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Child welfare

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Articles 271 - 300 of 314

Full-Text Articles in Social Work

Parent Education In A Child Welfare Setting: Understanding Maltreatment Following An Intervention For Parents And Their Infants, Toddlers, And Pre-School Children, Rhenda Hotard Hodnett Jan 2010

Parent Education In A Child Welfare Setting: Understanding Maltreatment Following An Intervention For Parents And Their Infants, Toddlers, And Pre-School Children, Rhenda Hotard Hodnett

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Child abuse and neglect is a complex, multi-faceted problem that often has lifelong, negative consequences for its victims; most significantly affecting infants, toddlers and pre-school age children. Parenting classes are the most common intervention used by child welfare agencies as a means to prevent repeat maltreatment, yet there is very little research involving these targeted families. Prior research has primarily focused on the prevalence of and risk factors for child maltreatment, with much less attention on specific parenting program outcomes as implemented in a child welfare setting. In 2005, focusing on a more deliberate and systematic approach in the use …

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Caring Attitudes Among Child Welfare Caseworkers: Associations With Client Participation In Services, Karen Faulk Jan 2010

Caring Attitudes Among Child Welfare Caseworkers: Associations With Client Participation In Services, Karen Faulk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is an association between the caring attitudes and commitment toward clients of child welfare workers and their clients’ completion of a parenting education program. This line of inquiry is intended to expand the scope of research on caring attitudes associated with child welfare workers intent to remain employed. A logical extension of identifying characteristics associated with child welfare workforce retention is to determine if those characteristics are also associated with positive client outcomes. Part of the examination of worker caring attitudes involved testing the Child Welfare Inventory (CWI), a modified …

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Rescuing Children And Punishing Poor Families: Housing Related Decisions, Corey Shdaimah Sep 2009

Rescuing Children And Punishing Poor Families: Housing Related Decisions, Corey Shdaimah

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Child welfare policy is not self implementing; an understanding of child welfare policy must therefore include the decision making practices by those whom Michael Lipsky (1980) has called "streetlevel bureaucrats." This article reports data from a qualitative study exploring perceptions of child welfare professionals about housing-related child welfare decisions. Interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 18 child welfare lawyers, judges, and masters level social workers from a large city in the mid-Atlantic U.S. All agreed that there is insufficient affordable adequate housing. They held conflicting views, however, on: 1) the standard for adequate housing in the absence of …

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Disparate Juvenile Court Outcomes For Disabled Delinquent Youth: A Social Work Call To Action, Christopher A. Mallett Jun 2009

Disparate Juvenile Court Outcomes For Disabled Delinquent Youth: A Social Work Call To Action, Christopher A. Mallett

Social Work Faculty Publications

Current service delivery for at-risk youth is through four separate systems: special education; mental health and substance abuse; juvenile justice; and child welfare. Many youth (and their families) are involved with more than one of these systems, making early disability identification and subsequent systems coordination paramount in leading to more successful juvenile court outcomes. This coordination is an important and prioritized public policy concern because a majority of youth (disproportionately minority) within juvenile justice populations has been identified with mental health disorders, special education disabilities, or maltreatment histories. This study of a unique sample of probation-supervised delinquent youths ( n …

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Child Welfare And Children In The Education System: Prioritizing The Need For Statewide Anti-Bullying Policies, Angelique Day, Suzanne Cross Apr 2009

Child Welfare And Children In The Education System: Prioritizing The Need For Statewide Anti-Bullying Policies, Angelique Day, Suzanne Cross

Social Work Faculty Publications

This study was conducted to explore the responses of 380 students enrolled at Michigan State University who had experienced bullying in high school as victims, perpetrators, and witnesses. Findings included significant predictors of bullying behavior. For example, male students were more likely to bully than their female counterparts; and bystanders who witnessed bullying incidents were more likely to become both victims and/or perpetrators of bullying. The MSU students offered recommendations for policymakers to create anti-bullying legislation with enforcement guidelines and other methods of improving school culture to reduce future bullying incidents.

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Child Safety And Children In The Education System: Prioritizing The Need For Statewide Anti-Bullying Policies, Angelique Day Apr 2009

Child Safety And Children In The Education System: Prioritizing The Need For Statewide Anti-Bullying Policies, Angelique Day

Social Work Faculty Publications

This study was conducted to explore the responses of 380 students enrolled at Michigan State University who had experienced bullying in high school as victims, perpetrators, and witnesses. Findings included significant predictors of bullying behavior. For example, male students were more likely to bully than their female counterparts; and bystanders who witnessed bullying incidents were more likely to become both victims and/or perpetrators of bullying. The MSU students offered recommendations for policymakers to create anti-bullying legislation with enforcement guidelines and other methods of improving school culture to reduce future bullying incidents.

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Children's Health Insurance Program: The Dynamics Of Federalism And Health Care Policy, Erik White Apr 2009

Children's Health Insurance Program: The Dynamics Of Federalism And Health Care Policy, Erik White

Political Science Theses and Capstones

On February 4th, 2009, President Obama signed into law the reauthorization of the Children Health Insurance Program. The federal government will now spend 30 billion dollars towards the goal of ensuring that more children in the United States are insured. I investigate this particular health care policy and look at the different dynamics that affect the ultimate goal of universal health insurance for children. Because this program allows for state flexibility under broad federal guidelines, one is able to look at individual states, and their particular actions and characteristics, to determine the best approach to insuring the most …

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Self-Reported Obstacles Among African American Families Who Fail To Reunify, Deena Saunders-Green Jan 2009

Self-Reported Obstacles Among African American Families Who Fail To Reunify, Deena Saunders-Green

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to attempt to fill the gap currently affecting African American families in the child welfare system. To accomplish this, the study aims to identify barriers that may be contributing to failed unification attempts. Should confounding variables be detected, they could be addressed and utilized to assist future families in need of services.

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The Social Construction Of Client Participation: The Evolution And Transformation Of The Role Of Service Recipients In Child Welfare And Mental Disabilities, Terry Mizrahi, Mayra Humphreys-Lopez, Denise Torres Jan 2009

The Social Construction Of Client Participation: The Evolution And Transformation Of The Role Of Service Recipients In Child Welfare And Mental Disabilities, Terry Mizrahi, Mayra Humphreys-Lopez, Denise Torres

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article presents a comparative analysis of client participation (CP) in child welfare and mental health and mental retardation systems. It identifies three rationales for client participation (philosophical, pragmatic, and political), along with the limitations surrounding each rationale. It uses social construction theory to examine the historical and ideological underpinnings of organized, institutionally-sanctioned client involvement inside and outside government. In order to enhance the capacity of clients to influence service and benefit systems, their role must evolve through the mutual efforts of government-strengthening client participation policies and independent organizing from the bottom up through community development and advocacy programs.

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Establishing A Basis For Multi-System Collaboration: Systemic Team Development, Rosalyn M. Bertram Dec 2008

Establishing A Basis For Multi-System Collaboration: Systemic Team Development, Rosalyn M. Bertram

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Reports of child sexual abuse require police, child protective services, forensic and medical evaluators, prosecutors, family court and treatment providers to negotiate complementary, overlapping roles with children and families. Administrators from these agencies in Kansas City, Missouri clarified this multi-system response by applying a theory-based model for team development previously studied in direct practice with families. This article presents that model and an exploratory case study of this effort. Findings suggest the model's efficacy for resolving inter-agency conflict and may contribute to constructing logic models in multi-system collaboration

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Teaching Icwa Online: Undergraduate Child Welfare Student Learning, Paul Force-Emery Mackie, Mackenzie Collin Apr 2008

Teaching Icwa Online: Undergraduate Child Welfare Student Learning, Paul Force-Emery Mackie, Mackenzie Collin

Social Work Department Publications

The "ICWA Online" class was developed to provide a critical learning experience to Title IV-E students who will likely work with Native American children and families sometime in their careers and social workers. This presentation is designed to outline and show how we are attempting to do this using current technology and platforms - to keep the promise established by ICWA 30 years ago... Today.

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Being Accountable: Overrepresentation Of Children Of Color In The Child Welfare System, Victoria Lee Scheele, Juliana Francesca Simixhi Jan 2008

Being Accountable: Overrepresentation Of Children Of Color In The Child Welfare System, Victoria Lee Scheele, Juliana Francesca Simixhi

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to examine the ethnic composition of families enrolled in Voluntary Family Services (VFS) as well as service delivery and service completion rates among the various ethnic groups utilizing these services.

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Risk And Safety Assessment In Child Welfare: Instrument Comparisons, Amy C. D’Andrade, Michael J. Austin, A Benton Jan 2008

Risk And Safety Assessment In Child Welfare: Instrument Comparisons, Amy C. D’Andrade, Michael J. Austin, A Benton

Faculty Publications

The assessment of risk is a critical part of child welfare agency practice. This review of the research literature on different instruments for assessing risk and safety in child welfare focuses on instrument reliability, validity, outcomes, and use with children and families of color. The findings suggest that the current actuarial instruments have stronger predictive validity than consensus-based instruments. This review was limited by the variability in definitions and measures across studies, the relatively small number of studies examining risk assessment instruments, and the lack of studies on case decision points other than the initial investigation.

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Understanding And Measuring Child Welfare Outcomes, Amy C. D’Andrade, Kathy Lemon Osterling, Michael J. Austin Jan 2008

Understanding And Measuring Child Welfare Outcomes, Amy C. D’Andrade, Kathy Lemon Osterling, Michael J. Austin

Faculty Publications

The new "Children's and Family Services Reviews" (CFSR) process focuses on the effectiveness of services to children and families by measuring client outcomes. This article reviews the research literature related to child welfare outcomes in order to provide a context for federal accountability efforts. It also summarizes the 2001 federal mandate to hold states accountable for child welfare outcomes and describes California's response to this mandate. Implications of the outcomes literature review and measurement problems in the CFSR process suggest CSFR measures do not always capture meaningful outcomes. Recommendations for change are made.

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The Relationship Between Law Enforcement Officers And Child Welfare Social Workers, Cheryl Denise Gonzales, Aida Velia QuiñOnez Jan 2008

The Relationship Between Law Enforcement Officers And Child Welfare Social Workers, Cheryl Denise Gonzales, Aida Velia QuiñOnez

Theses Digitization Project

There has been a long established relationship problem between Child Protective Services (CPS) social workers and Law Enforcement (LE) officers. It is an issue of which both sides are aware, but neither has addressed this discord in an effort to improve collaboration between the two agencies. The purpose of this study is to help both Law Enforcement officers and Children Protection Services workers build a strong interdisciplinary relationship in child abuse cases.

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The Disproportionate Representation Of Blacks In The Child Welfare System Of The County Of Los Angeles And Decision-Making Practices Of Child Welfare Workers, Flora Mae Jones Jan 2007

The Disproportionate Representation Of Blacks In The Child Welfare System Of The County Of Los Angeles And Decision-Making Practices Of Child Welfare Workers, Flora Mae Jones

Theses Digitization Project

The focus of this study is the significant and widespread overrepresentation of blacks in the child welfare system. The study specifically addresses the issue in the context of its association with decision-making practice of child welfare workers in the County of Los Angeles.

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Disproportion Of African American Children In Child Welfare System Crisis, Pamela Janice Jones Jan 2007

Disproportion Of African American Children In Child Welfare System Crisis, Pamela Janice Jones

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of the Structured Decision-Making (SDM) tool affects the disproportion of African American children accounted for in Riverside County Child Welfare System.

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"Seen And Not Heard" Sociological Approaches To Childhood: Black Children, Agency And Implications For Child Welfare, Mekada Graham, Emily Bruce Dec 2006

"Seen And Not Heard" Sociological Approaches To Childhood: Black Children, Agency And Implications For Child Welfare, Mekada Graham, Emily Bruce

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In this article, the authors consider the socio-historical conceptions of childhood in relation to Black children and their unique relationship with child welfare institutions. Against this background we apply models of childhood to issues of race and social agency and argue that these elements have been inadequately addressed in developmental models of childhood. Following these concerns, we present a social model of childhood and consider how these distinct and different ways of understanding children might be applied to child welfare practice. This child centered approach presents a unique opportunity to incorporate the differential positioning of Black children in the wider …

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"Put Up" On Platforms: A History Of Twentieth Century Adoption Policy In The United States, Michelle Kahan Sep 2006

"Put Up" On Platforms: A History Of Twentieth Century Adoption Policy In The United States, Michelle Kahan

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Adoption is closely intertwined with many issues that are central to public policy in this country-welfare and poverty, race and class, and gender. An analysis of the history of adoption shows how it has been shaped by the nation's mores and demographics. In order to better understand this phenomenon, and its significance to larger societal issues, this analysis reviews its historyfocusing on four key periods in which this country's adoption policy was shaped: the late Nineteenth Century's 'orphan trains'; the family preservation and Mothers' Pensions of the Progressive Era; World War II through the 1950s, with secrecy and the beginnings …

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Overrepresentation Of African Americans In The Child Welfare System: Differential Treatment In Risk Assessment By Public Child Welfare Workers, Rebecca Sheree Owens, Courtney Marques Roushion Jan 2006

Overrepresentation Of African Americans In The Child Welfare System: Differential Treatment In Risk Assessment By Public Child Welfare Workers, Rebecca Sheree Owens, Courtney Marques Roushion

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to identify salient factors contributing to the overrepresentation of African Americans in the child welfare system. This study seeks to examine whether or not public child welfare workers are biased in their assessments of African Americans, and if years of experience influence their judgment. By understanding some of the salient factors that contribute to these disproportionate numbers, Child Welfare Services can begin to revamp their programs and services to ensure that they are more culturally sensitive and equitable.

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Child Protective Service Worker's Perception Of How Housing Issues Affect Their Decisions, Amanda Vasquez, Dorothy Ann Mokate Wilson Jan 2006

Child Protective Service Worker's Perception Of How Housing Issues Affect Their Decisions, Amanda Vasquez, Dorothy Ann Mokate Wilson

Theses Digitization Project

This exploratory study looked at Child Protective Service workers' perceptions of how housing issues affect their decisions in the removal of children from their parents, and the reunification of children with their parents. The survey examined San Bernardino County Child Protective Service workers in the Inland Empire region of California.

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Foster Caregivers' Opinions On The Causes Of Multiple Placements Among Foster Children, Erika Yolanda Alatorre, Angelica Lemus Jan 2005

Foster Caregivers' Opinions On The Causes Of Multiple Placements Among Foster Children, Erika Yolanda Alatorre, Angelica Lemus

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of the study was to gather data that could help minimize the number of placements that foster children often experience. The results of this study are intended to help California child welfare agencies and other foster care agencies develop additional policies that support the development of stable foster care placements for dependent children.

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Transition From Foster Care To Adoption: Services Needed For Building Adoption Permanency For Children, Colleen O'Neill Duggin Jan 2005

Transition From Foster Care To Adoption: Services Needed For Building Adoption Permanency For Children, Colleen O'Neill Duggin

Theses Digitization Project

A questionaire was developed and given to post-adoptive parents with the results to be used as a guide to examine what services need to be provided in the pre-adoptive process for parents who are adopting children that are coming from foster homes. The results of the study could be utilized by adoption social workers as a means of targeting typical areas of need or resources for families during the adoption process.

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Does Family-Centered Out-Of-Home Care Work? Comparison Of A Family-Centered Approach And Traditional Care., Cathleen A. Lewandowski, Lois Pierce Aug 2004

Does Family-Centered Out-Of-Home Care Work? Comparison Of A Family-Centered Approach And Traditional Care., Cathleen A. Lewandowski, Lois Pierce

Social Work Faculty Publications

This research assessed the effectiveness of a family-centered approach to out-of home core in reunifying children with their families by comparing differential exit rates of children whose families received family-centered services with children whose families received routine child welfare services. The sample included 472 children who were in foster care from 1994 to 1996 in Missouri. Survival analysis was used to calculate the probability that a child would he reunified with his or her family at a particular time and to compare the differential exit rates for the children who experienced subsequent placement during the study period. The authors used …

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Ethnic/Racial Matching Of Clients And Social Workers In Public Child Welfare, Robin Perry, Gordon E. Limb Jun 2004

Ethnic/Racial Matching Of Clients And Social Workers In Public Child Welfare, Robin Perry, Gordon E. Limb

Faculty Publications

Although considerable debate exists throughout the human-service literature regarding the potential benefits and limitations associated with ethnic/racial matching of clients and workers, there are few studies that examine the prevalence of this practice with large representative samples. This study utilizes a secondary analysis of data collected from 4813 public-child-welfare workers throughout California. Using census data to control for county-specific population demographics, American-Indian, Hispanic/Latino(a), Caucasian, and Asian-American child-welfare workers are more than two times more likely to have caseloads with a high percentage of clients who match their race/ethnicity than workers self-identified as another race/ethnicity. African-American workers are 1.28 times more …

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Family Group Conferencing In Child Welfare: Responsive And Regulatory Interfaces, Joan Pennell Mar 2004

Family Group Conferencing In Child Welfare: Responsive And Regulatory Interfaces, Joan Pennell

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A regulatory approach compels the child welfare worker to make decisions according to set procedures and prevents responding flexibly to families. Differential response is a way that child welfare is departing from legal formalism. One means is convening a family group conference (FGC) to develop a plan. John Braithwaite's regulatory pyramid assists in concep- tualizing differential response. This article reports a factor analysis of data on achievement of FGC objectives to elaborate three interfaces for fostering responsive regulation. Each interface keeps the family group at the center of planning while firmly maintaining their connections with community and government programs.

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Responsive Regulation In Child Welfare: Systemic Challenges To Mainstreaming The Family Group Conference, Paul Adams, Susan Chandler Mar 2004

Responsive Regulation In Child Welfare: Systemic Challenges To Mainstreaming The Family Group Conference, Paul Adams, Susan Chandler

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The purpose of this article is to examine the challenges inherent in trans- forming child welfare services. We apply Braithwaite's model of responsive regulation to the restorative practice of family group conferencing in child welfare. Shifting the role of the state away from controller of families in the child protective services system to one of regulatory partner with them is extraordinarily difficult. The paper looks at the complexities of reorienting child welfare services through the use of family group conferences on a large scale.

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Family Involvement Interventions In Child Protection: Learning From Contextual Integrated Strategies, David Stuart Crampton Mar 2004

Family Involvement Interventions In Child Protection: Learning From Contextual Integrated Strategies, David Stuart Crampton

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The use of family group conferencing and related family involvement interventions in child protection is rapidly increasing in the United States and many other countries. There is some concern that the child welfare field will travel down the same road as it did with intensive family preservation services; that is, tremendous enthusiasm later derailed by rigidly designed evaluations that showed unimpressive effects. The work of John Braithwaite suggests an alternative path for finding justifiable excitement about these interventions. Drawing upon Braithwaite's writings and ongoing evaluation research, this article suggests a few steps we can take towards an integrative strategy for …

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An Examination Of Social Workers' Knowledge Of Family Preservation Services In Child Welfare, Kathryn Irene Turnbull Jan 2004

An Examination Of Social Workers' Knowledge Of Family Preservation Services In Child Welfare, Kathryn Irene Turnbull

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of the study was to determine how knowledgeable the San Bernardino County Department of Children's Services (DCS) social workers were about Family Preservation Services has been to determine if that intervention works to alleviate out-of-home placements.

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Public Child Welfare And The American Indian: A California Profile, Gordon E. Limb, Robin Perry Oct 2003

Public Child Welfare And The American Indian: A California Profile, Gordon E. Limb, Robin Perry

Faculty Publications

Historically, American Indians have been disproportionately represented in public child welfare services. This article reports findings from a survey of all public child welfare workers in California (N= 5,741) in 1998. A descriptive profile of American Indian clients (where they reside and who works with them) and American Indian child welfare workers ( n= 1 71) is detailed. Attempts are made to identify counties with a disproportionately high number of American Indians represented on public child welfare caseloads and to estimate the probability that an American Indian worker would have a higher proportion of American Indians on his or her …

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