Question

Provide a brief 1 page response to the following question: Predict the future of family-based services in the U.S. Will there be more of an emphasis on family preservation or child placement?

Answer 1

The function of a family in our society is to provide for :

a.Procreation

b.Socialization

c.Enculturation

The family-centered policy is giving more emphasis on:

a.work more with family to keep the child in the house.

i. Argues that child should only be removed in dire circumstances

ii. Leave children in homes and help the family get resources and try to keep the family together under all costs

iii. The child is twice as likely to die in foster care and children are more likely to develop behavioral problems

iv. Cost of delivering resources is cheaper than placing them and then giving them resources

b. The vast majority of social workers in child welfare are believers of the family-based services to keep families together.

c.Child is at risk no matter what approach is taken, both are looking at protection of child

*Family-based services are any service that attempts to overcome threats to family stability that can compromise the healthy development of children provided before the crisis occurs.

#The benefits of family-based services are:
-children cognitive development

-children's social and emotional development, parenting attitudes and knowledge, parenting behavior, and family functioning.

-children's physical health and development

-children's safety, parents mental health or risk behaviors, families economic self- sufficiency.

*Types of Family-based services :

-Family support:

Designed to prevent crisis and problems that might interfere with healthy child rearing. These are provided to families before a crisis occurs. Here the services that are provided that some are home-based and some are offered at centers

-Family preservation-

Usually are mandatory and are used when the crisis is imminent or has already occurred. Families receiving these services are at risk of having their children removed or have already done so.

*Future for shaping family-based services

-Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a program that provides cash assistance and supportive services to assist families with children under age 18 and helping them achieve economic self-sufficiency TANF being a 60-month program seek to refocus and restructure child welfare services in general. Family preservation reintroduced to courts and that court personnel must be re-educated to look at the strengths of parents rather than their deficits.

-Screening of at-risk clients

-Attention to cultural diversity

-Selection of training of workers

-Supervision and consultation etc

*The trend for the future is that :

-schools will be asked to provide more and more services for children who are emotionally traumatized

Thus we can say that the future of family-based services in the U.S will there be more emphasis on child placement rather than family preservation.