Factors contributing to disproportionality in the child welfare system: views from the legal community.

A critical shortcoming in the existing body of research addressing racial disproportionality in the child welfare system is the lack of inclusion of external stakeholders in attempts to understand and address this issue.This article reports the results ofa study designed to develop a deeper understanding of disproportionality from the views of the legal community, a critical stakeholder in child welfare. Using a qualitative approach, with focus groups as the method of data collection, data were collected to provide a greater depth of information that could be used alongside existing studies to develop an enhanced understanding of disproportionality in the child welfare system. Factors contributing to disproportionality include cultural bias, a fearful agency climate, communication barriers, ineffective service delivery, and workforce issues. Recommendations from focus group participants and implications are presented.

Ethical challenges of military social workers serving in a combat zone.

Often faced with ethical challenges that may appear extraordinary, military social workers comprise a distinctive subgroup of the social work profession. From the unique paradigms in which they practice their craft, obvious questions about how military social workers address the ethical challenges inherent to their wartime mission arise. Using a concept mapping design, this qualitative phenomenological study addresses some of the ethical challenges faced by 24 military social workers who were deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (combat operations inAfghanistan).The results visually display approaches to dealing with the ethical concern of balancing the needs of the client and the needs of the military combat mission. Most participants reported that they used clinical judgment rather than moral reasoning when dealing with such situations. Other ethical concerns are also explored: confidentiality and privacy, conflicts with commanders, relationships and boundaries, and diagnosis and treatment. Understanding of these ethical challenges is relevant to all social workers as they represent an important component of the values,knowledge, and skills germane to the social work profession.

Adapting systems of care for child welfare practice with immigrant Latino children and families.

Recent reform efforts in the child welfare system have called for child welfare agencies to provide community-based services and to increase the involvement of external stakeholders in identifying and developing services within the community. At the same time, child welfare agencies are faced with the challenge of providing services to an increasingly diverse population of children and families. As a result, there is a need for evidence-based practice models that respond to these challenges and promote positive outcomes for children and families. This paper describes the development of a program designed to train child welfare staff on the application of an existing evidence-based framework, systems of care, to practice with immigrant Latino children and families as a means of responding to these multiple calls for systems change and practice improvement. Immigrant Latino children and families represent the largest and fastest-growing population in the United States, and thus require the attention of child welfare systems and the development of evidence-based practices designed to respond to the unique needs of this population. Recommendations for program planners and evaluators on the application of systems of care to child welfare practice with immigrant Latino children and families are provided.

Culturally competent systems of care with Latino children and families.

The Latino population represents the fastest growing ethnic minority in the United States. As a result, child welfare agencies need to be prepared to provide culturally appropriate services to Latino families. This paper describes an evaluation of a federally funded initiative designed to train child welfare practitioners in using an existing evidence-based framework--systems of care--with Latino children and families to address the need for culturally competent, community-based services with this population. Results indicate that trained participants responded positively to the systems of care framework, increased their knowledge of systems of care, and reported positive benefits to their clients through using this framework. However, challenges to implementing systems of care were identified. Implications of these findings and the use of systems of care in child welfare are presented.

Deconstructing disproportionality: views from multiple community stakeholders.

While the existence of racial disproportionality has been well documented, the causes of disproportionality are less clear. Studies identifying contributing factors have relied largely on analyses of state and national data sets, which may lack the robust data necessary to fully explain the factors related to this issue. Further, a limitation of existing research is the lack of data from the voice of those in communities affected by disproportionality. This study was designed to develop a deeper understanding of disproportionality from the views of multiple community stakeholders. Using a qualitative approach, data were collected to provide a greater depth of information that can be used alongside existing studies toward developing an enhanced understanding of disproportionality in child welfare.