The researcher concluded that Public schools and child welfare agencies must begin to work together to support students' educational functioning. Professionals in both systems appear eager to work together more collaboratively, but need to resolve the historical mistrust. Schools of social work can help by teaching their students ways to break down the chasms that separate the various professionals. Administrators in both child welfare and education can help by creating systemic change through a commitment to joint planning and goal setting. Individual workers in both systems can help by committing themselves to working collaboratively and overcoming the mistrust that keeps them apart (Altshuler 2003).
Recent History: When Children Are removed from their Homes
It is evident that those working in the protective services must have a strong desire to do their jobs. Throughout the history of the organization, the protective service workers (social workers) have been paid very poorly and are expected to carry a large amount of responsibility on their soldiers. In the recent history of child protective services, these responsibilities have increased with the growth of the foster care system. The foster care system is an aspect of child protective services that was designed to care for children that were found to be abused or neglected by their parents or guardians. However, the history of this aspect of the child protective services is full of tragedies that could have been avoided. According to Bass et al. (2004) "Every year, millions of children are abused or neglected -- close to 300,000 so egregiously that they are removed from their homes by the state and placed in foster care. For too many of these children, foster care is no safe haven. Instead, the children drift from foster home to foster home, lingering in care while awaiting a permanent, "forever family (Bass et al. 2004)."
Bass et al. (2004) explain that many of the children in foster care are also abused and neglected by their foster parents. Cases of this have been prominent in the news in recent years. One of the most recent cases that occurred involved a nineteen-year-old boy and his brothers who were found eating the insulation of the house they lived in because they were being starved by there foster -- turned adoptive parents (Bass et al. 2004). There have also been other cases throughout the country that have brought into question the ability of the system to keep children safe.
The problems with this aspect of protective services have to do with the enormous amount of children in the system. According to Bass et al. (2004), 800,000 children were in foster care at some time during 2001. Compare this to 1980 when only 300,000 children were in the foster care system (Bass et al. 2004). The article explains that these increases are derivative of larger social problems such as poverty, children born addicted to crack, and children born with HIV / AIDS or being orphaned by AIDS (Bass et al. 2004).
In addition, child protective services are composed of a labyrinth of various organizations that handle different aspects of child welfare (Bass et al. 2004). It is also worth noting that child protective services differ from state to state (Bass et al. 2004). Not having a universal organization is difficult, particularly if there are relatives in another state that are willing to care for a child (Bass et al. 2004). All of these combined factors can prove detrimental for children who have been abused or neglected.
Indeed what began in the twentieth century as a way to protect children for abuse and neglect has become nearly as harmful for some as the environments from which they were removed. Bass et al. (2004) assert that Today, children and families who enter the foster care system continue to wrestle with these complex and interrelated problems. Additionally, the population of children...
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