BY: CHE
There are lots of fields in social work profession. One of them is child welfare. In this post, I'll explain what child welfare is and what kinds of different areas there are in child welfare. People may first think that social workers just take away the children from their parents. However, social workers actually do more than that for many different problems.
First, the protective service is a big part of child welfare. Around 825,000+ cases of child maltreatment are reported in the United States each year, 56% are classified as neglect. 21% of that percentage are related to physical abuse. Some vocabulary study here: Abuse is a word used more for active physical, sexual, and emotional mistreatments. Neglect is a word used for more passive mistreatment but can be just as damaging, such as inadequate food and shelter, unwholesome conditions, failure to have the child attend school, or inadequate provision of medical care. When a referral is received, the social worker must determine if the child is in immediate danger, assess the ability of the parents to resolve the problem, and make a judgment about the risks of working with the family while keeping the child in the home. The court approves the removal of the child from the home if necessary. Social workers then work with the family to help them eliminate the difficulties that led to the referral.
Foster care, another big part of child welfare, is required in some situations whether it is temporary or long-term. For example, when children need to be removed from their own home, but if it's not possible, or desirable to permanently sever their relationship with their biological parents. The foster care process is a careful assessment and plan whereby the child can return home if conditions improve. Social workers are also responsible for monitoring the foster homes. Both federal and state laws discourage removing children from their families. 513,000 children were living in foster care in 2005. Very sad.
Lastly, I will talk about residential care. It's a group of home or residential treatment centers for children who show antisocial behavior or need intensive treatment to change that may cause problems for her/himself or for others. Social workers' job is to select an appropriate residential care facility, which involves working with the child, the family, and often the courts.
Although I introduced only three areas of child welfare, there are a lot more in this field, but unfortunately, not many social workers work in this field compared to other fields. Child welfare is known among social workers as an especially harsh field because of the brutal mistreatments to little children, which can definitely be a big damage to social workers' mental health. This is the major reason why not a lot of social workers stay in this field. I hope this post helped to get the glimpse of what child welfare is and how it works.
Source: textbook: Social Work- A profession of many faces.
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