The child welfare assessment is based on Dave Pelzer, his family and the experience he went through. All of the information for this study can be found in the book The Lost Boy (Pelzer, 1997) by Dave Pelzer. This assessment includes Dave’s family problems, the system, Dave’s problems, environmental factors and types of interventions and solutions that may have been beneficial for Dave and his family.
Problems
Problems that comes up in this case study appears to child; physical, emotional, mental, verbal and personal abuse, along with environmental factors that created the initial “family secret,” that Dave talks about throughout the book. His parents have their own personal conflicted problems, along with their abused in substances like alcohol. The family social economic status seems to range in the lower class, as Dave’ father occupation was a firefighter and his mother’s occupation is unknown. Physical abuse of children is a nonaccidental injury inflicted on a child (Crosson-Tower, p.180, 2013). Dave’s mother made him sit at the bottom of the stairs with his hands under his bottom, starved and slept with no blanket in the cold basement. His mother’s alcoholic problems made him, his mother’s sole target for frustration and anger, basically as his mother’s punching bag. Neglectful mother were more than likely to used words like shame and sad more than non-neglectful mother during the study (Camilo, Garrido & Calheiros, 2016). Dave’s mother called him “it,” while his
This structure is commonly seen in any film or television production, as using the structure makes sure that the narrative is continuing to move forward, and is developing. The film plot line I will be studying and making an analysis on is The Lost Boys.
The Lost Boy was written by David Pelzer. David pelzer was born in California and was abused by his Mother in childhood, he is currently 55 years old. The genre of this book is an autobiography because it is written by David Pelzer himself. The age group of this book is anywhere from about 13-18 the years of your life where you begin to mature. Dave is rescued from his mother. He makes a
As the criminal justice system needs improvement within our society, the social care system needs a bit of enhancement as well. A policy recommendation that should be considered is the social worker that is in the child’s case should focus more on visiting the child. Children placed in the foster care system should be checked on frequently and evaluated as they are placed in such homes. A survey can be provided to children to see where they are mentally and physically during the time of adapting to a new environment. Children can express any concerns or problems they face during the time with their provider. However, in Antwone’s case, the social worker rarely came to check up on how Antwone was holding up in the household he was placed in during his childhood. His foster care provider abused him physically and
The conflict of the story was Dave’s mother. She was cruel and unloving. She would drink and abuse Dave. For some reasons she never beat any of her other kids. Every time he stood up to her she would tell him he was a nobody or an “it”. She did cruel things for no reason. For example one time she tried putting him on the stove to burn him. Other times she would make a gas out of ammonia and Clorox in the bathroom and lock him in there for hours. The climax of the story is when people at school start noticing cuts and bruises on David. When a social worker is sent to his house, his mother starts treating him with love and pretends she’s sorry. Dave believes it and doesn’t say anything when the social worker comes. Dave thinks his dreams have come true and is very happy not knowing when the social
The book “This Boy’s Life” by Tobias Wolff is a memoir written about the author’s childhood memories and experiences. The author shows many different characters within the book. Many of them are just minor character that does not affect the author much in his life choices and thoughts throughout his growth. But there are some that acts as the protagonist and some the antagonist. One of them is Dwight, the protagonist’s or Jack’s stepfather. This character seems to be one of the characters that inhibit Jack’s choices and decisions. This character plays a huge role in Jack’s life as it leaves a huge scar in his memory. The author here spends the majority of time in this character in the memoir to show the readers the relationship between
The act of his mother’s neglect was a reoccurring thought throughout Dave’s head. He could not understand what caused his mother to act like this and he blamed himself.
David Pelzer, the main (and perhaps only) protagonist, has struggled with a lot throughout the book I read. The story is mainly about Dave’s determination to withstand his abusive, alcoholic mother, who will, without a second thought, beat him if he doesn’t get his chores done. Even if he does get all of his chores done, he is starved and forced to sleep on an old army cot in his basement while his family lives in the luxury of the upstairs section of the house. The writer, Dave Pelzer, changed the names of his family to keep their anonymity, which was nice of him due to what goes on in his story. This essay is about a book called A Child Called “It.”
Mark Twain once said, "We are creatures of outside influences -- we originate nothing within. Whenever we take a new line of thought and drift into a new line of belief and action, the impulse is always suggested from the outside." In the memoir This Boy’s Life, by Tobias Wolff Jack shows that he is a creature of outside influence. Some examples of this are that he copies what his friends do, he doesn't try to shape his own life, and he is heavily influenced by the male figures in his life.
I enjoyed the book, This Boy’s Life and I found the lack of stability in Jack’s life interesting. Jack and his mother, Rosemary, move around a lot in the book, causing Jack to never really have a place to call home. In the beginning of the book, Jack and Rosemary are moving from Florida to Utah to escape Rosemary’s ex-husband, Roy. However, Roy follows them to Utah, so Jack and Rosemary move to Seattle. Then, Rosemary meets Dwight and eventually decides to marry him. This leads to her and Jack moving to Chinook with Dwight and his children. At the end of the book, Jack moves to California for the summer to live with his father and brother. After the summer, he starts prep school at Hill in Washington D.C. Here he gets kicked out his senior year and then decides to join the army. Each time Jack moves, he wants to start a better life for himself, but is never able to accomplish this task. I think that the lack of stability in his life, from moving all the time, is the main reason he cannot change his life around.
The beginning of the book talks about what it was like before things went horrifyingly wrong. The family took vacations together, his mother was a loving mother and wife, and Dave's father was his hero. This eventually changed, as did everything in Dave's life. His father never turned out to be his hero, but a drunken firefighter who left him, and at times he wished his mother dead. When the torture and abuse began it was minimal, Dave describes it in the book as punishment instead of discipline but as the book progressed so does the intensity. As the story progresses Dave's feelings are expresses, he speaks of his mother, as either "The Bitch" or just "Mother" there is absolutely no love in the way he speaks of her at all. His anger is also expressed and shown in way he talks about his, once beloved hero, his father and his brothers.
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.
John Boyne has created a sophisticated and meaningful novel in The Boy in the Striped
Social worker in charge of particular cases of a suspected child maltreatment must initially complete a core assessment of the child and his family's situation. This process is crucial for planning of an intervention with a positive outcome (Parker and Bradley, 2003). In the assessment, under the ecological model, the practitioner must recognise different systems, such as the child, family or neighbours, and surrounding environments. If the assessment asserts that a child fits a category of a child in need within these systems, defined in the Children Act 1989 as a child 'unlikely to achieve or maintain (...) a reasonable standard of health or development without the provision for him of services by a local authority' (Children Act, 1989, section 17), the social worker must organise a form of an intervention. He or she must assess which part of the environment requires a change, and where are stress factors negatively affecting the child and the family. At the same time, the child should be given resources, and a certain level of autonomy, and to be treated as the centre of the assessment (Teater, 2010). In the ecological perspective, it might be easier for the social worker to relate to the adults' needs (Davies and Davies, 2011). However, the focus of the assessment should be child-centred, protecting the child's health and wellbeing (Every Child Matters, 2004)(Department of Education, 2011).
These statistics are overwhelming. After being removed from their family and placed in an unfamiliar environment, these children became a behavioral health concern. The inadequate government policies set forth to protect children scarcely graze the requirements for children’s overall health.
A world in which old men can be degraded and abused, a world in which people wearing dirty, unwashed, striped uniforms are not seen as being oppressed, a world in which a starving boy of identical age yet vastly different physique is seen as simply being unfortunate - such a world cannot exist. Or can it? In the world of Bruno, this is precisely the way the world is.