OVERVIEW OF CHILD WELFARE IN PENNSYLVANIA
● The community, the network of stakeholders, and children, youth, and families : Engage with the agency in fulfilling its mission by ensuring effective and consistent practice; articulating the need for funding; and clarifying the purpose and scope of the child welfare system; and communicating the values, principles and skills the child welfare system should possess as well as the outcomes the child welfare system hopes to achieve. Improved outcomes are necessary, as noted in the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare Annual Child Abuse Report 2021. In 2021, the number of child abuse reports in Pennsylvania was 38,013, of which 5,438 reports were substantiated (suspected reports of abuse that are verified; Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Annual Child Abuse Report, 2021). Substantiated reports of child abuse increased from 1.7 per 1,000 children in 2020 to 1.9 per 1,000 children in 2021 (Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Annual Child Abuse Report, 2021). So for every 1,000 children in the state of Pennsylvania, close to 2 are abused or neglected. Furthermore, Pennsylvania's substantiation rate increased in rural counties from 2.5 to 2.7, and urban counties remained the same at 1.5 (Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Annual Child Abuse Report, 2021). More specifically, in Pennsylvania, there were a total of 5,438 child abuse victims: 2,171 from sexual abuse; 1,418 from physical abuse; 720 from reasonable likelihood of bodily injury; 692 from serious physical neglect; 229 from engaging in per se acts; 84 from likely sexual abuse/ exploitation; 60 from severe forms of trafficking; 59 from severe mental injury and 5 from medical abuse (Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare Annual Child Abuse Report, 2021). In Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, sexual abuse was the leading category followed by physical abuse (Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Annual Child Abuse Report, 2021). Self-Assessment Quiz Question #1 According to the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Annual Child Abuse Report, 2021, which is the most common form of child abuse and neglect in Pennsylvania?
To help families achieve positive outcomes, child welfare systems throughout the country, including in Pennsylvania, have strengthened their approaches to practice. Practice models guide the work of those involved with the child welfare system, enabling them to work together to improve outcomes for children, youth, and families. A significant achievement throughout the past eight years has been the development and implementation of the Pennsylvania's Child Welfare Practice Model (University of Pittsburgh, n.d.). This model outlines that children, youth, families, child welfare representatives and other child and family service partners need to work together as team members with the shared community responsibility to achieve positive outcomes. These outcomes can be achieved by consistently modeling the values and principles at every level and across all partnerships and by demonstrating the specific and essential skills to be utilized across all aspects of the child welfare system (University of Pittsburgh, n.d.). This practice model consists of the following core elements: Outcomes, the areas that need to change to achieve improved outcomes; values and principles, the value base that provides guidance about how those in the field of child welfare are to work together; and skills, operationalized standards that provide direction while allowing flexibility in how to best meet the unique needs of each child, youth, and family. The National Child Welfare Resource Center for Organizational Improvement’s 2012 guidelines indicate that a clearly articulated practice model helps: ● Child welfare executives, administrators, and managers : Identify the outcomes they hope to achieve; develop a vision and consistent rationale for organizational and policy decisions; decide how to use agency resources; define staff performance expectations; develop an array of services; create a qualitative review case review system; collaborate with families and youth; and work across systems. ● Supervisors : Fulfill their role as keepers of the agency’s culture with responsibility for training, guiding, and supporting frontline staff; monitoring and assessing staff performance and child/family outcomes; modeling the agency’s values and approach to working with families; and observing and advocating for needed change. ● Child welfare workers : Have a consistent basis for decision making; clear expectations and values for their approach to working with families, children, and youth; a focus on desired outcomes; guidance in working with service providers and other child welfare serving systems; and a way to evaluate their own performance.
a. Sexual abuse. b. Physical abuse. c. Neglect. d. Emotional abuse.
HISTORY OF CHILD PROTECTION LEGISLATION
To enable identification of serious cases and facilitate protective and health responses, many jurisdictions have enacted mandatory reporting laws. Situated in child protection legislation, these legal duties are a form of public health response, requiring adults who deal with children in their professional capacity to essentially serve as sentinels to protect children by reporting known and suspected cases to child protection agencies. These professionals are well placed to detect signs of harm from maltreatment and to receive disclosures from children. State laws in the U.S. generally apply the duty to report physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and neglect to a wide range of professional groups (Baker et al., 2021). The laws’ details differ across jurisdictions but follow a similar schematic approach, designating which occupations are mandated and stating which types and the extent of maltreatment that shall
be reported, and to whom (Mathews & Kenny, 2008). The laws confer protections on these reporters, keeping their identity confidential and providing immunity from liability in any civil, criminal, or administrative proceeding related to the report (as long as the report is made in good faith). Jurisdictions often have other systemic approaches to deal with less severe cases, especially where these involve cases of family or children who need services. The function of mandated reporting laws is to use the skills of community-based professionals to identify cases of child maltreatment and bring them to the attention of help agencies. In this sense, they are an important form of secondary prevention in the public health model, rather than being a form of primary prevention (Mathews, 2019). Mandated reporters play a substantial role in this
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