Decision Making At Child Welfare Intake

All countries confront the problem of providing for dependent, neglected, and 1 abused children. While the exact form of institutional response will differ in relation to a country's political and economic structure, its culture and its tradition, the same general kinds of child welfare services have been developed 2 everywhere. Literature from the United States, Canada, and several Western European countries reflects a shared concern about children who reside in unplanned, substitute care arrangements and a growing recognition of the importance of 3 making permanent plans for these children. The American response to this problem took shape in the early 1970s when government at the local, state, and 4 federal levels undertook to fund permanency planning projects. Permanency planning projects were charged with developing and testing procedures that would increase the likelihood that children would move out of substitute care arrangements into permanent family homes either through restoration to their biological families, termination of parental rights and subsequent adoption, court appointment of a legal guardian, or planned emancipation for older children. Long-term foster care, if it was a planned outcome supported by the use of written agreements between foster parents and child care agencies, was recognized as an appropriate option for some children. 2 DECISION MAKING IN CHILD WELFARE Permanency planning projects have had a direct effect on the substantive aspects of social work practice in child welfare.

Professionals in child welfare and protection are often required to make decisions--fraught with many difficulties and shortcomings--that have crucial implications for children and families. There are many indications that these decisions are frequently unreliable and involve unavoidable errors in judgement due to the uncertainties. Despite the central role of judgements in the field, child welfare and protection training and research programs pay limited attention to leveraging the human factors aspect of practice. Although extensive research exists in relevant areas--such as medicine, psychology, business administration, and economics--little has been done to help develop, transfer, and translate scientific knowledge to the child welfare arena. Decision-Making and Judgment in Child Welfare and Protection pulls together the best internationally sourced expertise and makes it accessibly available and applicable to scholars, educators, practitioners, students, and policymakers--the key stakeholders in child protective services and child welfare.

Child Welfare Removals by the State addresses a most important (but little-researched) legal proceeding: when the State intervenes in the private family sphere to remove children at risk to a place of safety, adoption, or in other forms of out-of-home care. It is an intervention into the private family sphere that is intrusive, contested, and a last resort. States' interventions in the family are decided within legal and political orders and traditions that constitute a country's policies, welfare state model, child protection system, and children´s position in a society. However, we lack a cross-country analysis of the different models of decision-making in a European context. This text aims to present new research at the intersection of social work, law, and social policy concerning child protection proceedings for children in need of alternative care. It explores the role of court-based and voluntary decision-making systems in child protection proceedings, its effects, dynamics, and meanings in seven European countries and the United States, and analyses the tensions and dilemmas between children, parents, and socio-legal professionals. The book consists of eight country chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion chapters. The range of countries of countries represented in the book covers the social democratic Nordic countries (Finland, Norway, and Sweden), the conservative corporatist regimes (Germany and Switzerland), the neo-liberal (England, Ireland, and the United States), and related child welfare systems.

This volume examines existing research documenting racial disproportionality and disparities in child welfare systems, the underlying factors that contribute to these phenomena and the harms that result at both the individual and community levels. It reviews multiple forms of interventions designed to prevent and reduce disproportionality, particularly in states and jurisdictions that have seen meaningful change. With contributions from authorities and leaders in the field, this volume serves as the authoritative volume on the complex issue of child maltreatment and child welfare. It offers a central source of information for students and practitioners who are seeking understanding on how structural and institutional racism can be addressed in public systems.

This edited work offers a framework that organizes and develops the types of evidence needed at key decision points in child welfare.