Child Welfare System Case Study

Each day, the safety and well-being of children across the Nation are threatened by child abuse and neglect. Intervening effectively in the lives of these children and their families are not the sole responsibility of any agency, but rather the safety and the care of the children in need. Child Protective Services (CPS) was created by law to make sure children are safe and to help families create a safe environment for their children. When investigating a report of abuse or neglect, CPS seeks active involvement from the children’s parents and other family members to help solve issues that lead to abuse or neglect. The objective of CPS is to reunify parents and children whenever possible, and if reunification is not possible, CPS will seek to

The overarching goal of Child Protective Services (CPS) is to protect children from instances of future abuse or neglect. In general, CPS is responsible for investigations of allegations of abuse and neglect, to initiate child protective proceedings and place children into foster homes when needed, with each state taking a different approach in how their agency is structured and operated. In the state of New York, CPS “first obligation is to help the family with services to prevent its break-up or to reunite it if the child has already left home” (FindLaw, 2016). The protection of the child focuses “on the child in the context of the family, and recognizes the value of the family to the child” (NY Committee on Children and Families, 2001).

The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 has been enacted to that purpose which grants permission to the States to implement child abuse and neglect preventing programs. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1974 empowered the States to receive federal reimbursement for the foster care to create social programs in order to help the families for preventing them from putting any children into risk and removing the children if required. When a child is removed from his biological family, the court tries its best to reunite the child which his family, but the rehabilitation process include a number of formalities which results into the child’s stay with a foster family for a long time. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 supported that and suggested the States to take necessary steps to do so, for eg., in every six months, a judicial or administrative review of a child’s plan and the families are given a goal for a set of eighteen months for making it better to reunite the children with their respective families or terminating the parental rights and make the child free for adoption.

Yes foster care is an essential system used to provide loving homes to children, but unfortunately these systems have become broken and can no longer keep kids safe under their care. Everyday children are being placed in foster homes facing abuse, unloving parents, and even death. The system has only progressively gotten worse leaving behind children traumatized to a point where no amount of love or therapy can fix them.

In this chapter, we learn about children in family foster care. The intent of foster care is to offer children care within a family environment when their homes are temporally unable to do so. Foster care is meant to provide the following; temporary emergency care of a child, relief for a parent when he or she cannot manage stress, time for parent to solve problem, a different home experience or protection for a child, care unit institutional treatment is available, and care until release for adoption is approved. There are also different types of foster homes for different situations. The role of a foster parent can be very stressful; they never know what to expect for example supervised meeting for the birth parents, school attended meetings

Policies are put in place for people to follow not only in the government setting but also in much smaller settings. According to Zastrow and Kirst-Ashman (2016) defines policy as a clearly stated or implicit procedure, plan, rule, or stance concerning some issue that serves to guide decision making and behavior (p. 87). In the social work field policies are put into place so that there is guarantee that all clients are treated with the same respect and are offered the resources that are available to them in their community. In this paper I will discuss policies that are in place for children that are being abused and what is in place to help them. Not only are we concerned with if these policies are working but also how are they being paid

Most children’s first words are “Mama” or “Dada.” So what happens to the children who are ripped from their homes, from the only life they have known? The foster care system has been taking children from their homes since 1912, but has it really done any good? Sadly, “40 percetn of these children put into out-of-home care facilities never return to their parents. More than half will be away for at least a year and the majority will have multiple placements, some in as many as 15 different homes” (Horrors of the Non Home). Is what the foster care system is doing really helping these children or are they just setting them up for failure? Although many people feel that the foster care system is the best solution, many nationwide organizations feel that family preservation efforts are more necessary for today’s society.

Foster care is not a perfect system. Many children that are put into the foster care system are separated from their siblings and put into harmful environments. These environments are supposed to be safe and give the child a chance at a better life. However, children living in group homes are not able to develop secure attachment to the people who are supposed to take care of them. Children bounce back and forth from house to house, family to family, causing them to live in an unstable environment through most (if not all of) their child hood. According to childrensrights.org, Children will be “further abused in systems that are supposed to protect them” (Newsroom/fact sheet). Some children end up back into that abusive or unsafe environment

Joseph A. Doyle Jr. (2007) discusses, “Children investigated for abuse or neglect are not tracked over time in a systematic way.” (p.1584). If the foster system does not efficiently track the wellbeing of these children, it makes it difficult to provide all the necessary support for them. Providing a program that will help track, transition, and counsel these children will greatly impact the overall improvement of the foster system.

Foster care is a system in which a child under the age of eighteen, is placed in a temporary home away from one’s parents due to physical or mental neglect. Children from as young as a few days old to teenage years are placed in foster care every day. The amount of children in the system affect how needs are met and how high these youths are placed on a need of special care for problems that were developed before and while in the system. Most of which occur because they are abused and that is why they were taken away. Foster care is an escape for those being mistreated. It gives a chance to do things that maybe would not be possible if stuck in the situation that originally caused such problems. Foster

On November 18, 1999, the House of Representatives passed the H.R.3443, which is The Foster Care Act of 1999. This was signed into law by former President, Bill Clinton. The Foster Care Act of 1999 (P.L. 106-169) is there to help the many young adults who age out of the foster care system and have nowhere to go and no family to rely on (Social Security, 2015). With so many young adults aging out of the foster care system, there has to be a solution as to what they do next.

Programs for juveniles are supposed to prevent children from entering or reentering the Juvenile System. Current programs that are being used today for prevention can be altered to fit the needs of more juveniles in different situations. One of the extension of these programs needs to be for those juveniles in foster care. A great percent of children in foster care gets involved in criminal activity than the children who stay with their parents (Doyle Jr., 2008). If this does not get resolved, the juveniles in foster may start off with simple crimes but, without help, will evolve to harder criminal activity. One program that would be a positive influence for foster care juveniles is the School Transitional Environmental Program. It is a program

My pregnant grandmother Petronila Machado gave birth to her baby son Cesar Obdulio Chavez Machado, who was named after his stepfather on December 10, 1953 in a small rural area known as San Pedro Arenales, Municipal of Chinameca, Departament of San Miguel in El Salvador. My father wasn’t born in a hospital. He was born in my grandmother’s home. Her home still exists today, and is the only adobe mud brick house in San Pedro Arenales. My father was always called Cesarito. The man whom he’d gotten his name from later died when he was a little boy, and so he grew up without a father figure. My father believes due to not having a father in his life is the reason why he is not the macho type of man today.

According to a Child Protective Investigation, there are approximately half a million children in the U.S. foster care system, otherwise known as congregate care (group homes and institutions). Children are placed in congregate care when they are found to be in an unsafe environment. Usually children of abuse or maltreatment are placed first (Font, 2015). Out-of-home-care causes increased problems of attachment, behavioral, and psychological disorders in the developing child.

What attributes of the effective practitioners in public welfare did you see in Tim’s dealing with Fannie Mae, Jolene, and the boys?