Titled Social Policy for Child and Family Development: A Systems/Dialectical Perspective, Dr. Roberts’ book is being used in Child and Family Development 575: Public Policy and Professional Ethics in Child and Family Development. The book is designed to help students think critically and analytically about social policies that affect children and families.
Based on the belief that no single policy making position has all the answers, the book offers a model that reduces the tendency to present only one viewpoint. As they move through the text, readers use this model to evaluate the effectiveness of specific policies.
The book addresses such issues as alcohol, nicotine, and drug use during pregnancy, social policy and poverty, education, family development, child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, technology and family diversity. Each chapter includes a pretest, a section on key terms, guided study questions, and a debate activity.
In Dr. Roberts’ own words, the book “provides a method for understanding how policies develop, how they are maintained and how to prevent stagnating polarization that prevents alternate views from contributing to the process.”
Roberts’ book states that readers should adopt thinking patterns that strive for multiple outcomes to a common goal, rather than focus on the convergent thought processes that we often use to evaluate policy.