scholarly journals In-home Child Welfare Services

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foster Care ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Maltreatment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Child Welfare Service ◽  
Welfare Service ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Specific Program ◽  
Wide Range

In-home services represent a wide range of approaches to supporting and strengthening families that child welfare agencies implement to achieve the important outcomes of child and family well-being, safety, and permanency. In-home services are an essential component of the child welfare service system, but often receive less explicit attention in child welfare practice and research than other system components such as foster care, adoption, and child protective investigation. In-home services have been known by different terms over time, from services to children in their own homes, home-based, family-based, or family-centered services, family preservation, or others. Child welfare service systems differ considerably across states and localities, and in-home services probably demonstrate the highest degree of variability in target population, design, and implementation. New federal legislation, the Family First Prevention Services Act (2018), has renewed interest in in-home services. Family First creates mechanisms for states to access federal Title IV-E funds, the primary funding stream for foster care, to use for preventive services, but it also requires that these services demonstrate a sufficiently high level of research evidence of their effectiveness. With increasing emphasis on evidence-based practice, the field is challenged to implement programs and practices that demonstrate efficacy as well as practicality within the budgetary and bureaucratic constraints of public child welfare systems. This bibliography reflects a changing landscape for in-home services. The focus is on specific program models, and the extant evidence base of these models. Most are used with families who are receiving in-home services because the child welfare agency opened a service case due to an allegation of child maltreatment with the goal of preventing repeat maltreatment or the child’s removal from home. Some jurisdictions also use in-home services, including some of the specific program models described in this bibliography, prior to a report of child maltreatment, during the assessment or investigative process, or as part of an aftercare program to facilitate family reunification following a placement. Some attention is also given to in-home child welfare services provided when a child’s behavior, rather than the parent’s, poses a risk for removal. Included in this review are differential response systems, which numerous states have implemented to provide in-home services earlier and without formally opening a child welfare case; however, home visiting and family support programs of a more primary prevention nature are excluded from this review.

Beyond safety and permanency: Making well-being a focus of policy and practice for children in state care

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Mark E. Courtney
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Child Safety ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Child Welfare Policy ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Permanency Outcomes

This essay explores some of the reasons why child welfare policy has too often avoided an explicit focus on child well-being. The historical origins of child welfare services contribute to avoidance of child well-being in policy discourse. In addition, program administrators are reluctant to explicitly take responsibility for the well-being of children they serve because of concerns about added liability, the belief that public institutions other than the child welfare system should be held responsible, and the fear that child welfare services will be unable to ameliorate the damage that children often suffer before entering care. Three empirical studies of child welfare populations in the US are used to examine the inextricable links between child safety, permanency and well-being. It is argued that broadening child welfare policy to embrace child well-being as a policy goal will only enhance the likelihood that child welfare agencies will improve child safety and permanency outcomes.

Decision-making in foster care: A view on the dynamic and collective nature of the process

2020 ◽  
pp. 146801732092882
Author(s):  
Doris Chateauneuf ◽  
Marie-Andrée Poirier ◽  
Geneviève Pagé
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foster Care ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Worker ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Foster Family ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
The Social

Summary Placement in a foster family by child welfare services is a crucial decision in the trajectory of a child. Nevertheless, the strategies and procedures underlying the decision to remove a child from his/her family for placement in foster care remain little studied. Based on 39 semi-directed individual interviews with social workers from child welfare services, the current study aims at highlighting how social workers come to the decision to remove a child from parental care, and how they choose a foster family. Findings The thematic analysis of the qualitative data collected reveals that four main components were raised by social workers to explain how they make their decisions regarding placement and what are the considerations associated with this process: (1) Professional consensus and collaboration, (2) Clinical and legal guidelines, (3) Risk assessment and clinical judgment, and (4) Personality and values of the social worker. The results of this study show that decisions surrounding the removal of a child from his/her family and the choice of a foster family are the result of multiples factors and strategies involving the social worker and other collaborating professionals, as well as their legal and administrative context. Application The findings suggest that additional efforts could be made in child protection organizations and agencies in order to develop supportive measures that take into account the collective and interactional aspect of the decision-making process regarding placement in foster care.

The New Deal, Family Security, and the Emergence of a Public Child Welfare System

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E. Rymph
Keyword(s):  
Foster Care ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Social Security ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Public Child Welfare ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Security Act ◽  
The New Deal

This chapter addresses the significance of the New Deal to the development of publicly funded foster care and its relationship to the nascent welfare state. The chapter includes many first-hand accounts of parents turning to foster care because they could not provide both economic support and nurturing care to their children. The chapter argues that the onset of the Great Depression marked a setback for the delivery of child welfare services. However, the promise of a more rational system of federal welfare provision through passage of the Social Security Act and other New Deal programs raised hopes that economic insecurity for families could be so drastically reduced as to eliminate (or at least diminish) the role of poverty in separating children from their families. In addition, Title V of the Social Security Act also provided funds to develop state-level public child welfare services, which helped spur the creation of a child welfare infrastructure.

scholarly journals Trends in investigations of abuse or neglect referred by hospital personnel in Ontario

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. e000386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Fallon ◽  
Joanne Filippelli ◽  
Nicolette Joh-Carnella ◽  
Steven P Miller ◽  
Avram Denburg
Keyword(s):  
Child Abuse ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Abuse And Neglect ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Referral Patterns ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Vulnerable Families ◽  
Abuse And Neglect

BackgroundThere is a dearth of literature surrounding mandated reporters to child welfare services in the Canadian context. This paper examines 20 years of reporting patterns from hospitals, which represent 5% of all referrals to child welfare services in Ontario.MethodsThe Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (OIS) is a representative study that has taken place every 5 years since 1993. The OIS is a multistage cluster sample design, intended to produce an estimate of reported child abuse and neglect in the year the study takes place.ResultsThere have been significant changes in referral patterns over time. Hospital referrals in 2013 are more likely to involve a concern of neglect, risk of maltreatment or exposure to intimate partner violence. In 1993, children were more likely to be referred from a hospital for a concern of physical abuse. Between 1993 and 1998, there was a significant drop in the number of sexual abuse investigations referred from a hospital. Hospitals have low rates of substantiation across all of the OIS cycles.ConclusionThis is the first study to examine hospital-based referral patterns in Canada. The relatively low percentage of hospital referrals across the cycles of the OIS is consistent with the extant literature. The findings warrant further discussion and research. This study is foundational for future research that can assist in identifying and developing responses across sectors that meet the complex needs of vulnerable families and that ultimately promote children’s safety and well-being.

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