When Home Is No Haven: Child Placement Issues

A 26-year-old woman gives her children Valium and whiskey and lacerates their wrists. Her husband witnesses this, then goes bowling. Should these parents retain custody of their children? A trio of child-care professionals here provides practical guidelines for social workers and others who must determine what to do for abused and neglected children. Solnit, Connecticut's commissioner of mental health as well as a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Yale; Nordhaus, Yale professor of social work; and Lord, Yale Child Study Center researcher, discuss the handling of 35 cases in Connecticut. Their analysis is dispassionate, but the facts remain disturbing. (Feb.)