Social Work Commons^™

Helping Parents Navigate The Child Welfare System: Partnering With Casa To Create Self-Advocacy Resource Kits, Amanda Warnock

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

There are 442,995 children in contact with child welfare systems in the U.S. today (HHS, 2018). While some children represented in this statistic were victims of abuse, such as physical (12%) or sexual abuse (4%), many of these children and their families come to the attention of child protection authorities because of neglect (62%), meaning that their parents/caregivers lack adequate resources to properly provide and care for their dependent children (HHS, 2018). For some families, involvement with child protection authorities means being separated–with children placed in foster care and parents working through the court-mandated requirements in order to be reunified …