The Society of Pediatric Nurses: Position Statement on Child Welfare

Abstract

The Society of Pediatric Nurses (SPN) is dedicated to supporting its members in their practice. Since its inception in the mid 1980s, SPN has been instrumental in advocating for high quality, culturally sensitive, and comprehensive care for children and families. Advocacy for children and families takes on many forms. The development of position statements by the organization serves as one mechanism to begin to address some of the issues encountered by pediatric nurses in their practice settings. In 2008, the SPN Public Policy Committee developed its first position statement on child welfare. At that time, statistics showed that 906,000 children were victims of child abuse and neglect, and 3 children died every day from maltreatment (National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association, 2006). Foster care statistics also were alarming with more than 500,000 children living in foster care, and adolescents representing approximately one-third of this total (Love, McIntosh, Rosst & Tertzakian, 2005). Approximately half of all children in the United States (US) child welfare system had significant emotional or behavioral issues (Burns et al., 2004). Given these statistics and other child welfare issues, including the many children in kinship care and grandparent homes, and child homelessness, the position of SPN was to encourage careful assessment and identification of health and welfare needs, interdisciplinary collaboration including social services, referral to appropriate resources with careful follow-up, and political awareness advocacy. The impact of a declining global economy continues to affect millions of children and their families. Child welfare statistics remain relatively unchanged with the exception of