Essentials of Child Welfare / Edition 1

by Rodney A. Ellis, Catherine N. Dulmus, John S. Wodarski

Overview

Reach children and families and help them navigate the child welfare system

Case planning is one of the fundamental steps in working with dependent children, yet it is also one of the most challenging. Essentials of Child Welfare presents the key information clinical social workers, child advocates, family law attorneys, and other human services personnel need to work successfully with children and families in the child welfare system.

Essentials of Child Welfare is packed with step-by-step guidelines for intervening proactively with foster care children and their caretakers. Techniques are presented for handling a number of related topics, including attachment issues, substance abuse, sexual abuse (victim and perpetrator), suicidal ideation, eating disorders, learning disabilities, juvenile delinquency, domestic abuse, and many more.

As part of the Essentials of Social Work Practice series, this book offers a concise yet thorough overview of child welfare, numerous tips for best practices, and a prioritized assembly of all the information and techniques that must be at one's fingertips to practice knowledgeably, effectively, and ethically. Each concise chapter features numerous callout boxes highlighting key concepts, bulleted points, and extensive illustrative material, as well as "Test Yourself" questions that help you gauge and reinforce your grasp of the information covered.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780471234234
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	09/23/2003
Series:	Essentials of Social Work , #1
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

RODNEY A. ELLIS, PhD, CATHERINE N. DULMUS, PhD, and JOHN S. WODARSKI, PhD, are faculty members in the College of Social Work at the University of Tennessee.

Read an Excerpt

Essentials of Child Welfare

---

By Rodney A. Ellis Catherine N. Dulmus John S. Wodarski

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2003

Rodney A. Ellis, Catherine N. Dulmus, John S. Wodarski, Ph.D.
All right reserved.


ISBN: 0-471-23423-0

---

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

Laws governing child welfare exist at virtually every level. Federal law
requires states to have a continuum of services and provides funding to
them as long as specific requirements are met. Based on the federal
statutes, states develop their own policies that define exactly how services will
be provided. In jurisdictions where all or part of the services are contracted
to local government, the governing body of that jurisdiction has its own ordinances.
In each case the law of the higher level of government is regarded as
superior, and each jurisdiction drafts its policies in accordance with what has
been enacted at higher levels. One example can be found in laws regarding
the investigation of allegations of abuse and neglect. Federal law requires that
a system be in place for conducting investigations and provides general
guidelines for what should happen in the course of those investigations. State
law tailors these requirements to its own jurisdictions by mandating the operation
of hotlines and abuse registries, as well as creating the agencies that are
responsible forfacilitating the process. In some cases local governments have
assumed responsibility for some portion of the investigation; for example,
medical examinations of children who have allegedly been sexually abused
are sometimes conducted by employees of local governments. When this is
the case, local policy must create and direct that agency.

It is important to recognize that the structure of child welfare systems
across states and even across counties and cities is often varied. Although the
legislation that mandates protection for abused and neglected children is federal,
that policy offers little specific direction as to how services are to be
delivered. The vast majority of the policy that directs child welfare is at the
state level, and it differs somewhat from state to state. This short volume does
not allow for a full investigation of the specific policies of each state. Rather,
it focuses on the policies and procedures that are most common across states.
Readers should consult the policy and procedure manuals of the agency in
charge of child welfare in their own states.

It is also important to understand the way in which the child welfare
system works. It is a vast system, with its own language, procedures, funding
sources, and problems. Without knowing the terminologies that are used and
processes that must be navigated, the child welfare practitioner cannot function
effectively, resulting in personal ineffectiveness and inadequate services
for children and families who are desperately in need of help and support.
Foundational to such knowledge is an understanding of the agencies and
individuals that comprise the system, the legal processes that drive it, and the
process in which child welfare agencies engage.

THE AGENCIES AND ORGANIZATIONS

One of the most important pieces of information involves the agencies and
organizations that comprise the system. Without understanding them and the
roles they play, it can be difficult or even impossible to function successfully
within the system. When participants in the system cannot function effectively,
the system breaks down, and children suffer as a result. Rapid Reference 1.1
highlights the agencies and individuals that make up the child welfare system.

The Court

The juvenile court operates under a different set of philosophies and rules
than do the courts that try adults. The difference is in large part due to a pair
of legal concepts that underlie and
direct the court's decisions: parens
patriae and the rights of parents
(Ellis & Sowers, 2001). The rights
of parents are sometimes seen as
working in concert with parens
patriae, sometimes as opposing it.
For example, parens patriae supports
the right of the state to
remove children from their biological
homes. When parents recognize
their inability to deal with a
child's needs and seek the assistance
of the state, parens patriae allows
the court to provide relief. However,
when parents do not wish
court intervention and find it
forced upon them, the rights of
parents are in opposition to the
doctrine of parens patriae. Whatever
the dominant philosophy, the
courts were originally designed to ensure that children are protected and that
they have a reasonable opportunity to develop successfully either in their biological
homes or in some alternative setting.

Although the original intent of the juvenile court was that the best interests
of children could be considered in a nonadversarial environment
(Mather & Lager, 2000), there is, in fact, a great deal of controversy surrounding
many child welfare cases. Parents often feel that child welfare agencies
and the court are unjustified in their interference. Court personnel and
agency workers may disagree as to what intervention would be appropriate
for a child. Agencies that provide ancillary services may accuse a child
welfare agency of insufficient activity on behalf of a child or vice versa. Volunteer
advocates who speak on behalf of children may charge that an agency
is acting to protect itself rather than to help a child and his or her family. All
too often the needs of the child and family are lost in the controversy
between interested parties.

It is also important to understand
that the juvenile court exists
in various configurations and
functions under different names
in different jurisdictions. In some
areas the judges hear all cases
related to delinquency and child
welfare in the same courtroom. In
other areas some judges hear only
delinquency cases and others hear only dependency cases. Some jurisdictions
have family courts that oversee all issues related to families such as
dependency and divorce. Other specialized courts are sometimes involved.
For example, jurisdictions may have mental health courts, teen courts,
substance abuse courts, and others that play some role in decision making
(Ballou et al., 2001).

Regardless of their structures, courts are composed of persons in various
positions. These include judges, referees, court administrators, employees of
court-operated programs, and court staff. Practitioners must understand the
role of each, as well as the way in which they interact, in order to interact
successfully with this component of the child welfare system.

Judges hear cases and make many decisions regarding the fate of children
who enter the system. Although children are most often taken into custody
by an employee of an investigative agency, judges usually make the final
decision about whether that child will remain in custody or will be returned
to its family. They usually also have the power to approve or disapprove plans
developed regarding the child's future. Cases that are scheduled to come
before the judge are placed on his or her docket. Judges are provided a daily
or weekly listing of cases to be heard. Such cases include case plans, termination
of custody, termination of parental rights, adoption petitions, and
emancipation petitions, which are described in Rapid Reference 1.2.

Judges appoint referees to perform specific actions in their stead. Typically,
referees supervise hearings that are not expected to require judicial decisions.
This provides a means of observation and communication for judges whose
overloaded dockets do not permit their personal involvement. Referees may
be authorized to make specific kinds of decisions but may be required to refer
cases to judges for other decisions. One example of a type of hearing a referee
might supervise is a regularly scheduled report on the condition of a
child in custody. If, however, the time had come to consider the termination
of parental rights, a hearing would be scheduled with the judge.

The daily operation of juvenile courts may be supervised by a judge when
in smaller settings. In larger jurisdictions there is often an employee of the
court known as a court administrator who performs these functions. The
court administrators supervise other employees to ensure that such tasks as
docket development, paperwork processing, collaboration with external
agencies, and operation of internal programs are adequately and efficiently
performed. Although judges are the persons who are in charge of the courts,
they are often very dependent on the administrators for daily decision making
and in their interactions with the community.

Some courts operate their own programs for the children they serve. These
programs may include counseling services for children and their families,
sexual abuse diagnosis and treatment teams, review board supervisors, intensive
home-based service programs, and others. The programs are typically
funded by outside sources that can create a degree of accountability outside
the court, which is often a desirable commodity.

Juvenile courts frequently include various staff members such as administrative
assistants, secretaries, and security personnel. Each of these persons
typically provides very specialized services within a fairly limited range of
activity. For example, judges often have assistants whose responsibilities
include developing dockets, scheduling appointments, interacting with the
offices of other judges, initiating and receiving correspondences, and handling
the office telephone. This assistant often shares an office with a law
enforcement officer whose duties include controlling access to the courtroom
and maintaining order within the court. Although these two work in close
proximity, neither would be likely to attempt to perform any of the duties of
the other. Also important to remember is that each may wield a significant
amount of power related to the access of judges, program directors, and others.
The reason is that they may have the judge's trust and can cause access to
the judge to be granted or denied with a comment or brief note to the judge.

Given the sometimes extensive and always variable construction of the
court in different jurisdictions, it is very important to understand whom the
court employs, what their roles are, and how the functions they perform
relate to one another. One useful way of developing such an understanding
is by creating an organizational table, which is a graphic representation of an
organization that identifies positions in boxes or circles and the direction of
authority with lines or arrows. An example of a hypothetical organizational
table can be found in Rapid Reference 1.3.

CHILD WELFARE AGENCIES

For the purposes of this discussion, child welfare agencies are considered those
agencies that fund, monitor, or facilitate the investigations of abuse, neglect,
and abandonment of children; arrange alternative placements and case plans
for those removed from their homes; and are responsible for developing long-term
arrangements for the care of children who will not return to their biological
parents or be adopted. Traditionally, these services have been provided
by state agencies, but in recent years states have begun to contract with local
governments and private agencies to provide many of these services.

In jurisdictions where the state provides direct child welfare services, there
is often one large agency that provides the bulk of those services. Divisions
of those agencies with names like "protective investigations" or "child protective
services" conduct investigations of abuse, neglect, or abandonment.
Other divisions locate alternative housing, provide supervision for children
in care, facilitate the adoption process, and help older children prepare for
independent living as adults. These agencies typically receive money from the
federal government to conduct their operations. Federal money is sometimes
supplemented with state, local, and private dollars.

In other jurisdictions child welfare services are provided by some combination
of public and private agencies. The private parts of the system are
often funded with dollars distributed by the state agency responsible for child
welfare. In such cases the state agency also typically performs monitoring
functions designed to ensure that services are being adequately provided by
the agencies that receive their funds. Some jurisdictions have privatized the
entire service system so that someone other than the state government provides
all direct services.

An additional and critical service offered by child welfare agencies is early
intervention. In some cases the investigatory unit may visit a family and
determine that although conditions in the home are not sufficient to warrant
the removal of a child, sufficient risk exists that specific services are necessary
to reduce the risk of future harm to the child. In these cases specialized units
of child welfare agencies or ancillary agencies may offer to provide services to
the family on a voluntary basis. The agency's activities might include a wide
variety of services from accessing financial resources or painting bedrooms to
providing counseling or other mental health services.

As with the juvenile court system, it is critical to understand the structure
and role of the direct service agencies in the child welfare system. Specific
divisions and agencies often provide specialized services and may be unable
to perform any of the tasks assigned to other groups. It may be helpful for
each practitioner to develop an organizational table of the agency or agencies
that provide these services in his or her community.

Ancillary Service Agencies

In addition to the agencies that provide direct child welfare services, a variety
of agencies provide ancillary services to both the children in custody and their
families. These include mental health providers, substance abuse treatment
providers, home service agencies, medical providers, educational systems, and
intensive case management providers. Services may be provided in the
agency's offices, in the family's home, at the child's school, or in a variety of
other settings.

Mental health agencies provide a variety of services to children and families.
Services may include individual and family counseling, group therapy,
assessment and diagnosis, and more intensive treatment of mental illness.
Treatment settings may include in-home, in-community, outpatient, day
treatment, or residential programs. Often, mental health needs are recognized
or suspected by an employee of the child welfare agency and may be mandated
by the court as a part of the plan to reunify a child with its parents. In these
cases the court usually requires a satisfactory report of progress before children
are returned to their parents. Before services are mandated, a judge typically
requires a mental health evaluation. The evaluation usually begins with a psychosocial
assessment, in which the identified client and sometimes significant
others are asked a series of questions about several dimensions of the client's
life.

Continues...

---

Excerpted from Essentials of Child Welfare
by Rodney A. Ellis Catherine N. Dulmus John S. Wodarski
Copyright © 2003 by Rodney A. Ellis, Catherine N. Dulmus, John S. Wodarski, Ph.D..
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Series Preface.

One. Introduction.

Two. Essentials of Protective Investigations.

Three. Essentials of Child and Family Assessment.

Four. Essentials of Case Planning.

Five. Essentials of Foster Care.

Six. Essentials of Specialized Care.

Seven. Essentials of Reunification.

Eight. Essentials of Adoption.

Nine. Essentials of Independent Living.

Ten. Essentials of Cultural Competence in Child Welfare Practice.

References.

Annotated Bibliography.

Index.

About the Authors.