By
Lisa Aronson Fontes, PhD
This expertly written book provides an accessible framework for culturally competent practice with children and families in child maltreatment cases. Numerous workable strategies and concrete examples are presented to help readers address cultural concerns at each stage of assessment and intervention process. Professionals and students learn new ways of thinking about their own cultural viewpoints as they gain critical skills for maximizing the accuracy of assessments for physical and sexual abuse; overcoming language barriers in parent and child interviews; respecting families’ values and beliefs while ensuring children’s safety; creating a welcoming agency environment; and more.
Lisa Aronson Fontes, PhD, is a Core Faculty Member in Union Institute & University’s PsyD Program in Clinical Psychology. She has dedicated almost two decades to making the social service, mental health, and criminal justice, and medical systems more responsive to culturally diverse people.
“Fontes’s writing is concise and to the point. She uses examples to illustrate major concepts and then describes practical steps agencies and individual workers can take to maximize their effectiveness. This book would serve as a great supplementary text for introductory child welfare classes at both the BA and MSW level.”
- Jeffrey L. Edleson, PhD, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota
“A pedagogical treasure…. I have employed many strategies suggested in Child Abuse and Culture in my child advocacy class and in practice, and have found that students, as well as myself, are now learning how to approach their clients’ cultural issues with more awareness, sensitivity, and respect.”
- Family Court Review
“Highly readable and instructive, this is an indispensable how-to guide for professionals and trainees in child protection services, hospitals, schools, and mental health programs. Fontes offers essential resources in the form of interviewing techniques and individual, group, and community approaches that are sensitive to ethnicity, race, social class, and gender.”
- Celia Jaes Falicov, PhD, past president, American Family Therapy Academy