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What Do Dirty Homes Have On A Child 's Mental And Physical Well Being

Decent Essays

For chapter 9, I am going to describe a research question that I had when working for DCFS. I was given the opportunity to work in four homes that were considered “Dirty Homes.” I would be required to take these families to court and order them to clean their home. However, when there was no progress, I would be told by the attorney that removals could not occur from a dirty home because “No child has ever died from a dirty home.” However, with talking to the school teachers, counselors and other family members, they complained of the child smelling poorly due to hygiene and wearing dirty clothes. The schools complained that these children were often sick and missed several days of school. The children often mentioned that they had …show more content…

To truly understand how dirty homes affect children’s mental and physical well being a community based participatory research would be most effective. This is research that involves active participants and equal partners. These agencies bring different skills, knowledge and expertise and could get information that I would not be able to. As a DCFS worker, I would be working with families that are always on guard and fear me. It would not matter how nice I was or how much I helped, they would have an underlining fear that I could take their children away. If I introduced other agencies to these families, to help clean their home, educate and mediate their concerns with DCFS, I would get a better overall data collection because families would trust these agencies. However, families do have to sign a release of information so that DCFS can talk to the agencies about their progress so the responses and attitudes could be biased but the agencies would be able to get into the home more, see the parents involvement with the children and observe how the children are doing physically and mentally. After a plan is created and permission given developing and maintaining relationships, which means to be honest, sensitive, laid back and nonaggressive,

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