Sharing the Baton, Not Passing It: Collaboration between Public and Private Child Welfare Agencies to Reunify Families

In criticizing my proposals to restructure public child welfare system (Pelton, 1991), Barth (1993) likened care and discipline of children by parents to helping and policing of families and parents by state. He did so while disputing a claim I never made--that it is not possible to be an authority and helper at once. What I do argue is that results of combining helping and policing roles within context of public child welfare agency have been unsatisfactory, and we should examine how each role might be hindering successful execution of other. During past three decades, increasingly wider spheres of child welfare problems, many of which are related to poverty, have been characterized as child abuse and neglect. These terms are accusatory and, when used as a lens through which to view multiply caused problems, promote an overfixation on parental fault and blindness to varied help that is needed. This orientation led to reporting laws and public awareness campaigns that encourage reports based on vague definitions of child abuse and neglect, thereby swamping child welfare agencies with complaints and rapidly reducing role of child welfare workers to investigators of wrongdoing by mostly impoverished parents. Budgets were spent on investigation and increasingly on foster care, with little money left over for relevant preventive services. These continuing trends are reflected in increase in national foster care population to an estimated 447,000 children by end of fiscal year 1992 (Tatara, 1992), a figure rapidly approaching a record for this century. More depressingly, no evidence exists that children are better protected. However, remedy for child welfare system is not only to narrow laws, although that is necessary. Although I have just spoken of unfortunate developments of past few decades, nostalgia for more distant past is not warranted. From beginning of this century children have frequently been placed into foster care, and agencies have always spent far greater proportions of their budgets on placement than on prevention. It is not for naught that impoverished immigrant parents, fearing public agencies' predecessors (the societies for prevention of cruelty to children), yet having nowhere else to turn for help, viewed such agencies as the Cruelty and as child-snatchers. Such agencies, both public and private, have always had a dual role, and investigative, policing, coercive, and child-removing role has always greatly diminished helping role. This failed paternalistic strategy toward impoverished families experiencing child welfare difficulties should be ended. My proposals call for transformation of current public child welfare agencies into family preservation agencies by divesting them of their investigative, child removal, and foster care roles. I proposed that police functions, such as investigation of possible law violation, be shifted to police. Child welfare workers would no longer serve as society's police. In addition, I proposed that foster care system be made independent of new family preservation agency. This system, whose function is to protect children who cannot be protected in their own homes, should be placed under family court system and be operated by social workers specially trained as foster care workers who would also advise court on all decisions concerning entry into and exit from foster care. All family preservation, preventive, and supportive services would be offered and delivered by new family preservation agency, whether it be to biological, foster, or adoptive families or to children living with relatives. Let us build a new system based on a more positive philosophy. In fact, social work has philosophy, but structure of current child welfare system is incompatible with it. Much of professional child welfare community favors empowering families, focusing on strengths rather than deficits, and providing supports. …

New directions for research on the organizational and institutional context of child welfare agencies: Introduction to the symposium on “The Organizational and Managerial Context of Private Child Welfare Agencies”

Previous articleNext article No AccessDesirable Qualifications for Child Welfare Work as Recommended by Public and Private Child Welfare AgenciesHazel H. FredericksenHazel H. Fredericksen Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 20, Number 2Jun., 1946 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/635806 Views: 1Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Qualitative analysis of private mediation: Benefits for families in public child welfare agencies

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when child welfare officials in Louisiana reported they did not know the whereabouts of all their children in foster care, disaster planning in public child welfare became a new area of concern. This article reports on a process of engaging seven public child welfare agencies in planning for disasters that could affect child safety and service delivery. The Washington Metropolitan Area Disaster Planning Project used a strengths-based approach to help agencies responsible for protecting and serving children in foster care and families at risk of abuse and neglect develop plans to augment and continue service delivery and responsiveness in the aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster. The processes of gathering information on disaster responsiveness, interviewing community and professional informants, developing a template to guide disaster planning within the agencies, and implementing a tabletop exercise are described. As a result of this consultation effort agencies became aware that disaster planning at the state and county levels had proceeded without child welfare at the table, that the increase in need for child welfare services during a disaster was not recognized by disaster professionals, and that practicing disaster responsiveness is necessary to assure readiness.

ABSTRACTCalls for transformational systems change that lead to improved outcomes for children in child welfare can only be answered by preparing an effective workforce and building an agency climate that is ready for change. The National Child Welfare Workforce Institute developed a comprehensive model for public, private, and tribal child welfare agencies to improve the health of their workforce. This paper describes the application of the model in one state agency. Through leadership development, a distributive teaming approach, and implementation of an evidence-supported practice model, they were able to significantly improve the organizational climate of their agency. The article discusses practice implications and recommendations for child welfare agencies and technical assistance providers for fostering positive organizational health and ultimately improving outcomes for families.

Training child welfare citizen review panel members: A promising approach?

Child fatalities initiate a formidable exchange between the media and child welfare services. The impact affects the families involved, staff and administrators of public and private child welfare agencies, and the community. The media role to provide the public with information in a prompt manner can be at odds with the child welfare administrator's desire to improve practice for all children. In many jurisdictions, the relationship between the media and the child welfare organization is weak, if not adversarial. This commentary poses questions for debate and suggests that the media and child welfare need to have an ongoing relationship where both are focused on informing the public as a continuous process.

Measuring organizational health in child welfare agencies

Few mechanisms exist to support successful collaboration between public schools and child welfare agencies. One unfortunate consequence is that the children ostensibly being served by either system often end up receiving inadequate services from both systems. Focus groups were held with caseworkers, educators, and students to learn how the two systems can work more collaboratively. This article reports on the barriers and successful practices identified by the participants that affect the educational functioning of students living in foster care. The article concludes with the participants' recommendations for practices and policies to improve collaborative efforts between the two systems.

Citizens are increasingly being called upon to participate in public child welfare programs. This participation—through such federally mandated programs as Foster Care Review Boards, Court Appointed Special Advocates, and Citizen Review Panels—can potentially promote authentic community involvement or leave angry agencies and panel members in its wake. These disparate outcomes are dependent upon numerous factors both within the child welfare agency and the broader civic domain. This article reviews the current literature on citizen participation in public child welfare with special emphasis on the programs mentioned above. Additionally, strategies are offered for using citizens to support positive change within public child welfare agencies.

sidney goldberg studied at New York University and also with psychologist Albert Ellis, founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. He now works as a college counselor in New York City. The child welfare system in the United States is not living up to its name. Rather than nurturing the intellectual potential, capacity for joy, and emotional wellness of foster children, the system too often takes a narrow approach to maintaining only the children’s physical well-being. I speak from my experience as a caseworker, administrator, and creator of a unique program in child welfare. Twenty-five years of butting up against the constraints of this system have made clear to me that the problem is structural. The occasional caseworker who would seek to nurture a child’s potential interests or passions would usually be thwarted by the limited paradigm around which the system is constructed. Year after year, most caseworkers go through the motions, while heeding the entrenched and narrow mandates set forth by their agencies as the lives of children under their care stagnate. I believe another system is possible — one that starts from the foundational premise that all people are capable of building satisfying lives through the pursuit of their interests — and that is staffed by workers who treat children and their parents with deep care and respect. To create such a system, we will need to transform the entire structure and pedagogy of social work school, drawing on insights gained through a careful look at the problems with the current system.

The unintended consequence of the Indian Child Welfare Act: American Indian trust in public child welfare

Differential factors influencing public and voluntary child welfare workers' intention to leave

Concurrent planning in public child welfare agencies: Oxymoron or work in progress?