Child welfare system was originated with the goals that social workers would try and alleviate poverty and its impact; however as the years have passed, the child welfare system turned into a child protection system directed toward investigating abuse and neglect, and removing children from families and placing them in foster care, and is no longer prepared to assist in resolving the problems of child poverty (Lindsey, 2004). Child welfare system has been developed around the residual approach which demands that aid should be given only after the family is in crisis or other support groups have failed to meet a child’s minimal needs. However, over the years, there have been different focuses for the child welfare system, whether it involved
Police are sometimes stereotyped to be rugged, single minded enforcers who are insensitive to families in their most vulnerable state (Cross, Finkelhor, Ormrod, 2005). This would be an ideal approach to implement; however there seem to be difficult relationships between the two systems as they both hold different values and beliefs. As an intern for DCFS, I have witness the “complicated” relationships that the two systems hold. Some police departments don’t believe it is necessary for a dual investigation; when it is the job of the children social work to investigate the abuse. During an investigation, the police arrived at the home, however, he refused to do his own investigation as he stated “you guys are already here, I don’t need to be here. I just need to make sure everything is okay, and the children are safe.” There can be some improvements in how the police system is involved with the child abuse investigation, in order to allow the child welfare workers to focus on providing services to disadvantaged families. Since caseloads are high, most child welfare workers have limited time span to work and focus on the families’ issues; such as, financial stability, social and emotional
Implementing successful prevention strategies will require the need to provide assistance to the entire family and focus both on the child’s safety and well-being as well as the parents’ emotional and economic well-being. Child welfare system can provide resources such as child care services for single parents who lack education, which limits their employment. Such services can help the family become financially stable, and hopefully get out of living in poverty. Most services provided to families by the child welfare system have really complicated requirements that make it nearly impossible for them to receive all the necessary resources. For example, the child welfare system currently provides the family with a packet of resources, in which the family on their own must contact agency after agency for services, just to be notified that there are fees to receive services or there are long waiting lists. For the most part, families are then discouraged from asking for further assistance. The child welfare system needs to be able to address the underlying issues that disadvantaged families are dealing with, which may be playing a role in the child
For the purpose of this paper the social worker interviewed is Ronnita Waters, MSW, RCSWi; she is currently an operations manager at the Center for Family and Child Enrichment (CFCE). The issue or area where her advocacy skills are practiced is within child welfare. Mrs. Waters mentions to the interviewee “I always wanted to work with children, then eventually for children.” when asked what developed her interest in this area of social work. Furthermore, before she became an operations manager, the social worker was an adoptions supervisor, overseeing adoption case managers and ensuring the proper implementation of policies such as the sibling placement policy and adoption policy. In addition, before achieving the role of supervisor, she was
The child welfare system in United States uses a dominant colonial approach to how the child welfare system is applied. They are based on the foundations of patriarchal ideology. When approaching child welfare the attention is mostly given to the families and individual blame occurs, this may reflect the way the systems are designed, operating from a liberal ideology. Furthermore, in the process of child protection family service systems are exposed to the use of formal coercion and contested court involvements, although this is considered a last resort and avoided, if possible. Typically, after a child maltreatment report, the allegation is investigated and assessed for degree of state interven...
While on the job, police must put all their personal opinions aside. They must provide everyone with an equal and fair chance. It is important in a democratic society for police to not know too much about the community they are policing. It allows them to ...
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) helps our communities guard our children, disabled and our elderly from abuse and neglect. This agency also helps protect the children in foster homes or any 24-hour child facility. The consultants provide intense investigations and prevention programs before placing a child in a new home. Texas Child Protective Services, also known as CPS, has five main goals which include: investigating reports of abuse and neglect of children, providing services to children and families in their home, placing children in foster care, providing services to help youth in foster care make a transition to adulthood, and placing our childr...
Despite the advances that have been made in recent years to promote better interagency working, the child protection system is still under enormous pressure. Since 2008; referrals, assessments, investigations, and the number of children with protection plans have...
A Child Protective Service worker is a career that can be mentally and physically exhausting with emotional upheaval and wonderfully rewarding all at the same time. This paper discusses several “best practices’, their descriptions, and how they are put in use to assist the children who need help and the parents who unwillingly become a part of the Child Welfare system; even though they count on the system to help them better themselves and the lives of their children. Child Protective Service workers require extensive training, vast knowledge, multiple values, and strong ethics to effectively assist this
Child welfare is a major issue not only in the United States, but all over the world. Regarding child welfare programs, the impact has primarily come from programs that focus mainly on the needs of children. It has been proven that children are best benefitted when there is consistency within a program. Over time these policies have flourished immensely, and with the research that has been provided it is safe to assume that the policy presented above will be successful. Though there has been a lot of research done on child welfare programs, there is still knowledge that we have yet to gain. History has proven time after time that child welfare is a major issue. Children of all races, ages, and genders have been affected. Programs such as this do not focus on the child’s appearance, but rather their social standing. The effects of the program are not limited to learning about budgeting. Participants will gain knowledge in life, for example taxes and how to pay bills. While we will focus mainly on how to get the participants on the path to independence they will become experienced in communication. This will come from training, and completing
Poverty, addictions and mental health all contribute to this frightening social problem in the United States. Childhelp has a unique three step approach to helping end, as well as treat child abuse and neglect. First, programs exist to prevent the cycle of abuse. This is important because 30% of abused and neglected children will go on to be an abuser. Second, Childhelp has an intervention program that is dedicated to interceding and removing children from abusive and dangerous situations. Childhelp states that 80% or more of children who die from child abuse or neglect are younger than age five and therefore unable to remove themselves from living in danger. Lastly, Childhelp has a treatment program designed to give children a safe place to fall, with love, while equipping them with the tools needed to move forward from their hurtful pasts (Childhelp,
Half the children in this country live in homes in which one or both parents work. Twelve million children in this country do not have health insurance, and over 4.5% of all children are victims of suspected child abuse or neglect (Doktor and Poertner). Believe it or not, these are all indicators of the demand for Family Resource Centers within our school systems. Many question whether Family Resource Centers are worth the money the state pours into them. However, in serving students, parents and teachers, there should be no question of their significance. Due to The Kentucky Education Reform Act in the early 1990's we have seen the development of Family Resource Centers in Kentucky, and they are fulfilling expectations and serve a valuable purpose in spite of some skepticism. Being a social work major and growing up in a school system under KERA, I know that family resource centers are important and that all parents, students and teachers need to be informed of all the good they do for a community. To address these points we will discuss the purpose of family resource centers the controversy that surround them and their effectiveness.
The job of a child welfare worker appears to be a demanding profession that promotes the child’s safety, but also strengthens the family organization around them in order to successfully raise the children. This child welfare workers work in the system known as the Child Protective Services whose initiative is to protect the overall welfare of the child. The short novel From the Eye of the Storm: the Experiences of a Child Welfare Worker by Cynthia Crosson-Tower demonstrates the skills necessary to deal with the practice of social work along with both its challenges and its happy moments. The novel consists of some of the cases involving Tower’s actual career in social work. In reading the book, I was able to experience some of the actual cases in which children dealt with physical and mental abuse from their families that caused them to end up within the system. Also, some of these children had issues in adapting to foster and adoptive families based on the issues they faced earlier in life. As we have learned earlier in the course, the violence that a child experiences early in life has an overall affect on the person they become as they grow into adulthood. When children deal with adverse childhood experiences, they are at a higher risk for abusing drugs and/or alcohol, increased likelihood of abusing their own child or spouse, higher rates of violent and nonviolent criminal behavior, along with several other issues throughout their lifespan.
Child Protective Services (CPS) is a common name for a government agency that is responsible for ensuring the safety of children. In general, CPS conducts an investigation when there is a report of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and/or emotional abuse. CPS will go to the home and assess the situation. Depending on the situation, CPS can offer voluntary services to maintain family preservation or in cases where the children are at risk of harm, the children are removed from the home while the parents are required to participate in community services for family reunification (CWLA, 2007).
It is true that sometimes the Child Welfare system lets its children down and ends up raising offenders. However, that is not to say that what they do is simply or even mostly a failure, I am merely attempting to turn random stars into constellations. There are great changes that are made in this system. I have witnessed cases progress from being supervised visits to becoming monitored visits. I have seen mothers taking home their babies and children returning home because the parents have met their return conditions. I have seen parents who were hopeless drug addicts reach milestones by staying clean. I have heard cases of mothers who were repeat domestic violence victims set limits to their ex-abusers and seen a father learn how to hold a
Social protection must cover the improving conditions of life. Improving the human needs and national relations. Also to create economic social development, environment protection policy, employment and social population. Without system of social economics it is impossible to achieve successful protection of the citizens. Everything connected with welfare
Child welfare ensures “that children are safe and protected from any harm” (Berg-Weger, 2013). Social workers in this field “protect vulnerable children and help families in need of assistance”, “intervene when children are in danger of neglect or abuse”, and some even arrange “adoptions, locate foster families, or work to get families back together” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). This is the second largest area of social work, especially for those with a bachelor’s degree in social work (Berg-Weger, 2013). The primary purpose of child welfare is to keep children protected and safe from harm (Whitaker, Reich, Reid, Williams, & Woodside, 2004). The secondary purpose is to “provide necessary services to the families of children at risk, to improve conditions in their homes and bring stability to their family units” (Whitaker et al., 2004). According to the National Association of Social Workers, “this system includes both public and private agencies, and works in close partnership with – and relies on – many other community systems, such ...
Vulnerable mothers and children all over the world face many obstacles and suffering each and every day. The vulnerability is mainly due to the lack of support, resources, and education available to them. The evaluations of these vulnerable risks are measured by age, education, environmental and socioeconomic status, culture, race, gender, employment status, and much more. Throughout the years, many programs and regulations have been implemented to help eliminate some of these risks and disparities, but as it stands today, this problem seems to be ongoing and is getting atrocious day by day.