The Pros And Cons Of The Child Welfare System

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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 …show more content…

It can be easy to see how Child Welfare fails over and over, and how even though the ideal is to return the children to their homes a year after their removal often times parents end up losing their rights permanently. Nevertheless, it is imperative to keep in mind the population with which they are working. Essentially DHS is working with the same population that the rest of the CJ system is working with. In the CJ system we know that recidivism rates are high. We also know that there is a demographic that tends to get caught more easily than any other in the system: the poor and uneducated. If the rest of the CJ system has not been able to figure out how to improve success rates, it does not make sense to expect that the relatively young DHS Child Welfare system has perfected theirs. Moreover, it is important to realize that that any system, no matter how tight or secure it seems, can have holes that lead to …show more content…

The parents are going to be mad for the intrusion in their lives, and the children might resent them for their role in their new struggles. They might be heroes, but they better not expect any thank-you cards, because they are often not going to get that. They have to be prepared to look into a child’s face and accept their hatred as a payment for their services. The job itself is already emotionally taxing, but adding a victim who is mad for your intervention takes everything to the next

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