How has child welfare policy changed over the last decade? How do these changes affect the implementation of services at the caseworker level? Why is child welfare policy important for social workers and what impact can it have on children and families?

Over the last decade, there has been more focus placed on permanency and the overall well-being of children in the child welfare system. Reunification to the family, if possible, has been the preferred goal of child welfare cases, but to do so, systems must be in place to help facilitate this. There has also been a push to reduce the amount of children being served in residential style facilities and a move towards more community-based approaches to care. These approaches include family counseling and mental health services.  In regards to improving the well-being of children, more attention has been placed on the meeting the developmental, educational and healthcare needs of children within the system.

I actually worked at a group home for a year that housed children who were in the custody of the Department of Family and Children Services or the Juvenile Court System. Within the facility, there was an academic coordinator who was responsible for each resident’s educational needs, a coordinator that was responsible for adhering to each resident’s healthcare and medical needs, and a resident coordinator whose responsibility included making sure that each child was adhering to their service plan goals while in the care of the facility. While the group home provided the day-to-day services for the child, the caseworker still has to provide services related to the service plan goals. This would include working with the family, relatives or prospective foster-parents in hopes to provide some since of permanency for the child. With the increased focus towards permanency and re-unification, case workers increased responsibilities include scheduling (and sometimes facilitating) family meetings, counseling sessions, and classes geared toward parenting skills. There seems to be more of a wrap-around approach to the care of children in the system, however with this, more accountability is required to effectively service the children and families.

While working at the group home, I can recall a particular child who could never get in contact with her caseworker.  The caseworker would only visit one or two times in the span of 6 months and would even miss court hearings. When looking at the media, there have been more incidents broadcast concerning the deaths of children in care and increased scrutiny of the child welfare system in Georgia and across the country; however the statistics on the PowerPoint provided by Melissa Carter shows a different trend and that Georgia in particular is doing a good job in protecting children within the system. Looking back at my experience at the group home, the issue may not be with system as a whole, but may be with that one particular caseworker because many of the other residents had great caseworkers who were involved in every aspect of their child’s services. When speaking with staff who had been working at the group home longer than me and who had previous experience in the child welfare arena, they expressed that the accountability of agencies and social workers has gotten better over the years due to child welfare policy changes such as the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA). There have been recommendations to decrease the case load amounts for social workers; however the workload that is required seems to be increasing. With more wrap-around approaches to care involving multiple agencies and systems, the social worker has more to keep up with.

State foster care agencies, court systems, private service providers and public assistance agencies may be involved in a single case.  It is important for social workers to be abreast of how these varying systems are working and what impact potential policy changes will have on the children and families that they are working with. Navigating through the complex child welfare system can be frustrating and intimidating for not only the child, but also for birth and foster parents. Social workers are not only advocates for the children within these systems, but also for the families and other parties involved. The impact that a social worker can have on a case is crucial and in many circumstances, increased the “success” of those cases.