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Megan Martin
Final Paper
Child Welfare
May 21, 2014




























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Abstract

The Supreme Commander of the Social Services for the United States of America office believes in order
to improve the child welfare system, the United States must focus on improving the knowledge, skills,
and practice of child welfare professionals. The child welfare system cannot be fixed by focusing only on
the way that children behave and the way that families interact with one another. It is agreed that this is an
issue within this system and that it must be addressed. However, this paper will show that these issues can
be addressed only if the knowledge, skills and practice of our professionals in the system are first
adjusted. Once these three things are adjusted then everything else within the families and their homes
will fall into their ideal places. In addition to not being able to only improve the attitudes and
relationships of children and family to fix the system, we also cannot fix the system by focusing only on
the system as a macro outlook or perspective. Fixing how we see the system from the outlook point of
view, once again, it is agreed this is an issue. However, this is not where we need to start when we are
improving the system as a whole. Because this office is focusing on only one issue at a time in attempt to
improve this system it has been decided that improving the child welfare system will begin with using our
resources to improve the knowledge, skill set, and practices of the professionals in this field. This paper
will detail the literature review completed, the solutions, and the conclusions as to how we will proceed in
making improvements.































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In order to solve an issue, no matter how large, it must be broken down and evaluated
into various steps in order to arrive at a solution. An issue as large as improving the child
welfare system, even for the Supreme Commander of Social Services for the United States of
America, still needs to be broken down into steps in order to have effective results of how the
improvement will take place. With the intention of finding solutions for improvement there are a
few questions that must be addressed. To start with the decision has to be made of how the child
welfare system will be improved though a specific group. Then, questions such as: what has led
to the dysfunction within this systemic challenge? How could this systemic challenge improve?
What would need to change within this system? What other systems would need to change?
How? And lastly, what action would be required? This paper will elaborate on first the different
groups improvement in the child welfare system will and will not be directed through to find
solutions for improvement. Next each of the questions of how to improve this systemic challenge
will be answered through a literature review of ways to improve child welfare. After addressing
these questions a conclusion will be reached as to how the child welfare system can be improved.
From the position of the Supreme Commander of Social Services for the United States of
America, this office has decided that in order to improve the child welfare system, the United
States must focus on improving the knowledge, skills, and practices of child welfare
professionals. The other two groups to choose from in attempt to make improvements work
were: changing the way children behave and the way families interact, and focusing on
improving the knowledge, skills, and practices of child welfare professionals. It has been drawn
to a consensus that both of these groups need to be addressed in the child welfare system in order
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for improvement to happen, however both of these groups could not make system wide change
happen by themselves. Change and improvement cannot happen at only the macro level because
the change would need to happen at the mezzo and micro levels throughout the states as well. It
is one idea to pass laws at the macro level, however those that pass these laws need to realize
change will not happen unless these laws are enforced at the smaller agency levels in society. In
addition to improvement not being able to happen only at macro level, change cannot happen
only by improving the way children behave and interact with their families. This is a micro level
family by family approach and while change does need to happen with this group, the system
wide change trying to be accomplished cannot happen through only improving this group and not
others along with it. Consequently, by improving the knowledge, skills, and practice of child
welfare professionals the child welfare system will improve.
Improving the knowledge, skills, and practice of child welfare professionals in the child
welfare system was chosen to address for two main reasons. The first reason is that child welfare
professionals relate to change on both the macro and micro levels of the country. All of the
people that work in this profession can be seen as accounting for the macro level approach of
improving this system. On the other end accounting for who and what makes up the micro level
are still the people that work in this profession but in their own states and cities. Each state has
different laws about their child welfare systems, and then each city has different ways of working
with and applying these laws. When all of these professionals across the country are counted as a
whole however they make up our child welfare system at the macro level. The second reason this
group was chosen is because child welfare professionals are the ones who have the most impact
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and influence in child welfare system. These people carry out the laws in practice while working
with families, or while working in their facilities. These professionals are the middle man in a
sense. The law makers are the boss, the ones that inform the professionals what to do and how to
do it, and the children and families are the clients. Therefore, the professionals are the ones that
take from the law makers what needs to be addressed in the clients situation, and then they go
and solve whatever the clients struggles are. In conclusion, because child welfare professionals
are the middle men, and because they account for both the micro level of practice as well as the
macro level, addressing how to cause improvement to the child welfare system as a whole should
be done through improving these professionals knowledge, skills, and practice.
The beginning question to start analyzing how to improve the child welfare system is:
what has led to the dysfunction within this systemic challenge? The simple answers to this
question are: not enough money, not enough time, not enough personal, high caseloads,
inadequate training, public mistrust, and media hostility. All of these factors together overtime
has led to the dysfunction seen today in the child welfare system. According to the FY 2014
Presidents Budget 281 million is used for Child Welfare Services Programs, 26 million is used
for Child Welfare Research, Training and Demonstration Child Welfare Training, and an
additional 2,213 million is used towards other forms of child welfare services. (Funding for
Selected Childrens Program Chart- in millions, 2014). Even though this amount of budget may
seem like a large sum of money there are still the realities of the child welfare system across the
country and these realities show that it doesnt seem like over 2,200 million dollars is spent on
the child welfare system. Child welfare professionals are still overworked, underpaid and deal
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with many stressful situations every day. Olivia Golden, the director of Columbia Child and
Family Services Agency from 2001-2004 and the author of Reforming Child Welfare, stated in
an opinion article on child welfare:
the work ranged from reducing caseloads to overhauling information technology,
contracting, licensing and personnel systems. On good days, we reminded ourselves
that it was all worth it. But when a child was hurt or killed, we often reacted
defensively, fearing that a misdirected public outcry could undercut our plans for
reform.
Goldens testimony to what work was like in her agency is a representation of how work is for
most other child welfare professionals as well, which is why there is such a high turnover rate in
this field. Lynette Renner, Rebecca Porter, and Steven Preister wrote in Improving the Retention
of Child Welfare Workers by Strengthening Skills and Increasing Support for Supervisors that
the National turnover rates are 22% for child protection workers, which are 76% higher than
turnover rates for total agency staff. This level of turnover can negatively affect the achievement
of permanency of children in foster care, which continues to challenge agencies to discover
effective ways to retain workers. Further in their research they also concluded that the reason
for such high turnover rate is due to Inadequate supervision, low pay, and heavy workloads
(Renner et al., 2009). Dysfunction within this system occurs because the child welfare
professionals are overwhelmed with high caseloads, low pay, not adequate training, inadequate
supervision as well as constantly changing supervision because of the high turnover rates.
Professionals often times learn the new policies from the current supervisor, and then a change in
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government happens, or a change in leadership at any level changes, and then the policies they
just learned are changed too which results in having to learn all new work. These factors joined
with a public mistrust and hostility from the media is what has formed the dysfunction within
our current child welfare system. Furthermore, all the issues of dysfunction lie within the
professionals or can be related back to these professionals, which is why the improvement of the
system must occur through improving their knowledge, skill sets, and training.
Having addressed the factors that have led to the dysfunction within the child welfare
system, the questions of what change needs to happen within this system needs to be answered.
When in deciding what change needs to take place in order to improve, the fact that
Each child welfare agency has an organizational culture with many variables that
include norms, values, communication flow, professionalism, supervisory support,
morale, and leadership, and also has workers with many diverse characteristics such as
performance and skill levels, attitudes, values, beliefs, experience levels, educational
background, and motivation or resistance to change (Collins-Camargo et al., 2011).
needs to be taken into consideration. All of these factors along with the combination of variables
creates situations where certain new practice models that might have been proven to work in
certain agency settings may not be as effective when applied at different agencies. Simply
because one practice works for one location does not mean it can be generalized to the rest of the
child welfare system, and be assumed it will produce effective results. Each new policy that is
passed must be adapted each specific agency and location in the country. A further thought we
need to be cautious of is that Changes are made with little regard to best practices or research
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but as reactions to public outcry (Collins-Camargo et al., 2011). This is a fact of what has
happened in the past within the child welfare system. The media broadcasts a sad or unfortunate
story of a bad child welfare case, and then the public becomes outraged that this has happened.
Then the public assumes that these types of bad cases either happen all the time, or happen too
often and that supposedly the child welfare professionals and agencies are not doing enough to
make these bad cases not occur. This is when often times changes to policies are made because
of the public outcry to appease them. In reality most often times it is not the public that know
what is best for the child welfare system, and they only know what they see in the media, and not
what happens the rest of the time within the system. Therefore changes to policy should not be
based off of negative media attention or public distrust in this system.
In sum, what needs to be done about improving the child welfare system is ideally to
train professionals better so that they are more equipped even more than they already are to go in
the field and have successful case stories. Agencies need to expand opportunities for
supervisors to network with other professionals, learn from peers, participate in conferences and
other training opportunities, [and] get involved in agency strategic planning and decision
making (Collins-Camargo et al., 2011). Government and those in charge of child welfare
agencies need to remember and keep in mind that change cannot be based on negative views or
outlooks from the public or the media, and that one policy change may not be what works for all
agencies across the country. In short, The practitioners want to know what works best for
whom and in what situations (Renner et al., 2009). Last but not least government and policy
people need to remember The consequences of not knowing what works are broken families,
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maltreated children, and long-lasting emotional and physical scars for everyone involved,
including the child welfare professionals (Collins-Camargo et al., 2011).









































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Reference Page

Collins-Camargo, Crytal; Shackelford, Kim; Kelly, Michael; Martin-Galijatovic, Ramie. (2011).
Collaborative Research in Child Welfare: A Rationale for Rigorous Participatory Evaluation
Designs to Promote Sustained Systems Change. Child Welfare. Vol. 90 Issue 2, p69-85.

Loson, Kristalyn. (2009). Improving Privatization: How Federal Procurement Concepts can
solve Lingering Problems in State Contracts for Child Welfare. Public Contract Law Journal.
Vol. 38 Issue 4, p955-974.

Renner, Lynette M.; Porter, Rebecca L.; Preister, Steven. (2009). Improving the Retention of
Child Welfare Workers by Strengthening Skills and Increasing Support for Supervisors. Child
Welfare. Vol. 88 Issue 5, p109-127.

Richardson, Brad; Derezotes, Dennette. (2010). Measuring Change in Disproportionality and
Disparities: Three Diagnostic Tools. Journal of Health and Human Services Administration. Vol
33 Issue 3, p323-352.

Collins-Camargo, Crystal; Armstrong, Mary I.; McBeath, Bowen; Chuang, Emmeline. (2013).
Promoting Cross-Sector Partnerships in Child Welfare: Qualitative Results from a Five-State
Strategic Planning Process. Child Welfare. Vol. 92 Issue 1 p33-63 .

Golden, Olivia A. (7 April 2011). When Blame Isnt Enough. The New York Times, The Opinion
Pages. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/opinion/08golden.html?_r=0.

Funding for Selected Childrens Programs Chart- in millions. (2014). CWLA Together, Making
Children and Families a National Priority. Retrieved from:
http://www.cwla.org/advocacy/2014BudgetChartApril.pdf.