Human Service Agencies & Child Protection

While in the 1960s and 1970s, child sexual abuse and child abuse in general was almost invisible, in the 1980s and 1990s, it is a constant in the pages of newspapers and magazines, and in portrayals on television and in movies. It sometimes appears that there has been a radical increase in the abuse of children, although experts believe most of this is the result of better reporting and changes in the perception of abuse. Still, there is a need for response; often that response leads to an intervention by human service agencies, including the possibility of removing the child from the home. How effective are these agencies in protecting children and improving their situation? The intention in the following pages is to look at the evolution of child welfare concepts, explore the current state of human service agency activity regarding children, and come to some conclusion about the effectiveness of human service agencies in protecting children.

Evolution of human service departments/child welfare protection:

The history of formal governmental involvement in the provision of welfare services, including child welfare services, is a short one. In Europe, before the Middle Ages, the responsibility for the poor and sick primarily belonged to feudal leaders. After that, the church was primarily responsible for developing such services, along with a few public institutions. The government did not begi

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goes well in the family and to identify effective problem resolutions. These are used as a foundation for clients to build upon in order to cope better with stresses and respond more effectively to their children's needs (Berg, 1994). With this approach, the worker's role is helping the client identify their resources and needs in order to assist the client in developing better ways to solve problems. The solution-focused approach emphasizes that people change their lives and their situation more by taking concrete action than by talking about their problems. Thus, the focus for workers is on establishing concrete, achievable goals for the entire family (Berg, 1994). Unfortunately, many child protective workers still use more punitive approaches, as do police departments and others. These interventions may respond to a crisis in the family, but also precipitate new crises (Corcoran, 1999). In addition, accusatory or punitive approaches tend to polarize the relationship between families and human service agencies, making it more difficult to accomplish anything (Cade and O'Hanlon, 1993). The ideal is for the family to collaborate with the human service agency in working toward the protection of the child, even though it wa
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Approximate Word count = 2660
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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