CPS, Tannisea Tracy: A Case Study

Ms. Smith reported severe sexual abuse by her biological father, between the ages 6-12. She attempted to advise her

Child protective services (CPS) is a government agency located in many states across the United States that helps children stay away from harm and abuse. Child protective services and its agencies plays a big role in society. Children of all ages are assaulted and most of the times by a dearest loved one. Child abuse is defined as any type of neglect upon a child including mentally, physically, and sexually.

adolescent boy and girls, are physically and sexually abused. CPS claims that among the children who enter foster care, most will

When children come into the custody of DCFS and are placed into Foster Care they are scared, confused, lonely, and usually conditioned not to tell when they are being mistreated. Most of the children that come into “the system” have learned to accept abuse as normal or natural and are unaware that they are even being mistreated. Therefore, when they are placed in homes where this is occurring it is not in their nature to speak up. Once they are removed from their parents, they are solely reliant on the department for their protection and it is the department’s responsibility to provide that protection which has not always been fulfilled by the department or the foster care agencies. The department should be making reasonable efforts to provide proper services

Other health problems arise when the trauma from past experiences such as abuse or violence in the home cause long term effects in the children. The needs of children in foster care are multifaceted and the problems are exacerbated when the resources in the community are scarce and when the service system is fragmented (Halfon, Berkowitz, & Klee, 1993). Due to the complexity of their problems and the degree of vulnerability, a well-trained and

IRTC spoke with CPS, Cari Covahey, who reported that she observed the subject child and her siblings and there were no visible injury. CPS stated that there are no present issue regarding the subject child being sexual abused, but she seems to have a strong attraction to sexual related content. CPS uttered that she was told that the child is making comments about wanting to get pregnant and she frequently make remarks which are sexual in nature. Based on the above statement, this case does not meet the criteria for an IRT. However, if there is any suspicion pertaining to the subject child begin sexually abused in a physical manner, CPS is to contact IRTC or an IRTC at ECS (after hours) for a case reassessment.

A nine year old in Oregon was removed from her home by child protective services in 2010 and placed into the care of Kamlo and Dwight Reed. Even though the state Department of Human Services allegedly knew that Dwight had been accused of sexually abusing a another foster child, the adoption still went through. After the Dwight couple abused the young girl sexually, physically, and emotionally, a a guardian who was court-appointed for the child filed a lawsuit against the department in 2016. If the agency had looked into the allegations, the child would have likely been saved from suffering through years of abuse by being placed into a different home. The social service workers receive a large amount of cases each year. According to the U.S. Children 's Bureau, children protection agencies received nearly 3.6 million reports of abuse or neglect concerning 6.6 million children; however, the agency only reported roughly 702,000 children who suffered from abuse, including 1,580 children who died. The number of cases reported is less than ¼ of the cases received. If the agency discovered some of the 1,580 cases quicker, adolescent deaths

America has a staggering problem among its youths and is in desperate need of help. Every day, young, innocent children are being abused. Unfortunately, this rate only seems to be growing as the foster care system is becoming flooded with children who need help. According to the website, Foster Club, a child is entered into the foster care system every two minutes. The reasoning for a child being placed in foster care can range, but mostly it is because of abuse. These traumatizing experiences and memories can hinder a person for the rest of their life. These kids find themselves in a terrible situation and learn ways to cope with the pain. It can be easy to judge their behaviors but for somebody with a normal life we can never understand the trials that they have had to live through. Fortunately, the psychological damage that is done can be reversed but in order to understand this fully we first need to know the negative psychological affects abuse can have on a person.

According to the National Children’s Alliance, one in four girls and one in six boys under the age of eighteen are at risk of being sexually abused but only according to what is reported. In the State of Texas, a professional has forty-eight hours to report any cause to believe a child been abused as stated in Sec. 261.101. As a foster parent and principal, Angela Sugarek and Carol Jeffery had a major moral responsibility and legal duty to report what her three year old foster son was displaying: behaving strangely and an anal injury.

There are different types of trauma child welfare programs focus on. They typically focus on behavioral and emotional problems and ways to correct the child (Greeson et al. 94). However, it is not as simple as the welfare programs want it to be. One first must look at the trauma history of the child, or the “Trauma History Profile”, also known as THP (Greeson et al. 97). The THP addresses “lifetime exposure to trauma and contains a

Child Protective Services (CPS) is a complex system of assessments, investigations, and conclusions. CPS is the central agency in each communities child abuse and neglect service system. It is responsible for ensuring that preventative, investigative, and treatment services are available to children and families endangered by child abuse and neglect. As a result, CPS workers must perform a variety of functions when responding to situations of child maltreatment and play a variety of roles throughout their involvement with child protective clients. Reporting a suspective case of child maltreatment to the local CPS agency (or a family member’s own request for help with the problem) initiates

The Guidelines from the Child Welfare League of America and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry help to ensure that children in the foster care system receive mental health treatment. However, services to address mental health needs continue to go underutilized for children and youths in foster care. In one national study “ Children and youth investigated by child welfare agencies following a report of maltreatment, only one-fourth of children and young people in need of mental health services had received any mental health specialty services.” (Villagrana, M. 2010). To better understand the underutilization of mental health services in the welfare system. Studies show that predictive variables that include age, gender, ethnicity, and abuse type are factors of why children and young people don’t always receive treatment. Furthermore, research also shows that parental risk factors also predict mental health services needs in children. Domestic violence and intimate partner abuse is

Most youth in foster care have traumatic family histories and life experiences (including the removal from their birth family) that result in an increased risk for mental health disorders. A study of children in foster care revealed that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was diagnosed in 60% of sexually abused children and in 42% of the physically abused children (Dubner & Motta, 1999). The study also found that 18% of foster children who had not experienced either type of abuse had PTSD, possibly because of exposure to domestic or community violence (Marsenich, 2002).

The maltreatments that children face prior to entering into the foster care system can be grouped into neglect, physical abuse, psychological maltreatment, and sexual abuse. Though these forms of abuse can be identified separately identified, they often occur concurrently with

After watching these different cases, the way they affected me is that it’s very difficult for social workers to decide to remove the child or let them go back to their house and live with their parents. For them it’s a very difficult and important decision because basically child’s life and future depends on the social worker’s decision. If they say it’s safe for the child to go back to live with his/her parents and if the abuse and neglect still continues, they put the child’s life on risk. I think the 10-year-old Matthew case stand out more than others because even though the dad was physically abusing the child, Matthew still wanted to go back to his house and live with his dad. It’s interesting that the way they were acting it felt like