"The Children's Cause"

Paper Summary:

The paper reviews Steiner's book in which he analyzes public policy making in terms of the rearing of children, with specific reference to the development of federal policy in the development and operation of the Children's Bureau. It shows how in the course of discussing this agency, Steiner also indicates much about the policy making process, the various actors involved, the concerns they face, the problems encountered and the difficulties which pertain to any large scale effort to respond to a public need.

From the Paper:

"The Children's Bureau is an interesting study given that its very existence challenges certain deeply-held assumptions in American life about the inviolability of the family and so the role the government could or should have in the family. Steiner notes this fact at the outset when he states that "nonintervnetion serves as a basic guiding principle rather than an absolute" (Steiner, 1976, 1). Steiner finds numerous reasons why intervention is often necessary, and he notes both the fact that many children receive public assistance and that many more need it. At the time, says Steiner, there was a change taking place in the way the concept of restraint in these matters was viewed, for that idea was "challenged by a developmental philosophy that argues it is not enough to protect children against abuse an against the most dramatic and evident diseases like polio and blindness, and it is not enough to throw a protective cover over orphans and abandoned children" (Steiner, 1976, 3)."

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