scholarly journals Shifting power relations in New Zealand child welfare policy: The process and implications of the 2014 amendment to s13 of the CYP&tF Act

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-50
Author(s):  
Sarah Martin
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Power Relationship ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Child Welfare Policy

INTRODUCTION: The Vulnerable Children (VC) Act 2014 amended section 13 (s13) of the Children, Young Persons and their Families (CYPtF) Act 1989 to re-emphasise the principle that the welfare and interests of the child should be the paramount consideration in child protection proceedings. This study examines the policy process behind the amendment, and investigates its possible implications, in particular its impact on the power relationship between the state and family/whanau.METHOD: Data was collected from semi-structured, confidential interviews with 10 key informants. Key themes were identified using thematic analysis. This was supplemented by document analysis of published and unpublished government papers, consultation papers and local and international research.FINDINGS: The policy process that preceded the decision to amend s13 of the CYPtF Act was controlled by a small policy elite that failed to consult broadly on either the need for the amendment, or its impact on vulnerable children and families. Government gave little consideration to the implications of the policy change, and the policy process used to develop the amendment lacked the characteristics of rational, comprehensive, policy development. No evaluation or monitoring of the policy change has been put in place, despite the known risk that it may result in an increase in unnecessary removals of children from their families/whanau.CONCLUSION: The s13 amendment, while appearing minor, has significant implications for vulnerable children and families and is part of a fundamental re-balancing of power relations in New Zealand’s child welfare policy.

Privatisation and substitute care: recent policy developments in New South Wales and their significance

1996 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Mason
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
New South ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Care Program ◽  
Substitute Care ◽  
Child Welfare Policy ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Direct Government

During recent years a significant change has occurred in child welfare policy in New South Wales as a large component of the government's substitute care program has been, or is in the process of being, shifted away from direct government provision to non-government agencies. Analysis of some aspects of the policy process by which this change has occurred illustrates the complexity of social policy development. In particular this analysis highlights the importance of the ideological and political context of child welfare policy development and the way in which this contributes to contradictions between official policy statements and policy as experienced by the recipients of the implementation of these policies.

CHILD WELFARE POLICY REFORM IN CHINA: HISTORICAL MILESTONES AND CURRENT EVALUATIONS

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (01n02) ◽  
pp. 27-45
Author(s):  
WENJUN JUNE ZHU ◽  
MONIT CHEUNG ◽  
PATRICK LEUNG
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Family Welfare ◽  
Policy Enforcement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Child Welfare Policy

Policy milestones from 1962 to 2015 highlight China's child welfare policy development in terms of its major implementation eras, characteristics, strengths, and limitations in policy enforcement. This review captures information from government and NGO reports published in the past four decades since the formalization of the one-child policy in China. In the 1960s, as population control was determined an urgent national priority, China's central government started to examine child developmental needs as a way to alert the public about future family issues. Since then, China's child welfare policy development has been characterized by an economy-driven, government-operated, localized, and healthy-child-focused system. The applicability of the public welfare laws in China has been in line with its policy focus on child protection and ending poverty. Policy reform guidelines are proposed to focus on promoting child and family welfare. 中國兒童福利政策於1962年至2015年期間的發展里程碑，是一份分析兒童福利政策的最佳資料，解釋了兒童福利政策在中國的階段性實施，以及每個階段制定的兒童福利政策的特點和利弊。這篇論文收集并分析了從一孩政策頒布伊始至今四十餘載的政府公報和非政府組織的報告。在20世紀60年代，中國中央政府將控制人口的急劇增長定位為社會發展的當務之急，並開始研究兒童發展的需求，以提升對未來家庭問題的警覺性。從此，中國的兒童福利政策的發展凸顯出經濟驅動的、政府運作的、地區差異化的、強調兒童健康成長環境重要性的特點。中國社會公共福利政策的立法呼應了中國兒童福利政策中保護兒童和消除貧困這一中心思想。政府部門在日後編寫政策改革的導論時，必須提出如何推進兒童和家庭福利政策的完善

Research to Consider While Effectively Re-Designing Child Welfare Services

2021 ◽  
pp. 104973152110500
Author(s):  
Richard P. Barth ◽  
Jill Duerr Berrick ◽  
Antonio R. Garcia ◽  
Brett Drake ◽  
Melissa Jonson-Reid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
The United States ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
New Policies

An intense appetite for reforming and transforming child welfare services in the United States is yielding many new initiatives. Vulnerable children and families who become involved with child welfare clearly deserve higher quality and more effective services. New policies, programs, and practices should be built on sound evidence. Reforms based on misunderstandings about what the current data show may ultimately harm families. This review highlights 10 commonly held misconceptions which we assert are inconsistent with the best available contemporary evidence. Implications for better alignment of evidence and reform are discussed.

Moon Lake’s Orphans and “The Other Way to Live”

2019 ◽  
pp. 79-102
Author(s):  
Jean C. Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
The Other ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Child Welfare Policy ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Rank One ◽  
Poor Children ◽  
Moon Lake

This essay examines the roles the character Easter in “Moon Lake” plays in the context of early-twentieth-century debates about the roots of poverty and society’s level of responsibility to poor children. By placing the focus of the story not on Easter but on the genteel Morgana girls’ shifting attitudes about her, Welty illustrates the ways child welfare policy was shaped by conflicting attitudes, whereby sympathy for innocent children coexisted with scorn for their parents. Assuming that Easter lives outside the boundaries that mark their own places in Morgana’s gendered, class-bound, and racially-segregated society, Jinny Love Stark and Nina Carmichael imagine the “orphan” to embody a womanhood untethered by race or rank, one, perhaps, more representative of American democracy. Ultimately, though, the girls come to see that Easter’s status as an orphan makes her more marked by and vulnerable to the violence and oppression that shape the South’s racial patriarchy.

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.

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