The Contemporary U.S. Child Welfare System(s): Overview and Key Challenges

2020 ◽  
Vol 692 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-25
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Berger ◽  
Kristen S. Slack
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Policy Debates

This volume of The ANNALS aims to increase awareness among scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners of the size, scope, and functions of child welfare services in the United States. We aim to promote a wider understanding of the broad impacts of child welfare policies and point to ways in which child welfare services can be better incorporated into cross-cutting social policy debates. The articles in this volume offer concrete recommendations for policies and practices that can reduce child maltreatment, and for systemic approaches—both within the purview of child welfare services and across the broader community and social policy landscape—that can better identify and respond to the needs of children and families in which maltreatment has already occurred or where there is a risk of abuse and neglect. This introduction sets a foundation for understanding the contents of the volume: we provide an overview of child welfare services in the United States and highlight current challenges that the U.S. child welfare systems face.

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.

Child Welfare: History and Policy Framework

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark E. Courtney
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Welfare History ◽  
The 19Th Century

Child welfare services in the United States evolved from voluntary “child saving” efforts in the 19th century into a system of largely government-funded interventions aimed at identifying and protecting children from maltreatment, preserving the integrity of families that come to the attention of child welfare authorities, and finding permanent homes for children who cannot safely remain with their families. Since the 1970s, the federal government has played an increasing role in funding and creating the policy framework for child welfare practice. That child welfare services are disproportionately directed toward members of ethnic and racial minorities has been an enduring concern.

Social Policy: Overview

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Herrick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The Great Depression

Social policy is how a society responds to social problems. Any government enactment that affects the well-being of people, including laws, regulations, executive orders, and court decisions, is a social policy. In the United States, with its federal tradition of shared government, social policies are made by governments at many levels—local, state, and national. A broad view of social policy recognizes that corporations and both nonprofit and for-profit social-service agencies also develop policies that affect customers and those they serve and therefore have social implications. Social policies affect society and human behavior, and their importance for social-work practice has long been understood by the social-work profession. Modern social welfare policies, which respond to basic human needs such as health care, housing food, and employment, have evolved since their introduction during the New Deal of the 1930s as responses to the Great Depression. In the aftermath of the recent “Great Recession” that began in 2006, the nation has once again experienced the kinds of social problems that led to the creation of innovative social welfare policies in the 1930s. How policy makers respond to human needs depends on who has the power to make policy and how they conceptualize human needs and the most effective ways to respond to them. In the early 21st century, the idea that the state should guarantee the welfare and well-being of its citizens through progressive welfare state policies and services has few adherents among policy makers. The complex social problems resulting from the recession—the highest unemployment since the Great Depression of the 1930s, escalating budget deficits at all levels of government, an unprecedented housing crisis exemplified by massive foreclosures, increasing social and economic inequality, a nation polarized by corrosive political conflict and incivility—create a context in which social policies are debated vociferously. Social workers, long committed to the ideal of social justice for all, are obligated to understand how policies affect their practice as well as the lives of those they serve and to advocate for policies that will improve social well-being as the United States recovers.

scholarly journals Privatization of Child Welfare Services in the U.S.A. Current Policy in Historical Context

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2-3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca L. Hegar
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Family Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Current Policy ◽  
Historical Trends ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Children’S Homes

This article analyses historical trends in privatization of child welfare services in the United States, including children’s homes, foster family care, and adoption. It also considers how professionalization and deprofessionalization of child welfare services have varied with shifts in the dominant auspices for the provision of social services.

scholarly journals Social Class and Child Welfare: Intertwining Issues of Redistribution and Recognition

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Halvor Fauske ◽  
Bente Kojan ◽  
Anita Skårstad Storhaug
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Research With Children ◽  
Survey Interviews

By the end of the 20th century, social class appeared to be an old-fashioned and outdated concept. Serious doubts were expressed about the theoretical and empirical relevance of social class in understanding inequalities in contemporary society. However, experiences from completing research with children and families receiving support from child welfare services shows that applying a class perspective is useful. The purpose of our study was to explore the redistributive and cultural dimensions of social class in the context of child welfare. The data include survey interviews with 715 families in contact with the Norwegian child welfare services (CWS). We found that social class is important but with different effects compared with the industrial society. Our analysis highlighted the problems children and families involved with CWS face, associated with social inequalities based on class differences. We argue that social class is part of the social dynamic of late modern societies, and that this dynamic intertwines with the lives of families in CWS and the problem complexes they encounter in everyday life.

Working with Children's Existing Networks – Building Better Opportunities?

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Morris ◽  
Gale Burford
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Considerable Body ◽  
Apparent Resistance

There is a considerable body of research that demonstrates the positive impact of involving children's families and networks in designing and developing the services children need. This paper – using empirical evidence from evaluations conducted in the UK, USA and New Zealand – suggests professionals are struggling to promote participative practice. The paper explores this apparent resistance and raises some questions about the understandings held by professionals about children and families who take up child welfare services that enable traditional exclusive forms of practice to be sustained.

scholarly journals Development and Validation of the Family Feedback on Child Welfare Services (FF-CWS)

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Ayala-Nunes ◽  
Lucía Jiménez ◽  
Victoria Hidalgo ◽  
Maja Deković ◽  
Saul Jesus
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Good Reliability ◽  
Confirmatory Factor Analyses ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Intervention Process ◽  
Development And Validation

Objective: The measurement of Family Feedback on Child Welfare Services (FF-CWS) is gaining prominence as an efficacy indicator and is coherent with concerns about family-centered practice and empowerment. The aim of this study was to develop and validate an instrument that would overcome the scarcity of psychometrically sound measures in this field. Methods: Following item construction and selection, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with a sample of 263 Spanish (52%) and Portuguese (48%) caregivers of children involved with CWS were conducted. Results: Three subscales were identified: Intervention Efficacy, Perception of Workers, and Satisfaction with the Intervention Process. In general, all dimensions showed good reliability, convergent, and criterion-related validity results. Multigroup analyses confirmed measurement invariance for both countries. Conclusions: The FF-CWS Questionnaire is a brief self-report measure that can be a useful assessment tool to frontline practitioners, agency managers, and policy makers for program evaluation and planning.

Other Americas: Transnationalism, Scholarship, and the Culture of Poverty in Mexico and the United States

2009 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-641 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Culture Of Poverty ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Policy Debates

Abstract The anthropologist Oscar Lewis first used the term “culture of poverty” in a 1959 article on Mexico. Within months, the idea that the poor had a distinct culture became part of a passionate, decade-long, worldwide debate about poverty. Scholars, policy makers, and broader publics discussed what caused poverty and how to remedy it. How entrenched were the class and racial differences that led to poverty? How did those differences affect a country’s standing in the community of nations? This article tracks the concept of a culture of poverty as a way of probing the reciprocal, if unequal, connections between Mexico and the United States and their relation to national narratives and policy debates. It tracks how Lewis’s formulation of a culture of poverty drew on his training as an anthropologist in the United States, his extensive dialogue with Mexican intellectuals, and his fieldwork in Mexico. It also shows how Lewis and others reformulated the notion in response to intense public controversies in Mexico and Puerto Rico; the vehement U.S. discussions surrounding the War on Poverty and Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report on the Negro family, and larger events such as the Cuban Revolution, the U.S. civil rights movement, decolonization, the Vietnam War, and second-wave feminism.

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