The "deadbeat dad" is a common figure in today's news media. As an experienced social worker, family therapist and mediator, Deena Mandell is intimate with legal and institutional discourses on the topic, but also with the lived reality of those involved in support conflict. In Deadbeat Dads, she addresses the question: "Why hasn't child support enforcement solved the problem of non-payment?"

Non-payment of child support is all-too-easily categorized as an individual act of deviance or moral failing, or as having purely economic ill effects. One consequence of this is to...

The "deadbeat dad" is a common figure in today's news media. As an experienced social worker, family therapist and mediator, Deena Mandell is intimate with legal and institutional discourses on the topic, but also with the lived reality of those involved in support conflict. In Deadbeat Dads, she addresses the question: "Why hasn't child support enforcement solved the problem of non-payment?"

Non-payment of child support is all-too-easily categorized as an individual act of deviance or moral failing, or as having purely economic ill effects. One consequence of this is to...

Subversive Action presents cases that explore the use of extralegal action undertaken in pursuit of human rights and social justice, and locate that action with reference to the boundaries of social work. Definitions of social work often include goals of social change, social justice, empowerment, and the liberation of people, but social work texts make little mention of extralegal actions. Mainstream conceptions of social work usually consider it to fall within the framework of particular legal and societal contexts. As such, it is presented with boundaries for legitimate action...