sarah serluco: my blog

Love thy neighbor and eat more veggies

Child Welfare

on April 14, 2014

Wow. Melissa Carter’s presentation left me uttering that one word. There is so much information to take in but, I think the one thing that surprised me the most would be the fact that until just within the last decade the children within the child welfare system were never counted. There wasn’t anyone charged within the welfare system to know exactly how many kids were in foster care, awaiting adoption or in need of intervention. It’s amazing to think that we have passed legislation, put a system in place and spend lots of money to help a population of children and never really took the time to keep track of them. Melissa’s work is great in understanding who they are and what is actually working to help them.

I realized that the system that everyone thinks is so terrible is actually more effective than first thought. Georgia actually does a good job at protecting its children. It seems as if the breakdown comes at the lower level within the workers who administer the services. We need to look more at these people and see where we can  make some real change. I am sure low wages and frustrations with the job has created a difficult work environment for some. As Melissa had said, the Emani Moss case was most likely the fault of a caseworker and not the system as a whole.

The legislative session has proved that politics and personal benefit constantly come before the welfare of the children. We saw many needs for new policy with the marijuana bill as well as the autism bill but, the politicians got in the way of getting legislation passed. The discussion we had of Georgia Senator Renee Unterman was an example of this common power play. All the streams were open but the window closed quickly. It didn’t help that the legislative session was so short.

Today’s welfare system is a result of the shift of responsibility between parent and government. “The transfer of responsibilities required an elaboration of administration and judicial techniques and investigation, decision and supervision.” This happened when the first institution to protect children was established in 1912. The broad mandate at that time reads very much like the goals of every child protective service today. The idea to move away from law enforcement and focus on the casework and the services provided to parents to keep the children in the home. Melissa showed us statistics that supports the effectiveness of this today. I believe, to create real change and make a difference with those in child protective services is to find good people to work for the system. It starts with those creating the public policy and runs all the way down to the caseworkers. Lets find a way to create the best policy in which to tap into these great people.  Maybe through raising salaries, requiring special skills or education.  I know there are some amazing people right here in our class.  I look forward to seeing what we can do.


2 Responses to “Child Welfare”

  1. rtaylor27@gsu.edu says:

    Sarah,

    I am curious to know whether if you agree or not with the idea that most of these politicians started off as young, fresh, upbeat, dedicated and determined politicians? I would suggest that overtime once these politicians set in to old age and old ways that their fresh new ideas get placed on the back burner to deal with the issues that are being backed by the major corporations with their large lump sums of money. Politics as we all know is a dirty game for centers around greed and power. I would be very surprised to know if there are any politicians that have not changed overtime with what mattered in the beginning of their campaigning to what matters now or what is getting the major focus of attention. I definitely like the idea that you raised about raising salaries or requiring special programs of some sort maybe as a refresher to provide top of the line professionals in the child welfare system. Possibly even bonus incentives to boost morale of these employees.

  2. mpalmiter@gsu.edu says:

    Well done.

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