Improving the quality of child welfare services: needs assessment for staff training.

Competency-based needs assessment surveys can be useful in assessing worker training needs in child welfare. Worker and supervisor surveys, consisting largely of task-based ability statements, constitute the core of this approach. Additional information can also be obtained from supervisors and allied professionals. Data from a study of 276 frontline child welfare workers in Alaska and Oregon are used to illustrate the utility of this approach.

[The Family Counsel for Wards of the state. Its essential role in adoption matters]. / Le conseil de famille des pupilles. Sa place essentielle en matière d'adoption.

Every regional branch of the Agency of Health and Social Affairs includes a Child Welfare Service (CWS) whose responsibilities include ensuring the best possible guardianship and future for children registered as Wards of the State. The CWS must immediately register as a Ward of the State every child fitting the criteria for one of the categories defined by the July 11 1966 Act, and take the earliest possible steps towards adoption of such Wards. To achieve these two objectives, a Family Council has been created within the CWS. This Council, that includes eight members with various types of experience or competence in matters of guardianship and adoption, is responsible for pronouncing the registration of Wards and achieving their adoption. Rather than a discussion of general considerations, we have elected to describe the methodical agenda and progress of the Paris CWS Family Council's regular meetings. Emphasis is put on the important aspects of wards eligible for adoption, on the investigation at the homes of candidates and on the "matching" which should be sought for between adoptive families and adoptees. Without doubt, the Family Council's systematic work, denoting a high level of awareness of its responsibilities, is the cause of the significant increase in the number of adoptions and, above all, of the recent availability of adoption to categories that were formerly neglected or permanently "abandoned".

The assessment of risk in child abuse and neglect case investigations.

Estimates vary, but statistics indicate that anywhere between one and six million children will be abused and/or neglected this year in the United States. In the process of investigating reports of abuse and neglect, child protective service workers are called upon to make numerous case decisions. Critical to much of this decision making is the assessment by the worker of the potential risk of harm that exists to the child regarding further abuse or neglect. This paper, based on two separate research studies, identifies the criteria child protective service workers use to assess this potential risk of harm to the child. The research also shows that the criteria are not used as individual factors that indicate the presence or absence of risk. Instead the criteria form a constellation of factors that function for the worker in assessing the degree of potential risk to the child. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of research findings for child welfare practice.

Unanticipated problems in the United States child protection system.

While the United States child protection system is widely recognized as probably the most sophisticated and wide-ranging in the world, it nevertheless has some inherent problems. This article addresses some of the negative effects of mandatory reporting and the lack of fit of a short-term crisis intervention treatment approach for a substantial proportion of the protective services population. Reporting may have detrimental effects on the client-reporter relationship. Further, over half of the cases investigated are not substantiated. Of concern are the impact on innocent families of being investigated and the waste of scarce worker resources on investigation. While some protective services families are well suited to a crisis intervention model, a large number are multiproblem families who are always in crisis and families with chronic problems for whom crisis intervention is totally inadequate. Furthermore, because of high caseload size, workers are often not available to intervene after they have investigated the case. The problems described have been exacerbated by funding cutbacks under the current United States administration. The child protection system, along with other social welfare programs, is at risk for being dismantled by the Reagan administration.

The management of children admitted to child welfare services in Ontario: a review and discussion of current problems and practices.

Children coming into the care of the Ontario Child Welfare System are generally older and more seriously disturbed. Foster parents and Children's Aid Societies have had to change in order to meet the needs of these troubled children. While the efficacy of foster care continues to be debated, there are ways to improve in-care management including: ways of preventing drift, appropriate assessment of parenting capacity, minimizing emergency placements, and more energetic and focused casework which deals appropriately both with the deficits and distortions internalized in the child as a result of previous damage and with the ongoing interactional stresses operative within the foster family system. The advantages of planned over emergency placements are discussed. The child separated from natural parents will mourn. Foster parents' and workers' roles in assisting the work of mourning in foster children are discussed. Soon after admission to care, the practicality of restoration to the natural family must be assessed, and management should then aim towards restoration or towards freeing the child for adoption or planned permanent foster care, should that represent the least detrimental available alternative. The family court system as presently constituted frequently and unnecessarily undermines rather than protects the adjustment and development of vulnerable children. Mechanisms by which this occurs and some proposed solutions are suggested. The paper concludes by suggesting that the traditional low priority given to child welfare services by governments is unlikely to be altered unless mental health professionals succeed in eliciting considerably more community support for adequate social services than is currently available.

[Mobilizing role of mandates from the authorities and for placement in social intervention on behalf of abused children]. / Rôle mobilisateur du mandat d'autorité et du placement dans l'intervention sociale pour les enfants maltraités.

The results of the study of 12 cases in which a social worker had to work with the family at home is the subject of this paper. The author observes that child abuse and neglect is linked with highly variable psychosocial situations. The main problems may be marital conflict, disturbed emotional ties, psychosis. A unique guideline type of policy cannot be applied to such a variety of circumstances. The second observation is that the intervention of the social workers is much more effective when supported by a mandate from the protective authorities. That is if the social worker has the ability to request placement for the maltreated child, his action is more likely to be successful. The author concludes that the efficacy of the social worker's intervention depends both on the kind of problems which the family is facing as well as the technical means at the disposal of the social worker.

The foster care system and health status of foster children.

The foster home care system is the most commonly used alternative for the care of dependent children in the United States. However, it often fails to achieve its objective of returning the child to his home or providing a permanent substitute family. Children entering foster care have frequently suffered social, emotional, and medical neglect, and physical abuse. They have a high rate of chronic medical problems, educational handicaps, and severe emotional impairment. In many cases the health care that foster children receive fails to recognize and/or adequately address their disabilities. In order for the pediatric practitioner to work successfully with a foster child, he must not only provide comprehensive health care, but also must be familiar with the social welfare system within which the child lives.

Early childbearing and poverty: implications for social services.

Economic problems are among the most adverse consequences associated with early childbearing. This paper looks at various social services to determine whether current services are assisting teenage mothers who liver at or below the poverty line to move toward greater productivity and self-sufficiency in adulthood. The results of a national survey of public social services to teenage mothers show that not only are current services inadequate, but are lacking in areas which are directly related to the future economic well-being of early child-bearing females. Public social services appear to be ineffectual in alleviating the conditions that lead to poverty, namely deficits connected with education, employment, home management and family planning. Black and Hispanic teenage mothers were found to be at highest risk of poverty conditions due to their greater dependence on public agencies. The implications of these service deficiencies are discussed in relation to the future economic welfare of these teenage mothers and the need for a restructuring of social services in the traditional child welfare sector.