We Don't Exactly Get the Welcome Wagon: The Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Adolescents in Child Welfare Systems / Edition 1

by Gerald Mallon

Overview

Drawing on over twenty years of child welfare experience and extensive interviews with 54 gay and lesbian young people who lived in out-of-home-care child welfare settings in three North American cities—Los Angeles, New York, and Toronto—Gerald Mallon presents narratives of marginalized young people trying to find the "right fit." Mallon permits the voices of these young people to guide the research, allowing them to tell their own stories and to suggest what is important in their own words. Their experiences help the reader to begin to understand the discrepancies between the myths and misinformation about gay and lesbian adolescents and their realities in the out-of-home child welfare systems in which they live.

The first comprehensive examination of the experiences of gay and lesbian youths in the child welfare system, We Don't Exactly Get the Welcome Wagon makes solid recommendations to social work practitioners as well as to policy makers about how they can provide a competent practice for gay and lesbian adolescents, and offers a methods chapter which will be useful in classroom instruction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231104555
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	05/20/1998
Series:	Southeast Asia Series; 102
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.99(w) x 9.05(h) x 0.43(d)
Lexile:	1240L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gerald P. Mallon is an assistant professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work and author of Foundations of Social Work Practice with Gay and Lesbian Persons.

Table of Contents

1.The Road to Acceptance
2. Searching for a Good Fit Within the Family System
3. Searching for a Good Fit Within an Out-of-Home-Care Setting
4. Escaping a Poor Fit
5. Harrassment and Violence
6. A Plan for Transformation
Appendix I: A Field Experience in Retrospect
Appendix II: Biographies of Young Gays and Lesbians

Editorial Reviews

We Don't Exactly Get the Welcome Wagon surely will appeal to a broad audience, ranging from concerned citizens to human service professionals. It is easily readable by interested persons, but contains enough technical information to satisfy the curious academician.

Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services - Gary Remafedi

This book is a must for all child welfare professionals.

International Social Work - Betty Carter

We Don't Exactly Get the Welcome Wagon surely will appeal to a broad audience, ranging from concerned citizens to human service professionals. It is easily readable by interested persons, but contains enough technical information to satisfy the curious academician.

— Gary Remafedi, MD, University of Minnesota

Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services

This book is a must for all child welfare professionals.

— Betty Carter, University of British Columbia

International Social Work

We Don't Exactly Get the Welcome Wagon surely will appeal to a broad audience, ranging from concerned citizens to human service professionals. It is easily readable by interested persons, but contains enough technical information to satisfy the curious academician.

Gary Remafedi

This book is a must for all child welfare professionals.

Betty Carter

Mallon (Columbia U. School of Social Work) explores the lives of 54 gay and lesbian young people who, at the time of this study, were living in out-of-home-care welfare situations. Emphasis is placed on their experiences as marginalized and on their efforts to find the right "fit" for themselves. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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