The article that I read discussed the report by the Children's Advocacy
Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law. The report is titled
"Shame on the U.S." and it shows failure at each level of government
to enforce federal laws at the state level and protect children. This report
mirrors findings done by the Associated Press.
Data suggests that "680,000 children were victims of abuse and
neglect in 2013, and an estimated 1,500 children died." Despite the
failures that the report shows, "experts say that prevention efforts at the local
level, combined with better data collection and tighter federal oversight could
reduce the number of cases of abuse and neglect.
The
article gives two examples. In Olympia, Washington, Community Youth Services is
working on creating a parental education program. Mr. Shelan, the CEO says that
he would like to end the cycle when it comes to kids coming out of foster care
who have their own children and are unprepared and do not know how to parent.
He says that this leads to more children in the foster care system. He believes
that parental education programs are cost effective ways of dealing with abuse
before it starts.
The next example is Eckerd which is a nonprofit company who runs child
welfare services in three large counties in Florida. They created a system to
indentify children in the system who are at high risk of serious injury or
death so that problems can be fixed quickly. A representative of the company
reported that "in two years we have not had a child
death from abuse or neglect in any of our cases."
The Children's Advocacy
Institute had a few suggestions in the article:
·
make child welfare funding
contingent on a state’s compliance with child welfare law requirements
·
encourage the judicial branch to
take a more proactive role in bolstering lax executive branch enforcement
Article:
http://news.yahoo.com/report-blasts-child-welfare-system-better-protect-us-210837618.html?soc_src=copy
The
CAI's Report: http://www.caichildlaw.org/Misc/Shame%20on%20U.S._FINAL.pdf
I think that having a parental education program is a step in the right direction. I did a project on the effectiveness of parental education programs a few years ago, and I found that there are some parental education programs that have been proven to be effective. One of the programs that I found to be effective is called Triple P or The Positive Parenting program. I also found in my research that counseling along with a parental education program seemed to have a more positive impact on families’ long term, especially when abuse was involved.
ReplyDeleteTriple P website: http://www.triplep-parenting.net/glo-en/home/
I agree that a parental education program could solve many issues. If there was a class not just on how to take care of a child, but how to deal with stress and where to find resources that could make a lot of changes. However, I don't know how that could be done. If a pregnant woman goes to get the proper prenatal care, whatever facility she goes to will more than likely have classes or give her information on where to get classes. It's getting them there and even more challenging, getting the fathers there and those women not getting prenatal care. It is absolutely doable to require girls in foster care with children or even without to take classes such as these.
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