Abstract
Rural Child Welfare Practice: Stories from “the Field” provides a unique examination of rural child welfare from the theoretical to the dirt-road practical. Offered as a resource for social work and child welfare educators and students focused on child protection and rural practice, the book includes chapters situated in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Using a variety of case vignettes, the authors explore child welfare work positioned within the diversity of historical, geographic, social, cultural, and economic environments of rural communities. The book makes a valuable contribution not only to the overall body of knowledge on child welfare practice, but to the scant literature focused on understanding rurality and social work.
Editors Joanne Riebschleger and Barbara J. Pierce ground the book in the importance of self-awareness, attendance to personal bias, and approaching rural child welfare work with a stance rooted in cultural humility. Each chapter includes learning objectives, relevant history and background, a case vignette, practical applications, and discussion questions to enhance learning. While some chapters provide a more robust history and background than others, overall, the text offers important foundational knowledge about the meaning and dynamics of “rural” and the use of essential social work skills in that context. Generalist practice is emphasized in its importance to the rural child welfare worker's many hats. Use of self, setting boundaries, cultural sensitivity, and the person-in-environment lens are woven throughout the case vignettes and discussions, also providing common language for the transferability of these competencies across diverse rural communities. The strengths of rural communities such as innovation, adaptability and use of informal solutions, and independence are highlighted with an emphasis on challenging assumptions and stereotypes. There is an acknowledgment of the stigma of rurality as well as the underlying context of coloniality, historical trauma, and continuing inequity in all three countries in which the case vignettes occur. Relevant theories are discussed, including the importance of integrating trauma knowledge into rural practice, child welfare practice, and when working with the great diversity therein.
The importance of place, local knowledge, community gatekeepers, and insider status are nowhere more important than in rural child welfare work. The framework of diversity constructed in this work helps to present a more expansive and inclusive look at rural people and experiences than is usually articulated in the literature. The authors balance unique case narratives with content aimed at connecting experiences to essential child welfare competencies like contextualized assessment, culturally-sensitive investigation and intervention, out-of-home care and adoption work, building social capital, practice ethics, and accessing resources for children and families. Chapters highlight practice with rural people living in poverty; work with Indigenous people in the U.S. and Aboriginal people in Canada and Australia; methamphetamine manufacture and use in a small town; engaging with individuals and families in an Amish community; work with military veterans and their families; the coming out experience in rural America; and the impact of vicarious trauma for child welfare workers.
Unfortunately, the editors did not elevate rural child welfare policy work to the same level as other elements of generalist practice yet did acknowledge the frequent disconnection between federal and state child welfare laws and the realities of rural life. There is only limited focus, as in the chapter on sexual and gender minority youth in rural communities, on the political context of child welfare work-in-environment. This context is both unique and invaluable for practice and the experiences of the workforce, children, and families. Attention to the political realm and its impact on rural people's personal worlds needs more attention here and in the social work literature as a whole: from the generalist practice perspective as a key competency, in the policy-driven child welfare context, and on behalf of the unique needs and strengths of rural communities. Similarly, outside of the informative chapter focused on Amish families, little attention is paid to the impact of religion for family dynamics, child protection, child welfare policy, and the realities of practice in the rural context. Little reference to religion and spirituality is also a key omission from a text that in many other ways makes apt use of the intersectional lens. Feminist readers may yearn for a more critical eye in terms of the lack of emphasis in the book on social change, advocacy, and building more just rural child welfare futures.
A missed opportunity in this work is hearing more of the voice of each chapter author. Despite attention to self-awareness, social location, and in-group knowledge, the voices of the writers shaping each case vignette and discussion feel a bit detached from their contributions. Amplifying those voices might have helped the editors to more fully embrace and model with this text the importance of positioning, standpoint, and self-awareness in rural child welfare work. The book presents child welfare practice in the context of rurality, specifically, Western rurality and coloniality, and seems aimed primarily, but perhaps appropriately, at helping to educate White readers about working with diverse others. Nonetheless, as a whole, Riebschleger and Pierce contribute important foundational knowledge about this unique area of practice with Rural Child Welfare Practice: Stories from “the Field”. It should be built upon in the social work literature with more attention to rural communities as well as to the children, families, and child welfare work situated there.
