Before the Best Interests of the Child - Paperback

by Joseph Goldstein (Author), Anna Freud (Joint Author), Albert J. Solnit (Joint Author)

The second volume in a classic trilogy of works by Joseph Goldstein, former Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School; Albert J. Solnit, the former director of the Yale Child Study Center, and Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund Freud. These texts (Beyond the Best Interests of the Child was the first in the series, and In the Best Interests of the Child was the third) are classic references often cited in child custody cases; Before the Best Interests of the Child specifically addresses when the state should intervene. Rather than the familiar legal "best interests of the child" doctrine, the authors's work is based on the more realistic standard of finding the "least detrimental alternative." This is indispensable reading for social workers, family court judges, lawyers, psychologists, and parents.

Back Jacket

Readers may welcome some explanation why our three authors reversed the sequence of events by tackling the problems of beyond the best interest of the child earlier than in 1973 the difficulties and mistakes surrounding children placement loomed so large and so large and clamored so insistently for solution that the questions what and for what reasons these children find thmselves at he mercy of state disposition were pushed into the background.