This book is about families in crisis and what happened to them after the Tennessee Department of Children's Services (DCS) wrongfully took their children away. Some parents got their kids back, some didn't. Either way, everyone was traumatized and their firsthand accounts can be found in this book.
Harvesting Children also examines child welfare agencies in different states. Some agencies are better than others but, still, 600,000 children are taken into custody every year in the U.S. and 400,000 of them are put in foster care.
Veteran reporter Peter White describes the elephant in the room that everybody sees but nobody knows what to do about it. Too many kids are put in foster care. This book is about some of them and it explains how they got there.
Harvesting Children - The Dark Side of Foster is an exposé of Tennessee's child welfare system. It examines the roles of its many players and it's packed with thoroughly researched stories ripped from the headlines. The book also highlights people inside and outside the system who have devoted their lives to changing it. There is an addendum of writings from experts, advocates, lawyers, and scholars you cannot find together in any other place.
This book is an invaluable resource for sociology students, parents, grandparents, social workers, judges, lawyers and anybody else who has contact with the child welfare system. The next generation of social workers must be equipped to defend the rights of parents as well as children. They will learn how to do that If they read this book.
