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Crisis management review of related literature
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Child Protective Services systems are often called “broken,” and the case of Logan Marr is a solid example of why. Logan was taken away from her mother, Christy, after an extensive battle that involved accusations, investigations, and mandates. After the struggle, Logan was finally placed into a foster home under the supervision of Sally Schofield, a child caseworker of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. Schofield admits that she soon saw that book-learning and experience were two different things. Her lack of true preparation for the supervision and care of Logan ultimately lead to the death of the child. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) failed to prevent the death of Logan Marr. Logan made allegations …show more content…
of abuse by Sally Schofield during visits with her biological mother, Christy. Had those allegations been taken as seriously as the ones against Christy were, an investigation would have likely shown the home to be unsafe and Sally to be unfit to care for Logan. Instead, the accusations made by Logan were ignored by the DHHS caseworker assigned to the supervised visits with Christy. One can also question the requirements that Schofield met in order to qualify as a foster home for Logan. Did she face the same scrutiny that any other applicant would? Was her experience as an employee of DHHS considered too greatly, causing bias within the department, swaying the decision? This cannot be known due to laws of confidentiality, but it is not unreasonable to speculate that these might have factored into the placement process. North Carolina has laws concerning educational and experience requirements for their Child Protective Services workers (NCDHHS).
Child welfare services workers are required to complete 72 hours of training before they have direct client responsibilities. Child protective services workers need 18 hours of training. Foster care and adoption workers are obligated to complete 39 training hours. Child welfare services supervisors need 72 hours of preservice training and 54 hours of additional training. Along with these requirements, all staff of child welfare services need 24 hours of continuing education each year (NCDHHS). There are also education requirements. One example that could be applied is the current listing of “Social Worker III (CPS)” in Durham County (NC Social Services Jobs). This specific job lists a complicated combination of education requirements, including; a MSW degree; a BSW degree and completion of the Child Welfare Collaborative; a BSW and one year of directly related experience; a master’s degree in counseling in a human services field and one year of social work or counseling experience; a bachelor’s degree in a human services field with two years of directly related experience; or a bachelor’s degree and three years of directly related experience (NC Social Services
Jobs). The requirements set forth by North Carolina would do a great deal to prevent events like the death of Logan Marr. Employees are only allowed to be “fresh out of college” with a master’s in social work degree. Otherwise, they are required to have directly related experience. Also, the requirement of training and continuing education helps ensure that employees are well prepared to complete their job duties successfully. Had the caseworker in the Marr/Schofield situation been properly trained on how to handle allegations of abuse and how to set aside any personal bias, the claims made by Logan during her visit with Christy would have been investigated. This could have potentially prevented the death of Logan at the abusive hands of Sally Schofield.
No matter what age an individual is, society automatically deems a person to be an adult once they have a child. Unfortunately, Renee dealt with a lot of isolation, neglect, lack of emotional, physical, psychological support that would have helped her successfully transition into a new chapter in her life. Renee was treated like an independent and competent adult when in reality, she was in serious need of many support systems to educate and support her. As a social worker, Angie Martin’s actions within her practice created an ethical dilemma when she failed to maintain the best interest of her client, Jordan. Angie was expected to fulfill her role as a social worker by playing a vital role in coaching and educating Renee on how to care for Jordan. If there were frequent scheduled appointment in place, there would be enough evidence from Angie’s file on Jordan and Renee alone to decipher who should have been responsible for the death of Jordan. Frequent visits to the young mother and her child would have given Angie the opportunity to provide the courts with enough documentation to understand the case thoroughly to make a conviction, in needed, without dropping charges and dismissing the
High Sky Children’s Ranch first opened their doors in 1963, when a woman named Joan Nobles was concerned about girls who had no absolutely no place to go. She was the president of the PTA when she heard a young juvenile probation officer speak about the need for a home for those girls that had no where to go. She, along with many others, worked for three years to open the first home. In 1963 the first home was opened and housed five girls (High Sky Children’s Ranch, 2011). In 1985 High Sky changed their license to accept both boys and girls, which enabled them to keep sibling groups together. In 1987 High Sky was relicensed as a treatment facility to work with kids who were more traumatized or needed a higher level of care and was later licensed as a Therapeutic Foster Care. These programs help i...
During the court case the judge said that lead social worker Gunn Wahlstrom was “naïve beyond belief”. This report brought over 68 recommendations to make sure cases like this did not happen again. The recommendations included putting the child first and the parent’s second. “Jasmines’ fate illustrates all too clearly the disastrous consequences of the misguides attitude of the social workers having treated Morris Beckford and Beverley Lorrington as the clients first and foremost” (London Borough of Brent, 1985,p295). The social workers in Jasmine’s c...
A state that undertakes custody of a child is declaring that it can do a better job providing protection. This system is a powerful agent of support, providing positive nurturing environments that enable a child to reach his or her potential. Nonetheless, when children suffer additional abuse in the system, this government intervention should be questioned.
Social agency and the court authorizing the placement, and caregivers are responsible for the continuing monitoring to ensure that the child in placement receives adequate care and supervision (Downs, Moore and McFadden, 2009, p.275). Services for children in foster care are a teamwork effort of the different parties involved (Downs, Moore and McFadden, 2009). Unfortunately in Antowne’s situation the agency and the court system failed him because although he was removed from his mother, the abuse and neglect continued. The systems involved did not provide the safety net Antwone needed.
Each of the 50 states has an agency responsible for protecting children. In Los Angeles, California, this agency is known as DCFS (Department of Children and Families Services). The Los Angeles Department of Family Services has recently made the news after a class action law suites ranging in the millions has left locals wondering whether or not DCFS is actually protecting the children they take into their custody. With the increasing number of cases each day, concerns are being raised as to whether the rights of parents are being violated. It is common knowledge that there have been serious accuracy flaws resulting in the wrongful termination of many parents’ rights. However, little is being done to fix these errors and give parents their children back. Child Protective Services is the most needed yet unwanted Agencies in each state. While a system is necessary to intervene and protect children who are abused, there are speculation on the procedures and policy the state uses. While interventi...
Despite attempts in the foster care system agencies under the guidelines of the “Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997” (ASFA) to locate suitable homes and families for foster children, many remain in foster care. “Too often, Child Welfare policy and the agencies responsible for it – offices that respond to child abuse and neglect, oversee foster care placements, and seek to reunite children with their parents to find adoptive families- are out of sight and out of mind except for fleeting moments of tragedy, such as a child’s death”.
The controversial issue of whether or not Child Protective Services are doing their jobs properly, has grabbed nationwide attention. Child Protective Services is the name of a government agency in many states of the United States whose mission is to respond to reports of child abuse and neglect. Some of these cases may include physical abuse, sexual abuse, and mental abuse (Wikipedia). The child welfare system is corrupted. The parents and guardians who are accused of abuse are automatically labeled as guilty and will have to prove their innocence; instead of being innocent until proven guilty.
Addressing the needs of children in foster care has been an issue that has tried to be addressed in many ways. In 2001, approximately 300,000 children entered the foster care system, with the average time spent in placement equaling 33 months (Bass Shields, & Behrman, n.d.). Statistically, the longer a child is in the foster care system, the greater number of placements they will have, and instability increases each year (Bass Shields, & Behrman, n.d). I recently read a novel by a girl who was placed into the system at age two, and by age 12 she had already experienced 14 different placements (Rhodes-Courter, 2007). Stories such as this one are not uncommon in the foster care system, especially if the child is a member of a sibling group or
Furthermore, a social worker needs to examine the laws within the state they live in and
When dealing with families who are entering the child welfare system, social workers need to examine the entire family, their history that contributes to the current problem, and the societal context of their homes (Popple & Vecchiolla, 2007). There are many proposals for why child maltreatment and Belsky outlines three explanations and a fourth theory for why parents maltreat their children.
Zlotnik, J. L. & Cornelius, L. (2000). Preparing Social Work Students for Child Welfare Careers:
The job of a child welfare worker appears to be a demanding profession that promotes the child’s safety, but also strengthens the family organization around them in order to successfully raise the children. This child welfare workers work in the system known as the Child Protective Services whose initiative is to protect the overall welfare of the child. The short novel From the Eye of the Storm: the Experiences of a Child Welfare Worker by Cynthia Crosson-Tower demonstrates the skills necessary to deal with the practice of social work along with both its challenges and its happy moments. The novel consists of some of the cases involving Tower’s actual career in social work. In reading the book, I was able to experience some of the actual cases in which children dealt with physical and mental abuse from their families that caused them to end up within the system. Also, some of these children had issues in adapting to foster and adoptive families based on the issues they faced earlier in life. As we have learned earlier in the course, the violence that a child experiences early in life has an overall affect on the person they become as they grow into adulthood. When children deal with adverse childhood experiences, they are at a higher risk for abusing drugs and/or alcohol, increased likelihood of abusing their own child or spouse, higher rates of violent and nonviolent criminal behavior, along with several other issues throughout their lifespan.
Becoming a social worker is dependent on numerous factors, one of which being education. “A bachelor’s degree in social work (BSW) degree is the most common minimum requirement to qualify for a job as a social worker, however, majors in psychology, sociology, and related fields may be sufficient to qualify for some entry-level job” (Chao & Orr, 162). Many people when pursuing the goals of being a social worker, however, are most interested in jobs in public agencies and/or having their own practices. “A master’s degree in social work (MSW) is necessary for positions in health and mental health settings and typically is required for certification for clinical work” (Chao & Orr, 162). One’s level of school is not the only thing employers are focusing on when looking to hire social workers. Along with one’s education, a social worker must have “a broad liberal arts base which includes a knowledge of the social sciences (sociology, psychology, anthropology, history, political science, and economics) to provide explanations about the nature of human society and the human condition” (Johnson, 48). There are many more skills that are just as essential, if not more beneficial, to the employer as well as client.
In an article written by Bolg.acton.org titled as Our Foster Care System Is Becoming A ‘Pipeline’ For Human, half of a million of children in the U.S are put into foster care for a short period of time or for a long time due to crisis happening in their houses. Some of those children are placed with their relatives if they are ‘lucky’ enough. However, in the same article, in an interview with Malika Saada of Rights4Girls by NPR, she stated various issues occurring in the broken foster care system. As for what is happening with the children that are put into various houses in which at times are being abused without the knowledge of the state. In other cases, circumstances are different and unfortunate as for those who are seeing as profit. As for the story of one of the survivor leader whom they work with who was trafficked from the age of 10-17-all through California, Nevada, and Washington states-seeing foster care as training ground to being trafficked. However, even though she knew that the foster parents were getting pay to take care of her, all she cared about was that the pimp told her that he loved her. The lack of love, affirmation and protection are the reasons Malika thinks children pledge to follow their commands. In other cases, the children are told that the checks given by the government is not enough, that the only thing that made them worth was the money they would bring in. Malika also states that 60 percent of the children rescued in a recent FBI sting were from foster care at a point. Child maltreatment is being reported by the FBI throughout all the 50 states as stated by the