Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Where Have We Been And Where Are We Going? A Conceptual Framework For Child Advocacy, Michele Cascardi, Cathy Brown, Svetlana Shpiegel, Ariel Alvarez

Department of Social Work and Child Advocacy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The primary goal of this article is to chart the development of child advocacy as an interdisciplinary field of study and conclude with a conceptual framework for research and higher education in child advocacy. Historically, child advocacy has justifiably focused on protection needs. Values and assumptions about children's best interest have also governed child advocacy, in part because evidence to inform decisions was lacking and in part because of its history as an activist movement. Against this historical backdrop, we describe contemporary trends in child advocacy that reconcile children's protection with their inherent rights to personhood. We rely on the …