Georgia’s child welfare system has seen some notable changes in the past decade, but mostly due to tragic situations. See, the issue is our system is reactive, as Melissa stated in class this week. A child dies, it’s found that there was some DFCS involvement, America goes into a frenzy casting stones at DFCS, the government counteracts with a new policy. This isn’t to say that there isn’t some fault on both sides (colossal case loads have haunted my thoughts of one day working for DFCS and the media loves to make us hate someone), but the blame may be too heavy on one side.

            The high profile death of Terrell Peterson in the late 90s, spurred us into new child welfare policy at the start of the decade. The Child First Collaboration Committee was charged with bringing change in the Georgia’s child welfare system, along with a fat check to help. This resulted in big increases in the number of children reported to DFCS, which makes it seem that DFCS wasn’t doing their job in the first place, but that’s a quick judgment.  Like Melissa said, there’s a panic mode that everyone goes in and then they report everything, kind of similar to when there’s a terrorist attack and idiots accuse every Middle Eastern person they see on the street (I digress).

            Then in 2006, diversion (or family support) was introduced to decrease the number of cases that CPS takes on after investigation, which it did. The implementation of a service to help families with children that are in safe care caused the number of substantiated and unsubstantiated reports to decrease.  After 2007’s poor CFSR (Child and Family Services Review) conducted by the Federal Children’s Bureau, Georgia moved into a 2-yr program improvement plan, as required by the CB for states who don’t meet the requirements of the review. It was reported that by 2011 Georgia had improved in all areas of needed improvement. Though with two waves of big policy change in the past decade and reported improvement, it seems that we are about to enter into another one.

These changes are at the foundation of the services that caseworkers provide, let alone the caseworker position itself. How reports regarding children are funneled, whether they are substantiated, unsubstantiated or diverted, have the most significant effect on caseloads and the amount of work for caseworkers. Large caseloads require more variations in services, because you can’t send everybody to one service and the services provided are dependent on policies set in place, therefore the effects of the policy changes comes full-circle to the caseworker.

Which is all why child welfare policy is so important for social workers, children and families. Social workers are the link between child welfare policy and children and families. This is the level at which policy is put into practice. Child welfare policy has everything to do with children and families because that is who child welfare policy is all about. When a child is in danger, child welfare policy dictates what options are there.