This article stems from a training that was hosted in Gulfport, MS for those who work in professions dealing with child welfare. Some of the professional groups who were present at the training were CPS workers, attorneys, judges, school officials etc. The theme of the training was how there needs to be open communication and collaboration when working on child welfare cases as a connected team, with the ultimate goal of getting children back into their homes or with family. One of the ideas that came out of this discussion at the training is how to get the community involved when it comes to child welfare.
As many of us know, there is the negative stigmatization of child welfare, often workers are overloaded with work. So I thought it was interesting of bringing this idea of the community to come into play with child welfare. The article states:
“The workload that is creating the system to seem to so many so broken and inefficient is because most of their time is spent trying to find places to be able to place children,” said the Rev. Tony Karnes.
Shelton said a big help could be a simple gesture.
“Whether it’s cooking a casserole for a foster parent, whether it’s being a foster parent, or whether it’s buying a baby bed or a car seat. Everybody could do something to help this process,” said Shelton.
The definition of one's community can differ from another greatly. Therefore, bringing in the community for child welfare could look very different depending on location.I agree that one small gesture can go a long way, and it gives individuals the ability to contribute in whatever way is feasible to child welfare!
Lacy, M. (2017, January 29). Conference urges communication, cooperation among child welfare workers. Retrieved from: http://www.wlox.com/story/34346962/conference-urges-communication-cooperation-among-child-welfare-workers
I really like this article about communication when children are in the Child Welfare system. After having an internship at a foster care agency, I have seen that communication is key in the child welfare system. Often, the children have many different professionals that are working with the child and sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with everything that is happening whether that be with the psychiatrist appointments, therapy appointments, home visits, semi-annual reviews, doctor visits, school updates etc. It would be awesome to have some sort of system for communication between all parties that are working with the child. This is often placed on the caseworker and causes stress because tracking down all information needed can often take many hours. This is definitely a problem in the child welfare system and can be directly correlated with caseworkers not meeting their weekly productivity (per my observations at my internship). I think that full wrap around services and communication between all parties is the best solution to this problem.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of bringing the community together too bridge some of the gaps found in the child welfare system. You raise an interesting point that gets to the heart of the matter; the way we define community can look very different. As individuals with a multitude of identities, we can find ourselves as members of many different communities. Similarly, geographical communities can have disparities in resources available to help meet needs. However, drawing on the community can approached from the same strengths perspective we use in clinical practice with individual clients. By mapping the assets a community has at its disposal, I believe it is possible to empower those within the community to think differently about what they are capable of achieving and to be innovative about addressing needs of the most vulnerable among their population: children in child welfare.
ReplyDeleteLooking outside of one system into others and using different resources is something that so many agencies don't take advantage of. When it comes to child welfare the saying "it takes a village" wasn't made up for no reason.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time, Ohio had a Shared State Interagency Prevention Partnership established in 2002 (Ohio House Bill 57). I have a copy of the Prevention Framework. It was recognized that each of the agencies/systems had "unique and sometimes conflicting approaches in response to children, adolescents and their families" and sought to instead have these entities collaborate to "remove barriers to child and family success." It was successful while it lasted... It is too bad that systems that work are not always perpetuated. I like the addition of community involvement beyond the government/service sector discussed in this article. I have a social worker friend who trains foster families and counsels foster children through NYAP, and we have been able to have her connect us directly to foster families in need of furniture, clothes, etc., but a more formal network would probably be more helpful.
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