Child protection : trends and issues in Alberta
The Honourable Iris Evans, Minister of Children's Services for Alberta, has stated that "Alberta's children deserve to be cherished and cared for in quality childcare settings that contribute to their social and personal development" (Government of Alberta, December 16, 2002). Fortunately, the majority of parents are raising their children in such environments. However, there are families who pose a risk to the safety and security of their children, and child protection services may be involved with these families. The Alberta Response Model is based on the assumption that families who come to the attention of the child protection system are currently handled in a manner that is intrusive and stigmatizing. Instead of being a helpful and proactive service, child protection can become detrimental and potentially harmful to the clientele it serves. The Alberta Response Model is a new departure in child welfare practice and provides an alternative approach. Each of the 18 regional Child and Family Service Authorities is to develop its own initiatives incorporating the activities and philosophy of the Alberta Response Model. In the southern Alberta region, Sun Country Child and Family Services provides child protection services and has developed many innovative and creative projects to keep children safe. This project examines the Alberta Response Model in four sections: the historical context, current practice, Sun Country's response, and concerns and dilemmas.
Past, present, and future roles of child protective services.
Contemporary social issues typically spring from historical roots, and, as this article points out, that is particularly true of the effort to find a balanced, fair, and helpful way of responding to child abuse and neglect. This article examines how today's child protective services system evolved from a past of almshouses, orphan trains, anticruelty societies, and legislation establishing the protection of children as a government function. The author finds that the history of child protection in the United States is marked by a continuing, unresolved tension between the aim of rescuing children from abusive homes and that of strengthening the care their families can provide. Against that backdrop, this article explains the structure of the typical child protective services (CPS) agency (the unit within a broader public child welfare department that focuses on abuse and neglect) and outlines the roles in child protection that are played by the police, the courts, private and public social service agencies, and the community at large. According to the author's analysis, the fundamental challenges facing CPS can be captured in two questions regarding appropriate boundaries for the agency: Which situations require the agency's intervention? And how can the broader resources of the community be mobilized in the effort to protect children?
Family preservation and child protection: Striking a balance
Nothing is more horrifying to the public than the brutal killing of an innocent child. Observing that "Last year 1,300 abused kids died--though authorities knew that almost half were in danger" Newsweek magazine began major coverage on family preservation asking "Is it time to stop patching up dead-end families?" Unquestionably children have died at the hands of families which have been "preserved" even though retaining children in the "preserved" family represented endangerment. In Chicago, the Tribune newspaper tracked child fatalities for one year and found more than 50 children in the Chicago area alone who died from abuse (Ingrassia & McCormick, 1994). Without a proven techr~ology to protect children who have been abused in their home, the Newsweek reporters questioned an approach--family preservation--which keeps children in a family where their health and safety is endangered. Obviously, children should not be taken from their family if it is possible to keep them safe at home. The problem is that the child welfare field has not developed a proven technology which can assure the adequate safety of endangered children. The risk with inappropriate removal of a child is that it may tear apart a family unnecessarily. However, the risk of leaving a child in an endangered home is a child fatality. Neither is acceptable, but protecting the child' s life must always be paramount.