Impossible Job Of Child Protective Services

There are many efforts that are made each day to ensure safety of children living in the state of Mississippi. The MS Department of Child Protection Services (MDCPS) is at the center of every community’s child protection efforts. MDCPS conducts initial assessments of reports of child abuse and/or neglect. The agency also provides other prevention services to children and families where maltreatment has occurred or is likely to occur. The adaptation of these services examines underlying conditions. These underlying conditions consist of drug and alcohol abuse, sexual molestation, poverty and cultural beliefs. MDCPS utilizes tools such as Comprehensive Family Assessments (CFA) and Family Service

In the “High Stakes and Frightening Lapses” case study, the report indicates various problems that face individuals with careers in the social services cluster. There was evidence of high case loads with low pay, lack of attention to families that needed it the most (the Ventura family), absence of leadership from administration, broken promises, bureaucratic issues, etc., which can all lead to unsuccessful relationships between clients and social workers as well as distrust within the helping process. The actions pursued by both DSS and La Alianza Hispana (LAH) resulted in the horrifying situation of several children that could have ultimately been prevented by the professionals.

The controversial issue of whether or not Child Protective Services are doing their jobs properly, has grabbed nationwide attention. Child Protective Services is the name of a government agency in many states of the United States whose mission is to respond to reports of child abuse and neglect. Some of these cases may include physical abuse, sexual abuse, and mental abuse (Wikipedia). The child welfare system is corrupted. The parents and guardians who are accused of abuse are automatically labeled as guilty and will have to prove their innocence; instead of being innocent until proven guilty.

Child welfare systems are designed to ensure the safety and well-being of children and families. The mission of this system is a noble one and can be very rewarding and beneficial for all involved.  Ironically, that same system that is designed to help families in times of crisis can be, harsh and challenging to families and social workers.

I need to start by admitting that this video was difficult to watch! Within a few seconds of watching the video I was reminded of the level of difficulty of the social work profession. As described in the video, Child Protection Services’ role is to protect children from neglect and abuse (Mierendorf, 2000). Similarly, social workers play several significant and complex roles within child advocacy. Social workers need to ensure the safety and well-being of children and be their voice when they are being silenced or maltreated. Social workers need to identify the abuse and address the situation accordingly. This could be particularly difficult when is in the best interest of children to be removed from their

Rita Price, writer for The Columbus Dispatch, recounts a horrific story about siblings who suffered numerous accounts of abuse. After being beaten with baseball bats, burned with irons, starved, and forced to drink their own urine, the Ferguson children were finally able to come forward and testify against their adoptive parents in order to send them to prison. The children did not believe they had a voice, and the abuse went unnoticed for years. The Ferguson children, along with many others in similar situations, do not feel they have anyone to turn to. After going through foster care systems and the adoption process, the children had already experienced large amounts of change and stress, only to be left with negligent parents. In

Before taking this class or completing my service learning with Child Protective Services (CPS), I really had not had any experience with CPS. I just made the assumption that the agency was biased and flawed based on the experiences other people had with CPS. I also did not think it would be a place that I would want to work because I did not want to work with children, although now I realize that was a really unfair opinion I had of the agency. I also thought a lot of people abused the service because I had heard a lot of stories of people calling CPS on each other out of spite. After learning about CPS and being able to observe what the agency does, I do realize the agency is not what I thought it was. I also realize

This is possibly the hardest assignment I’ve had to do to date. It’s difficult to examine how much this little boy had to suffer at the hands of his father. The crimes that took place here were more than abuse. I believe that the case worker is culpable for refusing to protect the child and should have been disciplined if not charged with a crime. The mother deserved a more severe sentence for allowing this abuse to go on for so long and should have been charged as an accessory to the crime. This case did lead to outrage and sweeping legislation in the state of Washington was enacted. Most of the legislation was aimed at allowing and even mandating that child protective services make protecting the child a higher priority than keeping the family together.

If I were the child protective services worker that was working and involved with the Krasniqi family I would have done several things differently. There are several themes and concepts in this case that should have been dealt with differently than how they were. In particular there are three that I would reexamine first. I would reexamine and address the cultural competency of the workers and the agency. Next I would reexamine the religious competency of the works as well as the agency. I would also look into alternative placements for these children to go to. Within this essay I will examine certain mistakes that were made by child protective services and law enforcement.

Child welfare systems have always had a history of providing suitable care for children. However, what makes that façade believable is the fact that they are covering up the children who were never given a fair chance to begin with and who have slipped through the rapidly widening cracks. The system needs to concede and make amends to the wrongs they have caused. The child welfare system need to adduce the reevaluation of their procedures to ensure the better interest of the children in their care.

Most of the time the news that is being reported is negative and it is extremely hard to see anything positive. This is especially true for news about the foster care system. A lot of the articles and news stories on the foster care system is about what is wrong with the system. This is seen clearly in the article “As Arizona Struggles to Fix Foster System, Children Suffer the Consequences,” by Rick Rojas (2015), in which he describes Arizona’s foster care system. In this article, Rojas describes the types of things that children in the foster care system go through and the state government’s solution to it. They find that children are continuously being removed from one dangerous situation to another. It was reported that complaints of neglect and mistreatment were being ignored. The government’s solution to the problem was to separate child welfare from the Department of Economic Security and making the leader of the child welfare department report directly to the

Justice for Gabriel Fernandez can mean justice for all children. In order to protect our children from negligent and irresponsible social work major changes need to take place in not only the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), but all Departments of Children and Family Services statewide. The four Los Angeles County DCFS workers should be found guilty of the criminal charges brought against them for failing to protect Gabriel Fernandez, which led to his untimely death. Our children are dying, because the people entrusted to care for our most vulnerable children are failing

By 1986 mostly every state required other professions that work with families, such as nurses, teachers, and school staff, to be mandated to report child abuse (Hines et al., 2013, p. 51). Since the book took place in the 1970’s neither the teachers nor the staff reported to child protective services (CPS). Instead of reporting to CPS about the bruises or the reason as to why David was stealing food the teacher discussed her concerns to the principal and he called to discuss the matter with the David’s mother. Of course the mother sounded very convincing in explaining David wanted attention. Over the years there was been prevention programs with the goal of improving parenting skill and knowledge. There are primary prevention programs that target the general population through media campaigns. The secondary prevention programs focus on the populations that are high risk for abusing their children the goal is to provide them with skills and knowledge to prevent abuse. The tertiary prevention program provides the appropriate interventions to ensure that the families who already experiences abuse won’t happen again (Hines et al., 2013, p.

The tone set by these article is one of hopelessness with no voice for children in that time who did not have a strong family presence. It was as if the children did not matter and no one took into account that they would one day be the future. We still hear about child abuse from natural parents as well as foster homes. However, making these conditions public with a message that we do not accept it has helped keep these places under better scrutiny to prevent abuse. I believe that if there had been more visits from local agencies to check on the way the home was run would have limited the power the guards had. Knowing that someone may be coming to walk around and inspect the boys as well as the grounds often would have prevented

I believe that the most challenging aspect of working in protective services is separating work from home. Being able to "leave work at work" is difficult to do for any position, especially when considering deadlines that must be met and paperwork that must be completed. Working in protective services provides the additional challenge of leaving the horrifying images and circumstances that a service worker will see and face at the door before entering the home. Protective services appeals to me specifically because I want to assist children and families in facing some of the darkest moments in their lives. While it is difficult to separate work from home, working in protective services is one of the most worthwhile things one can do and one