Child Welfare最新文献

Scotland's child welfare system has developed as hybrid of both residual and universal approaches and incorporates local involvement through trained volunteers participating in children's panels and community-based interventions. Furthermore, Scotland's move toward independence from the United Kingdom, called devolution in Scotland, has resulted in a resurgence of new recommendations focused on child well-being from birth through adolescence for all Scottish children. This article will explore policy development of Scotland's unique child welfare approach through the children's panels and the commitment to civic participation. It will expand on how recent initiatives, policy, and practice guidelines may have implications for providing a promising, sustainable model focused on child well-being, and may be useful for consideration in other cultural contexts that view liberty and civic engagement as core values.

The primary aim of this paper is to introduce practitioners to the mental health needs of children and families who are under the care and supervision of the child welfare system because of substantiated child maltreatment. Emphasis is placed on children and families who are receiving foster care services. The paper draws attention to the most prevalent mental health conditions that affect foster care children and their families based on type of maltreatment. Given that young children under age 5 are more likely to be placed in out-of-home placements and to spend a significant portion of their lives in foster care, their unique mental health needs are highlighted. Treatment approaches that are informed by both practice wisdom and evidence-based practice--such as ego-supportive intervention and trauma-focused, cognitive-behavioral therapy--are stressed. A case study is presented as a way of illustrating how mental health care may be delivered to families affected by the child welfare system.

There is a high level of orphaning in Africa due to war, violence, and more recently HIV and AIDS. This study examines parental death in South African children and examines the differential impact on child functioning of double, single and non-orphanhoods. Bereavement, depression, behavior problems, and violence were examined in a consecutive sample of 381 children/adolescents (51.2% girls) between 8 and 19 years of age (M = 12.8). Parental death experience was high; 70 (17.5%) reported the death of one parent, and a further 24 (6%) reported the death of both. Group comparisons showed double orphans had elevated depression, worse psychosocial functioning, were more likely to be kept home from school for household chores, and were more likely to be slapped. Single orphans were more similar to the non-orphans than the double orphans on most scores. Our study reveals that parental loss should be studied with more fine-grained definitions and that emotional sequelae should be addressed.

Research findings have developed a troubling narrative of youth leaving foster care. Congress attempted to address the post-discharge difficulties of foster youth by passing the Independent Living Initiative in 1986, which mandated that the states develop services that would prepare youth for life after foster care. However, it is unclear what effect these programs have on post-foster care trajectories. This largely qualitative study examined the perceptions of a sample of discharged foster six months after leaving care. Most youth felt prepared for life and foster care. They were also for the most part were satisfied with their independent living program, but had significant dissatisfactions with elements of the program. These satisfactions and dissatisfactions are reported along with suggestions for improvement. The policy and practice implications of these suggestions are considered.

This study compares the On the Way Home (OTWH) aftercare program to traditional aftercare supports on placement and school stability for 82 youth (43 treatment, 39 control) with disabilities discharging from residential care. One-year-post-discharge results revealed that negative event occurrence (i.e., returning to care or discontinuing enrollment in the community school) was three to over five times less likely for OTWH youth compared to youth in the control condition.

This article highlights current models used in child protection to assess safety and risk, and discusses implications for child maltreatment fatalities. The authors advance that current risk and safety practice approaches were not designed to accurately estimate the likelihood of low base-rate phenomena and have not been empirically tested in their ability to predict or prevent severe or fatal child maltreatment. They advance that, regardless of the ultimate effectiveness of safety and risk tools, competent assessment and decision-making in child protection depend on sound professional judgment and a comprehensive systemic approach that transcends the use of specific tools.

Child Protective Services Agencies (CPSAs) share many characteristics with other organizations operating in high-risk, high-profile industries. Over the past 50 years, industries as diverse as aviation, nuclear power, and healthcare have applied principles from safety science to improve practice. The current paper describes the rationale, characteristics, and challenges of applying concepts from the safety culture literature to CPSAs. Preliminary efforts to apply key principles aimed at improving child safety and well-being in two states are also presented.

This paper puts forward a conceptual framework for engaging peers as central to transitional services for care-leavers. The situation of youth exiting care is examined and an evidence-informed approach to supporting care-leavers is presented. Exploring the social networks of youth leaving care provides a mechanism for both supporting the maintenance of ties and fostering the development of weak tie connections that facilitate opportunities for social mobility.

While relative care may offer significant benefits to kin children as compared to non-relative foster care, informal kinship caregivers often experience various hardships and needs without the resources of the child welfare system to aid them. They may benefit from services provided by an expanded kinship navigator program. This study, using an experimental design, adds to knowledge about the characteristics and needs of kinship caregivers and the impact of enhanced navigator services. The relative effect of this more intensive intervention was mixed. Caregivers had many of their expressed needs met. Yet, the enhanced services group did not demonstrate: an increase in perceived social support; reduction in caregiver stress; or improvement in child behavior compared to the families receiving brief, traditional navigator services. Little difference was found in post intervention involvement in the child welfare system. Further enhancements to the model are suggested.

This article examines the factors that can affect job satisfaction, organizational culture and climate, and intent to leave at a public child welfare agency. Findings from focus group data collected from direct line, middle, and senior managers revealed a passive defensive culture. The authors discuss concrete organizational interventions to assist the agency in shifting to a constructive oriented culture through enhancements in communication, including supervision and shared decisionmaking, recognition and rewards, and improvement in other areas related to working conditions.