Child Welfare Services: An Integrated Model

Words: 789
Pages: 4

Platt, D. (2012). Understanding parental engagement with child welfare services: An integrated model. Child and Family Social Work, 17(1), 138-148. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2206.2012.00828.x 1) This article takes an ecological approach to understanding how the different levels of engagement that parents have with services might affect children’s risk level of abuse or maltreatment. If parents are not cooperating with the social worker and the treatment that they came up with, children are more likely to be at-risk. Parental engagement is made up of many things, like behaviors, attitudes, and the relationship with relevant professionals, and can be determined by factors like cognitive and affective processes, the workers involved, the type of programs …show more content…
When working with families in the future, I will remember certain tells for engagement, like consistent attendance, openness concerning problems and behaviors, utilizing my contribution, completing agreed on tasks, and making sacrifices, which all point to parents who are engaged and who are truly utilizing the services offered to them. If the parents I am working with do not meet some of these standards, their children could be at-risk and knowing this will be important for the overall assessment of the family. Even though these are important predictors, it will also be important to understand that each family has a different set of circumstances that they are working through that can affect the outcome of my assessment. It will also be important to remember that my response as a social worker to the parent can impact the level of engagement a parent has, and that being aware of this and working with the them can increase the level of engagement with the …show more content…
Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=cbe595f9-eff5-4cb7-a875-23a57eac9055%40sessionmgr4009&vid=0&hid=4103
1) Child protective services elicits a lot of strong feelings from the public, and there are certain avoidable mistakes that child protective services social workers can do to strengthen the public image and opinion the of the department. Pollack asked seven experienced attorneys some common avoidable legal mistakes that child protective service workers often make.
2) From this article, I learned the importance of not viewing a child’s anti-social or hurtful behavior as evidence that they cannot be a trustworthy reporter of abuse, because this type of behavior can also be evidence of the abuse itself. Also, even though social workers have good intentions, they tend to form an opinion quickly as they investigate a case and do not pay attention to alternative explanations and motives, which can end up harming the family. Caseworkers also have a conflict of interest when working to investigate child abuse, whether that be family reunification, adoption, or to monitor a child’s long-term needs. When working with families in the future, I will be self-aware and avoid these mistakes so that my practice will be as objective and efficient as