Customer Reviews

Children Who Could Have Been: Legacy of Child Welfare in Wealthy America

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William Epstein begins by taking the reader on a dark journey through a young girl's life. From abuse by her father and her mother's religious blinders, to further abuse by peers and those designated to care for her, we watch as this child is wrung through the system of child welfare. Epstein draws our attention to the numerous social science research projects conducted on child welfare, all with the same basic conclusion: the impossibility of social research to efficiently reduce subjective information into qualitative data. As the author points out several times, it is nearly impossible for social research to adequately measure the quality of care given to a child or whether the child would have been better off in another environment. Much of the child welfare system is reduced to availability of programs which are already overcrowded, understaffed or inefficient to meet the physical, mental and emotional needs of the child. Whether you agree with the author or not, this book is a must read for anyone involved in the child welfare system in America.

Dr. Epstein indeed delivers a scathing review of the state of social science supporting (or rather, failing to support) social service interventions in child protective services in the U.S. His point that researchers have been complicit in the failures of the service system by not asking or researching the "true" questions is an important one.

However, the tone of this book is inflammatory rather than helpful. The author has plenty to criticize, but reports no real research of his own to counter his attacks on the current state of "bulk cargo" research. Fish or cut bait, Epstein.