The Typical Progression a Child Makes through a State Welfare System
The paper and diagram below describe the typical progression a child makes through a state welfare system. Each figure in the diagram below links to a specific decision point described in the paper, which begins immediately after the diagram.
This chart provides a model, which highlights typical decision points on a child's journey through the current foster care system. Although the format is based on federal and common state law and practice, nevertheless it is only a model. Laws vary across states, as does the capacity and practices of child welfare agencies and courts to manage their caseloads.
This paper describes the typical progression a child makes through a state's child welfare system. Each state's child welfare agency is responsible for ensuring the safety and well being of children. Child welfare systems have several chief components:
· Foster care ? full-time substitute care for children removed from their parents or guardians and for whom the state has responsibility. Foster care provides food and housing to meet the physical needs of children who are removed from their homes.
· Child protective services (CPS) ? generally a division within the child welfare agency that administers a more narrow set of services, such as receiving and responding to child abuse and neglect allegations and providing initial services to stabilize a family.
· Juvenile and family courts ? courts with specific jurisdiction over child maltreatment and child protection cases including foster care and adoption cases. In jurisdictions without a designated family court, general trial courts hear child welfare cases along with other civil and criminal matters.
· Other child welfare services ? in combination with the above, these services address the complex family problems associated with child abuse and neglect. They include family preservation, family reunification, adoption, guardianship, and independent living.
· ?While 542,000 children were in foster care on September 30, 2001, 805,000 spent some time in care over the course of that year.?1
· ?Children in care in 2001 had been in foster care for an average of 33 months. More than 17 percent (91,217) of the children had been in care for 5 or more years.?1
Once a child is known to the child welfare agency, ...
... middle of paper ...
...ip Care Families - Frequently Asked Questions (Spring 2000) and Federal Register, Vol.65, No. 16, (January 25, 2000), pp. 4032-4033.
11U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, Foster Care National Statistics April 2001.
12U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Child Maltreatment 1999: Annual Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001). Some states may include settings with fewer than seven children as group homes.
13U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration for Children, Youth and Families, Program Instruction, ACYF-PI-89-09 (October 1989).
14Foster Care National Statistics April 2001 (2000b).
15Steve Christian, A Place to Call Home Adoption and Guardianship for Children in Foster Care, p.28 (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2000)
16State of Tennessee, Comptroller of the Treasury, Foster Care Independent Living Programs (1998).
171994 Green Book (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994).
One of the biggest misconceptions that we have in our country is that foster care is a great thing; well, it’s not. There are so many flaws in our foster care system to even consider it a good idea. With constant reports of abuse, depression, lack of stability, to even the terrible after effects of the foster care system, like homelessness and incarceration; the foster care system hurts more than it helps. Our foster care system is bad for America, but most of all, our children.
This paper will contain research done about foster care, including a brief history and progressing along to the system today. This research interested me because it is a professional career option after graduation. I found both positives and negatives about the foster care system that children and foster parents go through on a daily basis. As the paper progresses I will be explaining these positives and negatives in more detail. Throughout the paper I will be referencing different scholarly sources that explain foster care in different ways. Overall, this paper will show different aspects that the general public may never know about foster care.
The foster care system, then as now was desperate for qualified homes. Kathy and her husband had become certified foster parents, she was a certified teacher, and they had empty beds in their home. Their phone soon bega...
There is nearly 400,000 children in out-of-home care in the United States right now (Children’s Right). Just about every day children are being shipped in and out of foster homes and group homes. Most people want the best for children in foster care and decide to take care of them until their parents can possibly recover. The foster care system can have both a negative or positive effect on children, foster parents, and biological parents because of the gaps in the system. Foster cannot not be avoided but the some aspects of the foster care system can be avoided if the missing gaps were filled.
Despite attempts in the foster care system agencies under the guidelines of the “Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997” (ASFA) to locate suitable homes and families for foster children, many remain in foster care. “Too often, Child Welfare policy and the agencies responsible for it – offices that respond to child abuse and neglect, oversee foster care placements, and seek to reunite children with their parents to find adoptive families- are out of sight and out of mind except for fleeting moments of tragedy, such as a child’s death”.
Before people decide if they want to adopt, they can become a foster parent. When children are not able to safely live with their biological family, Child Protective Services may become involved and place the child in foster care. Foster care is only a temporary living arrangement for the child, while the children's parents work to remedy the unsafe situation (Security,2014). When it is possible that a child may not be able to return home his/her situation turns into a case plan; which then the child is able to be adopted by another person.
Most services provided to families by the child welfare system have 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 maltreatment occurring in the home, whether it is general neglect or child abuse.
Many children across the country are wrongfully removed from their homes everyday by workers with an anti-family mindset, who use removal as a first resort not a last. It is not only detrimental to the child’s well-being, but is also immorally abusive to the child. The goal of the child welfare system is to promte safety, permanency, and wellness among all children.
Year Published: 2004 -. 3. What is the difference between a'smart The Child Welfare League of America. (1999) The 'Secondary' of State Child Welfare Agency Survey.
To many outsiders, the foster care system may appear to be a safe haven for those children that are abused or abandoned by their birth family. This is correct, but the system with which it is based, has many flaws. A background check is mandatory for all foster parents, but a test to see if a child 's temperament matches that caregiver 's parenting style, is not. Now, this is seen as a minor issue, but there is not enough evidence to support this. Plus, there are many other, much worse reasons, why the system is not perfect. Altogether, the foster care system and a multitude of its rules are flawed and may actually be negatively affecting foster children.
Downs-Whitelaw, S., Moore, E., &McFadden, E. J. (2009). Child welfare and family services: Policies and practice, USA: Parson Education Inc.
Social agency and the court authorizing the placement, and caregivers are responsible for the continuing monitoring to ensure that the child in placement receives adequate care and supervision (Downs, Moore and McFadden, 2009, p.275). Services for children in foster care are a teamwork effort of the different parties involved (Downs, Moore and McFadden, 2009). Unfortunately in Antowne’s situation the agency and the court system failed him because although he was removed from his mother, the abuse and neglect continued. The systems involved did not provide the safety net Antwone needed.
Though foster care was originally established to help children who were orphaned, abandoned, neglected or abused, it has also caused problems for children. Agencies often have difficulty providing adequate, accessible, and appropriate services for the families in their care. (Chipungu and Goodley, pp. 76, 2004) This paper will examine the negative impact of foster care on children as a social problem and how it is viewed and understood. Also this paper would point out the key figures and groups that are affected by problem. This paper would analyze past attempts to better the foster care system and current policies that exist to face this problem. Throughout this paper the goals and objectives of the current polices would be addressed.
Funding is awarded to support ongoing research programs to identify, prevent and treat child abuse and neglect and to collect and distribute data. Projects that are currently funded are Child Welfare Information Gateway website, the National Resource Center for Child Protective Services, National Quality Improvement Center on Differential Response, annual publication of Child Maltreatment and the initiative on Supporting Evidence-Based Home Visitation to Prevent Child Maltreatment.
Faulkner utilizes his theme by creating a setting, which has interrelation with history context revolving around the idea of compelling change. The main aspect of setting is the Old South after the Civil War. Before the Civil War, Southern society consisted of a group of aristocracy and slaves. Onward to a post- Civil War period, forceful changes in the society arose. Many Southerners refused to accept that their conditions had change. They tended to cling to old values and customs. Death of Emily’s father marked the end of the old lifestyle. In contrary, entrance of Homer Barron represents the progress of civilization: "The town had just let the contracts for paving the sidewalks, and in the summer after her father's death they began the work. The construction company came with riggers and mules and machinery, and a foreman named Homer Barron” (31). Here, Faulkner illustrates that the new progress of changing era is destroying the old traditions of a dying age. The pr...