Combatting Child Abuse: International Perspectives and Trends - Report Example

Historically, sta y welfare agencies and non-government welfare organisations have performed a dual role: they have provided care and protection for certain children, but above all they have performed an important function. Discuss. The term child abuse encompasses any kind of physical or emotional mistreatment of children. It can happen in any place that is associated with a child like home, school or community. The non government and statutory child welfare organizations play an important role for care and protection of children. It is their responsibilities to duly respond to concerns of children, assure them safety and protection of their rights, and provide care for the abused children away from home. This paper focuses on the dual role of the organizations that include both investigation of the family members who are potential threats to their children, and removing the children and placing them in out-of-home care establishments. Evolvement of child welfare agencies A child can develop well only when he gets proper education and health care facilities. Well-being of children can be assured only when the society has the ability to protect the rights of its children and safeguard them from injury and abuse (Jack & Gill, 2010, p.82). Child welfare agencies are formed for protection of children and their all round development. These agencies make their decisions regarding their child protection policies about permanent well-being of children. These decisions are based on interviews taken of children and families who have been reported for child abuse or neglect. The efficiency of child welfare policies depends on the ability of the agencies to conduct proper investigations of the mistreatment received by the child. Only precise conclusions about safety of children derived from the information collected from such investigations can build effective case plans. Workers of these agencies who take the responsibilities of taking interviews of children must have the knowledge and skills to make emotional inquiries in a sensitive manner. The agencies should be able to impart necessary values and knowledge to their workers through effective training in order to fulfill their child safety missions (Pence, 2011, p.50). Over the past three decades the philosophy and strategies of determining whether intervention is necessary in situations where a child is abused or has the potential risk of being harmed or injured have altered. The traditional method of child maltreatment investigations which involved participation of criminal and juvenile laws has evolved. Now, there are more “understanding of risk and safety, political pressures, implementation of evidence-based and research-supported interventions, philosophical shifts, and other variables”. Where traditionally the agency workers used to take action based on complaints of abuse, now take necessary steps to collect correct information regarding the truth and extent of maltreatment and what case plans should be made to ensure the safety of the children and promote protective behavioral patterns in the caretakers (Pence, 2011, p.51). There are many factors that determine the shape of child welfare services – the number of children in a population who are abused or are at risk, the social and economic conditions of the families and their technological advancement, prevailing ideologies concerning the children and the other members of their families, political pressure from different groups, and the principal views about reasons behind poverty, illness and crime. One criteria that is a permanent issue of child welfare agencies is to find solution to problems of those children whose parents cannot provide proper care. Although the proposed solution is “permanency planning”, history suggests that such planning cannot abolish the need of wide-ranging public provisions for children who are poor, neglected or disabled (Mallon & Hess, 2005, p.10). Role of child welfare agencies The rate of child abuse has grown significantly all over the world and is essentially evident in North America and Western Europe. Between the years 1980 to 1993, the number of children who have been subject to mistreatment has doubled. This is a grave matter which has imposed great strains on the child welfare agencies and has raised urgent questions on how to deal with the problem with permanent solutions. The alarming growth of child abuse reports has pressurized the agencies to such extent that the system had to be modified so that bulk of the resources is being utilized for the investigation of the root cause. This has resulted in scarcity of resources that is to be used for children and families at risk of potential child abuse. The administrators of public social service state that “child protection is child welfare” (Gilbert, 1997, p.3). The child and family services are trying to solve family problems while the large and small child welfare agencies are promoting newer strategies and technologies to cope with the problem. It is believed that some important changes are required in some fields like “funding to be more flexible and available for services, fuller implementation of community-based Alternative Response Systems, subsidized kinship care, subsidized guardianship, and the advancement of post-permanent services” (Pecora et al. 2009, p.1). Reports of child abuse reach the agencies as a last resort only after preventive measures takes by educational programs fail, when public housing and creation of job opportunities do not ensure safe housing, and when health of mothers does not allow them to take care of their children (Pecora et al. 2009, p.1). The role of child welfare agencies includes safety of children from getting abused in any form. For this purpose the child welfare practitioners establish life changing judgements on daily basis. It is they who determine whether parents should be allowed to raise their own children, where the children must be kept to ensure proper care if they are not allowed to stay with their parents, and whether and when the parents can receive back their children. It is the prerogative of the agencies to maintain a balance between power and responsibility. The most difficult job of the practitioners is to investigate which parents can cause potential harm or injury to their children and what steps are necessary to deal with such parents. With a systematic approach the child welfare agencies make judgements, solve problems and make decisions that are applicable to protective settings of children at risk (Lindsey & Shlonsky, 2008, p.173). Dual role The basic constitution of child welfare agencies is that of a “coercive apparatus, wrapped in a helping orientation” (Fong, 2003, p.131). Apparently to help the children the agencies have the compulsory duty of interrogating parents to investigate whether they can be blamed for their children’s problems, and these agencies also have the privilege to remove the children from the custody of their parents. Thus, the child welfare agencies have dual-role structure. On one hand, these agencies concentrate on the adult members of families as units of intervention so that they are prevented from causing child abuse, and on the other hand the agencies arrange for removing the children from their homes and placing them in out-of-home care establishments (Fong, 2003, p.131). The dual role of child welfare agencies constitutes both the role of helper and judge, and this structure discourages the parents from obtaining help from these agencies. Parents remain apprehensive that their problems might be interpreted by the agency as child abuse or neglect. As a result the support and services that the parents require may not be the intervention consequences of the agencies. The parents consider the agencies more as enemies than friends that need to be avoided. Thus in most cases, the agencies receive complaints from third persons. The relationship between families and child welfare agencies is being distorted by this dual-role structure of the agencies. Conclusion Child abuse can occur for multiple reasons ranging from economic condition of families, marital problems between the parents to emotional problems among the adult members of families. The primary responsibility of child welfare agencies lies in detecting the cause and then finding suitable solutions to deal with the problem. References 1. Gilbert, N. (1997). Combatting Child Abuse: International Perspectives and Trends. New York: Oxford University Press 2. Jack, G. & O. Gill (2010). The role of communities in safeguarding children and young people. Child Abuse Review, Vol.19, No.2, 82-96 3. Lindsey, D. & A. Shlonsky (2008). Child Welfare Research: Advances for Practice and Policy. New York: Oxford University Press 4. Mallon, G.P. & Hess, P.M. (2005). Child Welfare for the Twenty-first Century: A Handbook of Practices, Policies, and Programs. New York: Columbia University Press 5. Pecora, J.P. et al. (2009). The Child Welfare Challenge: Policy, Practice, and Research. New Jersey: Aldine Transaction 6. Pence, D.M. (2011). Trauma-Informed Forensic Child Maltreatment Investigations. Child Welfare, Vol. 90, No.6, 49-68 7. Fong, R. (2003). Children of Neglect: When No One Cares. Great Britain: Psychology Press Read More