An Introduction from the New Co-Editors: Building the Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal

Abstract

As the new Co-Editors for the Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal (CASWJ) we would like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves to the journal’s readership and outline some of the directions we hope the journal will take. Initially, however, we would like to gratefully acknowledge the distinguished contributions of Dr. Thomas Kennemore, the journal’s previous editor, and Dr. Kimberly Mann, the journal’s previous Associate Editor, who served in these roles for many years and provided such a stable foundation for us to transition into. In early 2014, the journal’s owner and publisher, Springer Publications, issued a call for nominations for someone to assume the Editorship of the CASWJ. We expressed our interest, submitted our resumes, and were invited to prepare a vision statement for the journal. This we did and after some back and forth communications came to an agreement with the staff at Springer, signed a contract, and began jointly taking over the editorial responsibilities in the fall of 2014. We in turn issued a call via various listservs for volunteers to serve on the journal’s editorial board, as well as inviting existed board members to retain their roles if they so wished. The result is the Editorial Board roster available on the journal’s masthead each issue, and also on its website. We are most grateful for these exceptional scholars and practitioners for their service as the primary blind reviewers of each submission. Our Editorial Board reflects a wide array of practice, research and methodological interests, and individuals from across North America and a number of international social workers as well. Frankly, it is exciting to be a part of such a marvelous group of fellow professionals concerned with children and adolescents. For ourselves, Dr. Schelbe’s background with children and adolescents is based in her practice experience in domestic violence agencies and a supervised visitation center. Her primary research interest is child welfare, specifically youth ‘aging out’ of the child welfare system, and prevention of child maltreatment. She was in the inaugural cohort of Doris Duke Fellowships for the Promotion of Child Well-being, and remains committed to the fellowship’s mission of seeking innovations to prevent child abuse and neglect. Lisa is an Assistant Professor at the Florida State University College of Social Work and a Faculty Affiliate at the Florida Institute for Child Welfare. Dr. Thyer is a Professor and former Dean with the College of Social Work at Florida State University. He founded and continues to edit the journal Research on Social Work Practice and brings to the CASWJ his experiences as an editor for that journal, and considerable work on the editorial boards of other journals. He is the proud parent of four children, currently aged 21, 19, 17 and 15, three sons and a daughter, respectively, so he has some experience in raising kids and all the joy, drama and sometimes trauma which accompanied the role of Dad. Bruce is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Georgia and Florida, and a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst, and he brings his past and current experience as a practitioner to this journal as well as his research background. He has published a large number of journal articles, chapters and books in the fields of social work, psychology, behavior analysis and psychiatry, and his professional interests lay in the arenas of evidence-based practice, clinical and program L. Schelbe (&) B. A. Thyer College of Social Work Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA e-mail: Lschelbe@fsu.edu