Should More Be Done To Protect Children

Child Protection aims at prevention and reactions in relation to exploitation, violence, and abuse against children. Children obtain protection against activities such as sexual exploitation, labor, trafficking, and harmful traditional practices. Most children are vulnerable to these abuses hence require much protection for full growth and development.

"Strained Foster Care System A 'Meter Of Our Social Problems'" NPR. NPR, 22 Sept. 2013. Web. 12 Jan. 2015.

The article immediately starts out with a gruesome horror story that no child should have to endure. Then talks about the history of the cycle we have fallen into. “child protective services has been driven by horror stories that have become a meta-narrative: social workers screw up by missing the telltale signs of abuse, kids get hurt, laws are reformed, and thus more at-risk children are taken out of their homes and given to loving adoptive families.” then goes to say that they do not live happily ever after. That only 20% of kid come out of the system well-adjusted. The article talks about how the media is quick to job on Social Service for being the cause of childrens ' deaths and that is why the system takes kids. The media expects you to remove kids at the warning signs, but not too early because you will be portrayed as a monster if you violate parents right. Warning signs do not predict the future, just because a police officer interviews a man who is black and poor, and has committed a crime before and they think he will commit a crime again, they can not arrest them. The police officer who had an interview with the man is not going to get blamed for not taking the man off the streets if that man leaves the interview and commits a crime. So why would a social worker get the blame?

The passing of The Child and Family Service Improvement and Innovation Act, H.R. 2883, was essentially put into place to counteract some of the dangers of the foster care system. It Put in place more required regulations of case workers, but perhaps also played the unfortunate role in the increased burnout of those within the field of child and family services. Regardless of this potential repercussion, the bill holds true intentions to make the system not only function better, but improve the care and quality of child and family services. Put into federal law September 24, 2011, it has been working towards progress and improvements within the system (H.R. 2883 (112th): Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act, 2011).

The Child welfare Act of 1980 and the Adoption Assistance provide significant federal financial support for a broad range of child protective services. This includes developing reporting systems, investigation of maltreatment reports, family preservation, reunification services, foster care, and adoption assistance. These policies also aid in supporting the role of the social worker when it comes to improving basic case practice. Mandating child care professionals to register all allegations of child abuse and neglect with authorities, mandating the creation of information systems on children in foster care, and making sure social workers receive proper case planning tools when working with children in foster care (rand.org,

Pérez uses the underutilized data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect for his research studies on how child welfare policy decisions have impacted foster care youth. The archive serves as an information exchange of datasets and analysis for participants working on their research projects. Pérez and his colleague Dr. Richard J. Harris, a professor of sociology within the Department of Social Work, used this data for a manuscript (forthcoming) on the examination of the national independent living services provided under the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program under the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999. The John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (CFCIP) offers assistance to help current and former foster care youths achieve self-sufficiency. “Despite the investment of $140 million/year since 1999 under the Foster Care Independence Act, only 1/3 of the national population of foster care youth receive the services promised under the Act, services including but not limited to education, housing, financial management, employment and emotional support,” said Pérez. Pérez and Harris, in their manuscript, address the factors that predict or shape this group’s service utilization. “While we know a lot, we still don’t know much,” said Dr. Pérez. “Historically we have been doing thing in an intuitive way but not in an evidence-based way,” added

Society understands our current system is awful, but no one is protesting for a reform, or they’re aren’t trying hard enough. Child safety is the number one objective of the system, but it’s not working like it should. “In 2015, over 670,000 children spent time in U.S. foster care” (Foster Care). Of those 670,000 cases, more than half could be eliminated with a reform in the system. The focus should be on keeping families together, rather than taking them apart.

Safeguarding is a term used within health and social care to define the protection of children, young people and vulnerable adults. Safeguarding incorporates the protection of those most vulnerable from abuse, neglect and potential harm.

Children and young people are vulnerable in nature. As their journey of life is in initial stages of development. They lack experience to understand and handle certain situations. Their lives can be severely affected by the risk, danger and fear from unknown or from people who are considered closest. If they are not taken care during their childhood, they may suffer from difficult young age and adulthood.

Partnership working in the context of safeguarding, is the working together with agencies and professionals. The importance of partnership working with runs through every aspect of safeguarding from government legislation to local working.

“while the profession of social work and the labor movement have moved in different directions

Child welfare agencies nation wide received approximately 2.8 million reports of child abuse or neglect in 2000. From those reports, the Urban Institute determined that states spent at least 20 billion dollars on child welfare services that year alone. Tropman (1984) debated the benefits and limitations concerning a licenseship that a parent would need to acquire before having children. With these astonishing statistics, should more laws or regulations similar to a parent’s licenseship be implicated by the government to cure this epidemic?

Safeguarding of children and young people throughout their school years can only be provided by a strong relationship between the individuals and organisations that are responsible for their development in the different age groups. All children should be dealt with as individuals as they all have different problems. Some children have to be dealt with by specialists who have training in a specific area. Teaching staff must be able to recognise when children require specialised help, and they must support the work of these specialists. Staff at the school and specialist support workers must work together in partnership to ensure that the best service is being provided for students. Teachers must share all applicable information about children

We are often bombarded with images of foster parents just taking the foster kids so that they can just get the check, and I am not saying that these people do not exist, but I am saying that this image is probably widely over represented. There is a lot to deconstruct with the child welfare system. First is the overrepresentation of African American kids and the system and kids of color in general. This is true but there are so many reasons because of this. The second is the notion of welfare service workers just being very devious individuals always looking to take children away from their families. This is another common image of child welfare workers in the media. I now know for sure that these images and beliefs are not necessarily

The Adoption and Safe Families Act significantly altered federal foster care policy by instituting key changes such as defining when it is reasonable to pursue family reunification, expediting timelines for making permanency decisions, recognizing kinship care as a permanency option, and providing incentives to the state for increasing the number of adoptions. Courts play a key and often overlooked role in achieving safety and permanency for children in foster care. Efforts to improve court performance have focused on increasing the responsiveness and capacity of courts. Such legislation frequently requires Federal departments and agencies, such as the Children’s Bureau within the U.S. Department of Health and