Guest Editors:
Professor Rosemary Sheehan AM, Director, Higher Degrees by Research Programme, Department of Social Work, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Australia; email: [email protected]
Professor Clare Tilbury, Leneen Forde Chair of Child and Family Research, School of Human Services and Social Work, Griffith University, Australia; email: [email protected]
This special issue of Australian Social Work will focus on Children and the Law: Contemporary approaches to children and vulnerability. It aims to bring together papers on the protection of children under the law, including in child welfare and family law. It will focus on the intersection between child welfare and the law and the effectiveness of systems designed to respond to children and young people in need of care and protection. This includes critical examination of national policy frameworks that are central to this discourse.
This special issue will present the important issues in this field arranged around the themes noted above. We are especially interested in papers relating to the intersection of the law in children’s lives and the breadth of issues associated with this. For example, papers are sought on children in the justice system, the fracturing of children’s relationships and life contexts, the exploitation of children, and what is needed to work effectively with children in contact with the law. The special issue aims to address the particular vulnerability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and refugee children in legal systems, and how the rights and best interests of children and young people are affected by trauma, separation from family and community, and disadvantage.
Possible topics include:
the ambiguity and ambivalence about what constitutes child maltreatment and what ought to be statutory intervention;
the parameters used to measure child maltreatment as challenged by new and emerging situations that place children at risk of harm;
changes in family relationship structures;
the global movement of children to unfamiliar contexts, often involving coercion or legal decisions they have no say in;
the entrenched disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children;
the increased role of legal institutions in children’s lives, which can leave children in an uncertain domain;
the alignment of interventions and policy with national obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Guidelines for submission
Authors may submit an original article (up to 6000 words), or a Practice, Policy, and Perspectives article (1500–4000 words). Word limits are inclusive of the abstract, impact statement, tables, figures, in-text references, and reference list. Manuscripts must be formatted in line with the style requirements of the journal and the American Psychological Association (APA) publication manual 6th Edition and will be subject to double-blind peer review.
Deadline for submission: All manuscripts should be submitted via Scholar One Manuscripts http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rasw no later than September 2018. Authors may contact the Guest Editors directly to discuss an intended submission.