The Family Preservation Policy, enacted in 1974 brought much change to the social work world, specifically in the areas of foster care and children’s rights. Before this was enacted, there were other policies granting children the protection they deserved but many years ago, these rights were nonexistent. The Family Preservation Policy works to keep families together, rather than making a child leave their home, family, and school, and enter into a strange world of new parents, housing, and rules. A family that may be headed towards having to send their children to foster care can choose to be a part of the services offered through the policy. These services allow the family to solve their problems by providing way to work out the bad situations, whether that be discussing changes that need to happen within the household or finding outside help and services to make sure all children are being well taken care of. Because of the many negative effects of the foster care system, keeping the family together can avoid many possible negative situations for the children in the future. The majority of the families involved in these services are white but the numbers are not proportional when compared to the entire population, making it so a larger majority of African American children and families are involved in these services offered. This policy, as well as many other social policies, has allowed children to have the rights they deserve and give them more of a chance for their futures. Families are an important part of every individual’s life and the right to a family is one that needs to be protected. The Family Preservation Policy works to keep families together despite having problems taking care of children, whether that is a... ... middle of paper ... ...nt on, they were more protected. The idea of looking out for the best interest of the child includes that of having a family that is able to provide. Some families do not know how to provide or do not have the means to so change needed to happen to make sure these were ensured. The Family Prevention Policy allowed for the idea of the family to continue; there was help for the family to learn how to stay together and work to amply provide for the children. The Family Prevention Policy may seem like something simple with the main goal of keeping the families together, but there are many services that go into it. By keeping families together, children escape many negative consequences. Throughout time, children have not always had rights, but now they are being fought for on a regular basis and social workers are looking out for the best interests of these children.
This paper will contain research done about foster care, including a brief history and progressing along to the system today. This research interested me because it is a professional career option after graduation. I found both positives and negatives about the foster care system that children and foster parents go through on a daily basis. As the paper progresses I will be explaining these positives and negatives in more detail. Throughout the paper I will be referencing different scholarly sources that explain foster care in different ways. Overall, this paper will show different aspects that the general public may never know about foster care.
There is nearly 400,000 children in out-of-home care in the United States right now (Children’s Right). Just about every day children are being shipped in and out of foster homes and group homes. Most people want the best for children in foster care and decide to take care of them until their parents can possibly recover. The foster care system can have both a negative or positive effect on children, foster parents, and biological parents because of the gaps in the system. Foster cannot not be avoided but the some aspects of the foster care system can be avoided if the missing gaps were filled.
The family unit is recognized as an importance in the field of social work. If a family is in need of temporary assistance, social workers are in full support of this, because
Around the 1950’s, the media perpetuated the idea of the picturesque family unit; children made the shift from being a necessary evil to a symbol of status. Children were no longer meant to help sustain the family, so much as meant to be trophies of the parents’ competentness. Children became an outlet for parents to mold and live through vicariously: the more perfect your child was, the better parent you were. The problem is not that people want to have children, but that many cannot afford to take care of their spawn. Whether you are a young mother utilizing the assistance of government programs such as WIC or simply writing off your children on your taxes, you are making use of government incentive to procreate. Reproduction is completely natural; however, once backed by government incentive, the motivations for having children can take an unnatural turn. Children may be a symbol of love and unity, but it has expanded beyond the family unit. Many children have become the responsibility of the Unite...
The National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (No. 16, 2007) states that about one third of children put into foster care for maltreatment are eventually reunified with the biological parent. This survey also found that African American’s were less likely to be reunified, and in children age seven months to ten years, boys are more likely to be reunified than girls (NSCAW No. 16, 2007). Many studies have been done of reunification of foster care cases and many show slower rates for African American families when compared to Anglo
Many reasons exist as to why the foster system is failing and a major one is the number of children in the program. Although the number of children in the foster care system has decreased about 11% since 2002, “…experts worry that the trend might now go into reverse” (Protecting 47). “In 2008 there were 463,000 children in the foster care system” (47), due to the actions of parents such as abuse, neglect and the use of drugs and/or alcohol can cause a child to be placed in foster care. These actions cause the number of children in the system to increase. In order for this number to decrease dramatically programs must be put in place to help find enough, stable homes for foster children. As a result of the economy, many states have “considered cutting down on child-welfare services, such as benefits for foster parents and the number of social workers they employ” (47). If there is a lack of social workers, it is less likely that a child will be placed in a home quickly. Wi...
To many outsiders, the foster care system may appear to be a safe haven for those children that are abused or abandoned by their birth family. This is correct, but the system with which it is based, has many flaws. A background check is mandatory for all foster parents, but a test to see if a child 's temperament matches that caregiver 's parenting style, is not. Now, this is seen as a minor issue, but there is not enough evidence to support this. Plus, there are many other, much worse reasons, why the system is not perfect. Altogether, the foster care system and a multitude of its rules are flawed and may actually be negatively affecting foster children.
Black children are disproportionately represented in the foster care system. In the most recent Statistical Abstract published in 2011 by the U.S. Census Bureau, Black children accounted for 15% of the U.S. child population in 2009. In contrast, Black children were at almost 30% of the total number of children in foster care for the same year according to the Department of Health and Human Services 2009 Foster Care report. In addition, there are not enough Black families available to adopt these children. Interracial adoption advocates often hail it as a good solution to address these problems. Interracial adoption is promoted as a major step towards an integrated, unprejudiced, and colorblind society. However, instead of healing the wounds of racism, interracial adoption often contributes to racist ideologies and practices that devalue family relationships in the Black community (Roberts 50). This type of adoption is a surface only solution that fails to dig deeper and address the underlying reasons for the disproportionate representation of Black children in foster care and the lack of minority adoptive parents. This deeper analysis exposes a system of that is very biased against the Black community in the adoption industry. Even when it is altruistic, interracial adoption is mostly detrimental to the Black community because it aids in the breakdown of Black families and the dismissal of the root causes of the circumstances that lead to large numbers of Black children needing to be adopted in the first place. Furthermore, interracial adoption has not made any significant difference in lowering the numbers of Black children in foster care.
This article describes the similarities and parallelism of the foster system to the prison systems and how they perpetuate and are influenced by each other. It describes how these systems commodify and dehumanize these human beings, especially women who receive long, severe sentences for minor offenses and are thus denied ability to parent their child from behind bars. This, thus, affects the child in the short and long term because these children are taken from their mothers by the state, often put into foster care, in which the state then refuses to take care of these motherless children. This then leads to social workers developing more aggressive and hostile tactics when dealing with these types of cases, because often the children must scavenge the streets in order to survive and become troubled by the social realities they face. The author then begins to discuss how the welfare system becomes heavily involved with these families, along with the stigmatizations government assistance is attached with. . It is unfortunate that this article only very briefly discusses pregnant, black incarcerated women, and the lack of prenatal care they are provided with during
Another obstacle Olivia and Sabreen encounter is the lack of adult support in the foster care system. Family support is a crucial variable mediating the influence of neighborhood on a child’s development (Burton & Jarrett, 2000); nonetheless, Olivia and Sabreen receive little support and guidance and must quickly survive on their own.
Downs, S., Moore, E., McFadden, E., & Costin, L. (2004). Child welfare and family services: Policies and practice. (7th. Ed., pp. 319-363) Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Family law is the body of law pertaining to marriage and matrimonial issues. Its main aim is to protect each member of a family, whether that family is nuclear, de-facto, single parent, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander or blended in nature, as family is the foundation of society.It can be said that as community standards and expectations change and evolve in regards to the changing nature of parental responsibility, care and protection of children, the recognition of same-sex relationships and surrogacy and birth technologies the law has been reformed to reflect these emerging values and thus improve the rights of parents and children. Although this argument is not true in all circumstances, it is a prominent issue which legislators face,
Single Parent Struggle For many years, children growing up in a single parent family have been viewed as different. Being raised by only one parent seems impossible to many yet over the decades it has become more prevalent. In today’s society many children have grown up to become emotionally stable and successful whether they had one or two parents to show them the rocky path that life bestows upon all human beings. The problem lies in the difference of children raised by single parents versus children raised by both a mother and a father.
...or state organizations to provide these additional services for families, they are in need of government funding. “States can use about 10% of federal dedicated child welfare funds flexibly for family services and supports, including prevention or reunification services…”. More funds are needed for the organizations to provide services to all members of the family, both directly and indirectly involved. The Nurse-Family Partnership program found a “48% lower level of abuse and neglect for children served through the program than children in the control group”. So having access to these services has shown a reduction in child abuse. As discussed in class, the goal is always to keep the child in the home. This article is aiming to do that but need funds and additional resources in order to accomplish this. (Pew Charitable Trust, 2008)
In the past, families were authoritarian which parents were dominant and repressive against their children and the children had no right to say anything in family issues. Today, this kind of family type is gradually being replaced by democratic families. So what is a democratic family? Family is seen as a school since it is the first place that children get an education and grow up. Until the end of their adolescences, they sustain their education in family. Therefore, families are important to shape the future because parents have central role in raising new generation. And, it has always been a controversial topic that how they should raise their children.