas are desperately needed to transform a system in crisis, guarantee better outcomes for children in foster care, and reduce the need for out-of-home care in the first place. Yet little is known about what works in foster care. Very few studies have examined how alumni have fared as adults or tracked long-term health effects, and even fewer have directly compared different foster care services. In one of the most comprehensive studies of adults formerly in foster care ever conducted, the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study found that quality foster care services for children pay big dividends when they grow into adults. Key investments in highly trained staff, low caseloads, and robust supplementary services can dramatically reduce the rates of mental disorders and substance abuse later in life and increase the likelihood of completing education beyond high school and remaining employed. The results of this unparalleled study document not only the more favorable outcomes for youth who receive better services but the overall return when an investment is made in high quality foster care: every dollar invested in a child generates $1.50 in benefits to society. These findings form the core of this book's blueprint for reform. By keeping more children with their families and investing additional funds in enhanced foster care services, child welfare agencies have the opportunity to greatly improve the health, well being, and economic prospects for foster care alumni. What Works in Foster Care? presents a model foster care program that promises to revolutionize the way policymakers, administrators, case workers, and researchers think about protecting our most vulnerable youth.

What Works in Foster Care?: Key Components of Success From the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study

Politics & Social Sciences

Pecora, Peter J.

WILLIAMS, JASON

Kessler, Ronald C.

Downs, A. Chris

English, Diana J.

O'Brien, Kirk

White,James

Social Sciences

Oxford University Press

Unity in Faith?: Edinoverie, Russian Orthodoxy, and Old Belief, 1800–1918

Established in 1800, edinoverie (translated as "unity in faith") was intended to draw back those who had broken with the Russian Orthodox Church over ritual reforms in the 17th century. Called Old Believers, they had been persecuted as heretics. In time, the Russian state began tolerating Old Believers in order to lure them out of hiding and make use of their financial resources as a means of controlling and developing Russia's vast and heterogeneous empire. However, the Russian Empire was also an Orthodox state, and conversion from Orthodoxy constituted a criminal act. So, which was better for ensuring the stability of the Russian Empire: managing heterogeneity through religious toleration, or enforcing homogeneity through missionary campaigns? Edinoverie remained contested and controversial throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, as it was distrusted by both the Orthodox Church and the Old Believers themselves. The state reinforced this ambivalence, using edinoverie as a means by which to monitor Old Believer communities and employing it as a carrot to the stick of prison, exile, and the deprivation of rights. In Unity in Faith?, James White's study of edinoverie offers an unparalleled perspective of the complex triangular relationship between the state, the Orthodox Church, and religious minorities in imperial Russia.

History

Russia

Indiana University Press

Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict--The First Protector

When he lands among the warring clans of the Irish hills, the Taelon scientist Ma'el is immediately cast into mortal danger...until he meets a young Celtic warrior who will lay down his life for the mysterious this stranger, and a druid priestess with uncanny insight. Together with the alien, they set out on an incredible journey, around the planet and to a destiny greater than the humans can possibly imagine. For Ma'el has come to judge Earth, and their travels will have consequences far into the future--consequences that will change both humanity and the Taelon race forever . . .

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Tor Books

It's a massive hospital space station on the Galactic rim--384 levels, a staff of thousands--where human and alien medicine meet. But Patient Hewlitt, new to Sector General, doesn't want to meet alien medicine--or alien doctors, or alien nurses, or aliens of any kind. Which is just too bad; he's an interesting case, and he'll have to get used to it. In the meantime, it's always been an article of faith among Sector General's multispecies staff that infections can't pass from one alien race to another. But in this season of anomalies, it looks like they might have their first-ever interstellar virus on their hands, their tentacles, their cilla.... Combining intrigue, ingenious puzzles (and even more ingenious solutions), action, adventure and White's characteristic easy charm, Final Diagnosis is a science-fiction treat.

Final Diagnosis: A Sector General Novel (Sector General Series)

United States

Sector General. It's the massive hospital space station - 384 levels, with a staff of thousands - on the Galactic Rim, where human and alien medicine meet. It's also the setting for some of the most entertaining novels of modern SF, James White's Sector General series, which began three decades ago with Hospital Station. Now White returns to Sector General to tell the tale of the great Gurronsevas, a massive, six-legged alien of considerable dignity, who is the most renowned chef in all the galactic federation. Chef? Just so. But now, at the peak of his career, Gurronsevas finds that fame, honor, and a large staff of scurrying minions aren't enough anymore. He wants to take on the greatest challenge of his professional life: making hospital food palatable. And not just any hospital, either. Gurronsevas has come to Sector General. And interspecies understanding may never recover....

The Galactic Gourmet: A Sector General Novel (Sector General Series)

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction

James White's Sector General series has been a favorite with SF readers for more than three decades. Now, in Mind Changer, White focuses on the longest-running character in his universe: the fearsome Dr. O'Mara, who during his years as chief psychologist has left his figurative toothmarks on most of the hospital's senior residents. In the course of practicing deep-space medicine on the Galactic Rim, the multispecies staff of Sector General Hospital -- a 384-level space station catering to patients from all known worlds -- has seen more than its share of challenges, from alien species that resemble plague, and plagues caused by cafeteria food, to cafeteria food that resembles some alien species. They're a tough and experienced crew. But now the staff are facing a terrifying new development; Dr. O'Mara has been promoted to head of the hospital. Worse, he's been given the job on a temporary basis, for just as long as it takes to train his own replacement as chief psychologist. After all these years, Dr. O'Mara is up for mandatory retirement. Nobody at Sector General can begin to imagine what they'll do without him -- assuming they last long enough to find out.

Mind Changer: A Sector General Novel

A Sector General veteran, Dr. Prilicla leads an expedition to answer several near-simultaneous distress beacons and discovers two alien species, one of which has nearly wiped out the other in a botched first contact

Double Contact: A Sector General Novel (Sector General Series/James White)

Back in print, the first three volumes of James White's "Sector General" SF saga, in a single omnibus edition. With a new introduction by Brian Stableford.

Beginning Operations: A Sector General Omnibus: Hospital Station, Star Surgeon, Major Operation

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by White,James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by White,James

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by White,James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

What Works in Foster Care?: Key Components of Success From the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study

Unity in Faith?: Edinoverie, Russian Orthodoxy, and Old Belief, 1800–1918

Unity in Faith?: Edinoverie, Russian Orthodoxy, and Old Belief, 1800–1918

Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict--The First Protector

Final Diagnosis: A Sector General Novel (Sector General Series)

The Galactic Gourmet: A Sector General Novel (Sector General Series)

Mind Changer: A Sector General Novel

Double Contact: A Sector General Novel (Sector General Series/James White)

Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict--The First Protector

Beginning Operations: A Sector General Omnibus: Hospital Station, Star Surgeon, Major Operation