The Children Act of 1989
In this essay, I refer to the words Power and Duty. The word power in legal terms is the ability to do or act, which implies a choice. Duty is an obligation; something that law binds me to do. This essay is written in answer to a case study, which examines a situation, which focuses on the Children Act of 1989. This act was composed to protect the welfare of all children, whatever their circumstances and backgrounds.
“An Act to reform the law relating to children; to provide for local authority services for children in need and others; to amend the law with respect to children’s homes, community homes, voluntary homes and voluntary organisations; to make provision with respect to fostering, child minding and day care for young children and adoption; and for connected purposes.”
In this essay I am assuming the role of the social worker. In this case Peter and Jane have a baby son called David, who is about four months old. It says in section 2 (1), that where the child’s parents have been married before the conception of the child, they shall each have parental responsibility for the child, the meaning of parental responsibility is discussed in section 3. In this case, both Peter and Jane were married at David’s birth. Jane bought David in to hospital with a severe head injury. Upon examination by the hospital staff he is found to also have suffered previous injury to some of his ribs. This has caused grave concern and given rise to the hospital notifying the police. They in turn have gone on to notify the local authority, which has appointed me as David’s social worker. Under section 47 I have a duty to investigate the allegations and also a duty to contact all other agencies who might be involved...
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...e whole case will be reverted, but they may have conclusive evidence that has been over looked. As the child’s social worker, I would hope that at the end of the proceedings that there was a happy ending for all of the people concerned, but it would still have to be David’s interests that would come first.
Bibliography:
Bibliography
N.Gravells. Family Law Statutes(5th Ed). Sweet & Maxwell Ltd. London. 1992
M.Hayes, C.Williams. Family Law. Principles, Policy and Practice. Butterworths. London. 1995
M.Oldham.Statutes on Family Law 2000 to 2001(9th Ed). Blackstone Press Ltd. London. 2000
H.Brayne, G.Martin. Law for Social Workers(6th Ed). Blackstone Press Ltd. London. 1999.
M.Davies. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Work. Blackwell Publishers. Oxford. 2000
M.Thomas, J.Pierson. Dictionary of Social work. Collins Educational. London. 1999
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For instance, it strengthened the agencies concerned with the wellbeing of the children to investigate, report, and prosecute those found culpable. The changes mandated such organizations to initiate prosecution following reports of child abuse and neglect (Reder & Duncan, 2013). The case led to new transformations that saw the introduction of foster care, particularly to the children that were suspected to be experiencing maltreatment to save them from the unfairness. Many firms became alert and interested in children’s welfare after Brown’s case, a situation that contributed to the effective introduction and implementation of the acts that protect the
Swan, Rita. 2010. “Equal rights for children under the law” Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, Inc
This essay will first address the statute used and interpretation of the threshold test by the courts, and then focus on cases involving vulnerable children to assess whether the statute in The Children Act 1989 is sufficient in protecting these children from harm. I will look at the argument in favour of the current approach taken by the courts, and the counter-argument in favour of changing the current approach. The arguments are delicately balanced and the law is always developing, so it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court resolves this issue in future.
In the United States there are approximately 397,000 children in out-of home care, within the last year there was about 640,000 children which spent at least some time in out-of-home care. More than 58,000 children living in foster care have had their biological parental rights permanently terminated (Children’s Rights, 2014). Due to the rising number of children in foster care and the growing concerns of the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and families, the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 was signed into law. On November 19, 1997, President Bill Clinton signed the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, to improve the safety of children, to promote adoption and other permanent homes for children who need them, and to support families (Child Welfare League of America). The Adoption and Safe Families Act also promotes adoption by offering incentive payments for States. During the FY of 1999-2003 the payment to states which had exceeded the average number of adoptions received $20 million (Child Welfare League of America). The ASFA improved the existing federal child welfare law to require that the child’s health and safety be a “paramount” concern in any efforts made by the state to preserve or reunify the child’s family, and to provide new assurances that children in foster care are safe (Shuman, 2004).
i. legislative requirements and expectations on individual services to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and
This paper will evaluate and analyze an ethical dilemma that was presented in the textbook and the Case Study #1 that will be evaluated for this assignment. The questions that will be answered include what are the ethical dilemmas in the case and are these legitimate concerns for the social worker. In addition, when evaluating and analyzing the ethical dilemma in this case study it is necessary to look at why the social worker is worried about reporting newborns and why she feels that there are injustices and discrimination that come from these policies. Furthermore, as a social worker in this agency I would respond by figuring out what could be done in this situation and what courses of action could be done to change the injustices in the
In a child protection work, formal knowledge is not only an understanding of the law, official regulations, and ways of practice, but also a theoretical view of 'child development, family dynamics and methods of intervention' (Munro, 20...
A lot can be said about the 500 years of struggle and despair brought on Native Americans especially during the early 1870s through the late 1930s when the United States government declared to instruct various assimilation policies as a fixation to “Indian problems”. Due to the strong concerns of the children’s wellbeing and the failing patrilineal state system to recognize traditional Indian culture, the federal government ratified the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978. Today, the state of this law situates the protection and promotion of Indian children to remain within Indian country as well as has been a great benefactor in American Indian court cases involving Indian children. The ICWA was established due to the “disproportionately