Child Welfare Information Gateway Website Analysis

Child abuse in America is an ongoing problem and something needs to be done. There are approximately one million children abused annually in the United States. (Table 339) Cases of child abuse and neglect are reported every ten seconds, and researchers believe that there’s three times that amount that goes unnoticed. (Child Abuse: Know the Signs and Stop the Violence Against Children.) Something needs to be done for these children who are too weak and too powerless to help themselves.

Child abuse is epidemic in many countries as well as the United States. It is estimated that every thirteen seconds a child is abused in some manner: physically, sexually, emotionally or by neglect (Friedman). Each year, there are over 3 million reports of child abuse in the United States involving more than 6 million children. Child abuse can be reduced with proper education of the parents and with greater public awareness.

It is a reasonable argument that child welfare service entities are necessary as it is all too frequent that child abuse/neglect cases are heard all over the nation and is ultimately a world health issues.  Increasing social issues such as unstable families, poverty, crime, poor education, lack of access to health care and mental health services are some of the factors that contribute to this continuous epidemic that affects many people from various socio-economic classes. Many nations have taken steps to enhance and improve efforts in the fight against the mistreatment of children.

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

In addition to the areas of ASFA needing improvement included in the evaluation of the law by CSSP, there are many quality recommendations provided to help improve ASFA. While ASFA should remain intact, the recommendations by CSSP that would be most helpful include: focusing on community-based prevention and intervention services to families, increased efforts and supports for reunification, implementing specialized treatment for families dealing with substance abuse, mental illness, or incarceration, reassessing ASFA timelines regarding the termination of parental rights and support for parents to progress, analyzing the child welfare system regarding practices for equality towards the specialized needs of diverse families and children, and committing to widely available and effective post-permanency supports for children (CSSP, 2009).

Alliance for Children’s Rights seeks out to help the impoverished, neglected, and abused children living in the United States. They help with free legal services, safe homes, and education and training for foster children and foster parents. According to the Alliance for Children’s Rights, there vision is “A world in which all children have safe, permanent families with the support they need to thrive.” They focus on three main areas; free legal services and advocacy for children in foster care, training and education for those who work in the foster care system, and a system wide reform to change policies to improve children’s lives. The alliance works with a staff of Pro Bono attorneys to advocate for these children. Pro Bono is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing justice for the disadvantaged. The Alliance for Children’s Rights and Pro Bono work together to promote policy reforms such as expedite adoptions, secure medical coverage and therapy for children, support children faced with trauma and disability, and assist young adults in becoming productive and self-reliant adults.

The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services was created in July 1996 by joining children’s services programs from six different departments. This merge occurred during a time when the Tennessee child welfare system was undergoing a massive crisis. The amount of children with significantly higher levels of needs were rising, warning the state to find ways to provide services for children in a more effective manner (www.tn.gov). The mission of DCS is to ensure forever families for children and youth by delivering high-quality, evidence-based services in partnership with the community (www.tn.gov). The vision statement of DCS is Tennessee’s children are safe, healthy, and back on track for success (www.tn.gov). The department’s ultimate responsibility is always to protect children from abuse and neglect. In order to uphold this responsibility, DCS case managers investigate allegations of abuse and neglect, and works with families to resolve issues that

The law also provides Federal Grants to agencies that fall under its guidelines. Many agencies could not exist or be of any benefit to the community without this funding. This law protects children with disabilities, by means that housing that is unique to them be defined with specialized training and equipped to do so. Abandoned infants are a unique situation that is not as easy as one would expect to solve. Even though the “client” is unable to speak for themselves, they still need protection. When dealing with near homeless or homeless families, a human service worker may find they are unsure when to become involved more, which is something that this law will help guide them through. Finally, to protect children all around, it is now apparent that certain jobs that work with children must make their employees subject to background checks.

The mission of the Department of Health and Human Services is to help provide the structure that Americans need to live prosperous and healthy lives. This service gives families, children, and seniors a way to receive quality health care. This achieved by helping parents find affordable childcare and legitimate jobs. This organization is dedicated to keeping American’s food safe, preventing infectious diseases, and by pushing the boundaries of how to treat and diagnose disease (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services , 2013).

So they should act and make decisions in the best interest of the seven generation(unborn generation) to ensure the health of future generations. They offer multiple programs like: DMH innovations, native pathways to healing and family emergency preparedness program. The DMH innovations program integrates care that includes mental health and substance abuse services. It is open to children and adults to provide community based and culturally focused systems. The Native pathways to healing provides services for those who have been victims of child abuse, domestic abuse, or sexual assault. There is a program called CHAT that is a child abuse abuse treatment program, which focuses on the child victims, by providing culturally centered therapy and advocacy victims. I am interested in this program, but it has become extremely difficult to communicate with the person who runs the program, so therefore I am not sure if I will be able to participate in it. The family preservation aspect focuses on serving families who are referred from the department of child and family services. They help with family maintenance, counseling, transportation, and services to help the parent get childcare, employment, housing and health care. The program also helps with prevention and after care that provides emergency

Child welfare, foster care, and adoption were authorized under the titles IV-B and the IV-E of the Social Security Act (SSA). The US Department of federal and Human Services with ginger included the child welfare services, while prompting safe and stable families programs (Children's Bureaus). Other programs were created such as foster care programs which the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program goes hand in hand with children's foster care, and even the adoption assistance program (Children's Bureaus). With these programs created many expansions on the child welfare policy. Foster care programs such as the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (CFCIP) to which was implemented for youth who entered the kinship guardianship and or are adopted from foster care after the determined age of 16 (Children's Bureaus), with this program it helped both adults caring for older youth foster children and also for those foster care individuals who have “aged out” of foster care. This

My field placement will be at Child protective services in El Paso TX. My Target population for my field placement will be Children who have been maltreated, neglected and abused. Child abuse prevention has grown exponentially in El Paso over the past 31 years. In El Paso alone the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigated 4,979 reports of alleged child abuse in 2014 in El Paso County. They confirmed that 1,339 children were indeed victims of abuse; 379 confirmed cases of Physical abuse, 166 confirmed cases of sexual abuse, 56 cases of emotional abuse and 70 cases of medical neglect (Lee & Beulah Moor,2016) A troubling trend has emerged regarding the prevention of child maltreatment in the state of Texas. A tragic loophole contributing to continued abuse and in many cases child fatalities, continues to be exploited to the detriment of one of our most vulnerable populations. From 2009 to 2014, there were 800 child fatalities reported as abuse and neglect deaths by Child Protective Services in all of Texas (Ball, 2015). An analysis of these cases by an independent research group found gross errors by CPS and other agencies during ongoing abuse cases enabled the abuse or neglect to continue, inevitably leading to death. Although the percentage of child fatalities is just a tiny fraction of the exorbitant

The ultimate long-term mission for Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey is to prevent the abuse and neglect of the nation’s children. For completing the mission, two objectives are placed so that the goal can be obtained. Services; such as counseling, human services, home visiting and education are provided to children and families, and are one of the two objectives that is expected to change. The purpose of the services is to lower the potential chance of neglect or child abuse, and lower childhood trauma because of neglect or abuse. The second objective is to have more banners, displays, and brochures sent out for families and people. Information is sent out, so that people would be more aware of child abuse and/or neglect.

Child welfare is one of the most important sociological topics today. It is a concept that is used to describe the combination of efforts and services that are designed with the primary objective of maintaining and promoting the safety as well as the wellbeing of children and ensuring that families have the necessary support they need to ensure that their children have been successfully cared for. In essence, child welfare is social work that is focused on the welfare of children (Keddell, 2014). Child welfare is a broad topic that involves, among others, child protection from abuse, support for families to effectively care for their children, investigation of child maltreatments and neglect, and support for children in

Child abuse in the United States is a growing epidemic. Every year the number of reported cases, and missing children go up. This is caused mostly by lack of education about the different types of child abuse, and the signs that go along with it. Communities need to provide more resources to better educate the public about the types of abuse, and the signs that go along with it. Child abuse and neglect can be lessened by more resources, more education and to reach out to others.