Child Welfare Reform - Book Report/Review Example

Price, the of the article questions the effectiveness of the United s Child Welfare program in protecting children against abuse from both biological and adopting parents. The article presents chilling incidents of young children in United States dying from physical abuse and living in deplorable conditions in spite of existence of federal child safety standards for state agencies. To demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the Child welfare program, the author contends that 16 states in the country did not fulfill any of the seven federal childcare standards used to evaluate the efficiency of the program in the previous year.

The author presents statistical data indicating that the rate of child abuse in the country increased in 2003 compared to 1990, mainly because of the government failure to enforce effective childcare policies in the country (Price 354). The author elaborates on several weakness of the government response to the plight of the abused children. The shortcomings include government’s failure to keep families together where agencies remove children from their families too frequently when parents are suspected of child abuse.

In this case, the author argues that the government should address the underlying issues at the family level, lather than isolating the children from their families. This could prevent future challenges of caring for such children when looking for parents to adopt them and in ensuring smooth transition into adulthood. Moreover, the author argues that the government financial support for child welfare program is wanting, where workers are underpaid and overworked in foster care facilities. Besides the government’s failure to support the program effectively, the author also argues that the system does not prepare foster adolescents effectively, especially those that to get parents to adopt them.

The author gives the historical chronology of child welfare program in the country and attributes social problems such as teenage pregnancy and drug abuse to the increasing rate of child abuse (Price 347-365). Price (345) gives a narrow regional perspective of the state of child welfare in the United States. From the beginning of the article, the author selects few incidents of child abuse in two states. Lack of wide regional representation of the problem does not portray the issue as a national problem.

However, Tom Price article shows that he has done an in-depth research where he supports his assertions using credible sources of data that compares the rate of child abuse in the country for 13 years. In spite of the above-mentioned shortcoming, the author succeeds in showing the failings of the child welfare program in the country. The author’s approaches the problem of child abuse from many dimensions, ranging from the personal perspective of abused children, their environment, and governments role in ensuring the improvement of the children’s welfare.

Giving individual or personal accounts of the abused children succeeds in highlighting the fears, aspirations and the conditions of the abused children with their biological and adoptive parents to the reader. In this case, the reader becomes more informed of what the children undergo in the country and what needs to be done to ensure that the abused children grow in loving environment that could enhance their chances of becoming responsible and independent citizens. This analytical approach helps in establishing the core issues that the government ought to address in order for the child welfare program to succeed in its mission of securing the future of abused children in the country.

Work Cited Price, Tom. “Child Welfare Reform: Will the Recent Changes Make at Risk Children Safer?” CQ Researcher, 15.15(2005): 345-368. From http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/