Policies are important to all that could benefit from them and could help our communities by helping them. Also, policies are important because our government is strapped for money. Since we face serious fiscal problems with the government running large deficits every year. Meaning we have to be smarter about our social welfare policies. It needs to be ensure that they really work so that they are not wasting money. Moreover, in 2004 in the United States about 3 million children were investigated because of alleged abuse or neglect. From that investigation 872, 000 children were confirmed victims of maltreatment; and an estimate 1,490 children died from abuse or neglect (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006). Child welfare …show more content…
The bureaucratic model that was designed to legitimize the professional aims of child welfare work became a principal barrier to the use of family preservation models in public agencies. This bureaucratization is traced to the efficiency paradigm that began to emerge in the early part of the twentieth century when a shift occurred form cause to function and from the democratic to the bureaucratic organization. Lubove described the origins of the efficiency paradigm in social work as follows:
The quest for efficiency and administrative technique in social agency operations paralleled the caseworker’s efforts to reduce the range of intuition, subjectivity, and unpredictability in her own work. In both cases the volunteer introduced an element of uncertainty. Neither her livelihood nor social status depended upon conformity to agency policy or to the standards and procedures of professional casework. Volunteer service conflicted with the administrator’s desire for rational, efficient organization and the social worker’s identification with the agency as a vehicle for professional achievement. (Lubove, 1965, p.161)
The efficiency pursued as a means for legitimizing the professional social worker has had its consequences. Today’s public child welfare agency has devolved into the organization type that sociologist, Max Weber feared in defining the pure bureaucratic type: bureaucratic efficiency has reduced the organization’s capacity to respond to
According to (Dulmus & Sowers, 2012, p.106), the history of social work is one of an old religiously grounded ethos of offering, aid and comfort. This shows that social work has been around for quite a long time, helping the unfortunate and it has developed more throughout these past centuries. The profession was largely shaped by Westerns idea and events. (Chenoweth &McAuliffe, 2015, p.32). The ideas and events included could have been war, poverty and other social reforms. That is when social welfare was needed to give aid and help solve these issues. Social work largely expanded in England in the 16th during the Elizabethan poor laws and later on in America between 17 and 18th century (Dulmus & Sowers, p.6). This essay is going to focus on how social work has evolved or changed for the better from the 1960s till present.
In this paper, the role of a social worker will be addressed. A Human Service professional has, in its hands, the responsibilities in the life of the clients and families they meet. The tremendous and arduous responsibilities they take on include, but are not limited to, the well-being and care of people and their communities. Such roles can be helping others manage the care of a family member, assisting individuals experiencing problems with family relations and conflicts, dealing with changes that come with growing old, aiding those suffering mental illness and or those individuals struggling with addictions. Briefly
“ The major role of the Child Welfare System in the twenty- first century is to insure the safety, permanency, and well being of
Maurice William’s understands that social workers get tired because of their relentless job responsibilities, therefore, she makes sure they don’t experience burn out since it is her responsibility to keep the families intact (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011). Since she is not out in the field visiting the homes, she puts her faith in her upper management team to be able to listen and pay attention to any problems or potential future problems (Laureate Education, Inc. 2011). Since she is unable to be out in the field, Williams uses her supervisory skills to train her staff to be able to identify potential problems and also to report back to her what the problems are. If there were problems out in the field (i.e., foster parents, foster children), she shoulders the full responsibility to make sure that the problems are addressed and resolved, or modify changes that are in the best interest of the children.
Many of the children who are placed into the care of Child Protective Services are situated into hellish foster homes with people who only care about the money they receive from the government for each child that is placed under their roof; and not for the welfare of the children. Numerous amounts of children that are caught up in the system, especially
I believe the most important aspects to me when reading this article were the child welfare system and the child welfare policy. The child welfare system is of importance because it is the backbone of many children that may be in foster care, child protective services or children that
By the year 1967, all U.S. states had child abuse reporting laws. “Child abuse reporting laws and enhanced awareness of child abuse produced an increase in intervention” (Myers, 2013). As reporting laws came into affect, more and more cases of child abuse and neglect were shown. By the mid 1970s, over 60,000 child abuse cases were reported and the extremely high rate of children in foster care alarmed government officials. In 1980, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (AACWA) was passed. This act required every state to make reasonable efforts in keeping children with their families, and when removing the child was not avoidable, the child was required to have a plan to be placed back in the home or have their parents’ rights revoked. For the children whom returning home was not an option, Congress offered financial incentives for adoption. This effort to preserve the families was a main objective of AACWA. An influential investigation pertaining to this was done by Henry S. Mass and Richard E. Engler, as explained by Sribnick (2011). They concluded that many children were living a majority of their childhood years in foster care and institutions. Their findings showed that if a child stayed in foster care for more than a year and a half, it was not likely that he or she would ever be reunited with his or her family or be adopted. In response to this, the Child Welfare League of America lobbied for child welfare workers to consider
This essay will focus on how contemporary social workers work to balance the competing demand of care and control. It will start by outlining the nature of the contemporary social work and what it is like and how it works within society. The discussion will then move on to look at and discuss the key professional values of social work practitioners and analyse its relationship to their own personal values, this will also bring into account how these values and views influenced the relationship a social worker can have with both service users and other agencies. Lastly it will explore the range of challenges and dilemmas that are faced by social work practitioners in everyday practice when it comes to trying to balance the demand of care and control and how they work to overcome these problems in order to ensure an effective and fair service to all who avail of it.
The job of a child welfare worker appears to be a demanding profession that promotes the child’s safety, but also strengthens the family organization around them in order to successfully raise the children. This child welfare workers work in the system known as the Child Protective Services whose initiative is to protect the overall welfare of the child. The short novel From the Eye of the Storm: the Experiences of a Child Welfare Worker by Cynthia Crosson-Tower demonstrates the skills necessary to deal with the practice of social work along with both its challenges and its happy moments. The novel consists of some of the cases involving Tower’s actual career in social work. In reading the book, I was able to experience some of the actual
Children’s Social Welfare has been an ongoing development since the early 19th century in aa a way of improving the lives of children suffering from multiple disadvantages. Social welfare can be broken down into severe area affecting individuals in society, social welfare can pertain to an individual's physical life health, and even a happiness. That is the simplest breakdown. A social welfare system, is a system that provides to needy individuals in various situation, children are the focus of child social welfare policy. Child welfare can also apply to a family in need of assistance. During the 19th century the first major public wide intervention was implemented focusing national attention on the abuse and neglect of children (Barusch 2006).
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.
Child welfare systems are constructed to support families and most importantly to protect children from harm using prevention and intervention services. Child welfare is a great example to demonstrate how the NASW’s ethical principles are put into effect. They are based on values of service by helping the children in need and addressing the social problems they are faced with. Another value that could be used is social justice especially in cases that involve children because the whole objective of child welfare systems is to ensure the well-being of a child. The services are meant to support children who have been or are at risk of abuse or neglect.
Early social work focused on individuals and casting blame on them for their circumstances. Social workers had good intentions, but believed poor people were poor because of some failing on their part and often held a moralistic view that they were better than those they were helping. Social work has always had some type of organization behind the
In the Hong Kong Journal of Social Work, Tropman (2002) believes that managerialism, along with good management, is much needed in services. This is due to the rise in unsuitable expectations, increased competition amongst different organisations and a complete shrink in local authority budgets. On the other hand, other researchers such as O’Connor (2002) and Leung (2002), also contributed articles to the Hong Kong Journal of Social Work, but take a more critical view towards managerialism. In this essay, I will be critically analysing the impact of managerialism on the delivery of social care/social work services and the increased focus on performance measurement in services. I will focus of specific benefits and issues on managerialism and performance measurement and look in depth at each part. Additionally, I will use supporting arguments and evidence for and against, as well as analysing how these interrelate to one another.
In completing this essay an opportunity was given to visit a social service agency to interview a social worker. The interview will focus on the educational background of the social worker, job duties, training, funding, organization structure, target population, recommended opportunities for growth, and the correlation between social work and course work.