Family and Child Welfare

Family and Child Welfare 3 (3+0)

Lesson 30 : Child Protective Services

Recent trends in protective services

Some of the recent trends in protective services:

1. The most significant long-term trend in protective services has been the move from a punitive approach to a cooperative one. At one time, the tendency was to remove the child from the home; now much more emphasis is being placed on constructive efforts to rehabilitate the family. The neglectful parent is now less frequently viewed as a willful criminal who should be punished and from whom the child needs to be rescued. Thus the approach now involves identify­ing and treating the factors that underlie parental neglect as against a previous focus on investigation, adjudication and punishment.
2. There is increasing recognition that child neglect and abuse, despite their legal aspects, are the concern of social work. Legal sanctions can do little be­yond restraining the parents from inflicting harm and damage on the child, and the major problem involves providing for the child's adequate continuing care and custody. As the best protection for a child is an adequately functioning family in which parental roles are effectively implemented.
3. Because of the complexity of diagonals and variety of treatment programs and resources that might be needed in treatment, child protection teams have been developed as a service innovations. This approach permits a more comprehensive and valid diagnostic assessment with contributions from professionals having expertise in different areas.

A team approach also permits a more effective coordination of the many agencies that may be involved in a program of treatment. The team serves a supportive func­tion in that it permits sharing responsibility for difficult decisions. The basic team includes a social worker, a physician, a psychiatrist or psy­chologist, and a team coordinator or case manager. Additional team members might include an attorney, a child development specialist, a law enforcement representative and a public health nurse.

Child abuse teams may operate under the auspices of a local child protec­tive services unit or may be based in a hospital with a pediatric service. Some states have specifically mandated the creation of multidisciplinary child-protection teams in their reporting legislation. Teams have a variety of names with dramatic acronyms: SCAN (Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect Team); DART (Detection, Admission reporting, Treatment Team) NCCAN (National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1978).