1. The Child Protection System:
The Role of Family Preservation, Support, & Kinship Care
Zoe Breen Wood
Case Western Reserve University

2. Amasaganalu

3. Introductions Name Agency / position
A positive trait that you learned or developed from your family

4. Goals for Today An Overview of a child protective system
Key principles and beliefs
Theoretical underpinnings
Focus on initial components of a child protection system
Identification of Children at Risk
Family Preservation
Kinship Care

5. Building A Learning Community
Start & end on time
Ask questions
Share expertise
Safe environment
Others?

6. Case Study: The Bahailu Family
What are the family’s strengths?
What are the family’s needs?
What more do you want to know about the family?

7. Foundations for our discussion
Systems theory
Ecological perspective
Strengths base
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Developmental perspective

8. Systems Theory Whole / parts
Movement in one impacts movement in others / all.
Boundaries
Multifinality
Equifinality

9. Ecological Perspective
Person-in-environment

10. Strengths Base All individuals, families and systems have strengths.
Most effective interventions identify and build upon those strengths.

11. Maslow’s Theory
“We each have a hierarchy of needs that ranges from "lower" to "higher." As lower needs are fulfilled there is a tendency for other, higher needs to emerge.”
Daniels, 2004

12. Maslow’s Theory
Maslow’s theory maintains that a person does not feel a higher need until the needs of the current level have been satisfied. Maslow's basic needs are as follows:

14. Basic Human Needs
Food
Air
Water
Clothing
Sex
Physiological Needs

15. Safety Needs Protection Stability Pain Avoidance Routine/Order
Safety and Security
Protection
Stability
Pain Avoidance
Routine/Order
Safety Needs

16. Love and Belonging Social Needs Attachment Affection Acceptance
Inclusion
Social Needs

17. Esteem
Esteem Needs
Self-Respect
Self-Esteem
Respected by Others

18. Developmental Perspective
Types of Development
Physical
Cognitive
Psychological
Social
Emotional
Stages of Development

19. The Child Protection System
Goals
Beliefs
Model

20. Goals
Safety
Permanency
Wellbeing

21. COMMUNITY
FAMILY
THE CHILD PROTECTION SYSTEM
Prevention
Identification
of Children at Risk
Institutional
Care
Child
Family
Preservation
Intercountry
Adoption
Reunification
Domestic Adoption
Kinship Care
Foster Care
Independent Living
GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
NGO’s

22. Guiding Principles
Every child has the right to be protected. (Convention on the Rights of the Child)
Children do better in families.
Children should be in the least restrictive most home-like environment , as close to the child’s own home as possible in which they can be safe.
The child welfare system must promote permanence for all children

23. Guiding Principles
Children have a right to remain connected to their family, their community, their culture & their heritage.
Solutions to the challenges facing children are best developed within the community with assistance from those outside.
The child welfare system must be culturally competent.
People can and do change.
Change happens in the context of relationships

24. DISCUSSION
Think about the Child Protection Model and Your Agency / Program
Where does your program fit?;
What level of Maslow’s needs do you meet?

25. Today’s Focus Identification of Vulnerable Children
Family Preservation & Support
Kinship Care
Tools for Assessment

26. COMMUNITY
FAMILY
THE CHILD PROTECTION SYSTEM
Prevention
Identification
of Children at Risk
Institutional
Care
Child
Family
Preservation
Intercountry
Adoption
Reunification
Domestic Adoption
Kinship Care
Foster Care
Independent Living
GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
NGO’s

27. Risks to Orphaned, Abandoned and Homeless Children
Health
Educational failure/lack of achievement
Mental Health & Substance Abuse
Incarceration/Criminal Involvement

28. Health
Miller and Hendrie (2000) evaluated 452 children (443 girls) adopted from Chinese institutions.
The duration of orphanage confinement was inversely proportional to the linear height lag (r = .9), with a loss of 1 month of height age for every 2.86 months in the orphanage. Seventy five percent of the children had a significant developmental delay in at least 1 domain: gross motor in 55%, fine motor in 49%, cognitive in 32%, language in 43%, social-emotional in 28%, activities of daily living in 30%, and global delays in 44%.
Overall, elevated lead levels were found in 14%, anemia in 35%, abnormal thyroid function tests in 10%, hepatitis B surface antigen in 6%, hepatitis B surface antibody in 22%, intestinal parasites (usually Giardia) in 9%, and positive skin test results for tuberculosis in 3.5%.
PEDIATRICS Vol. 105 No. 6 June 2000, p. e76

29. Educational Failure
Case, Paxson, & Ableidinger in 2004 compared educational outcomes for children in 10 Subsahara (African) countries and found children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS are less likely to be enrolled than are nonorphans with whom they live, even when controlling for poverty.
Demography, 2004; 41(3):

30. Mental Health
Papageorgiou, Frangou-Garunovic, Iordanidou, Yule, Smith, & Vostanis (2000) in a sample of 95 children of 8-13 years, who had experienced war in Bosnia, were assessed with a battery of standardised measures. They children either came from refugee families (44%), meaning they had experienced homelessness, or had suffered significant family loss (a parent had been killed in 28% and the father was injured or absent in 27% of cases). Forty five children (47%) scored within the clinical range of the depression, 28 (23%) on anxiety, and 65 (28%) on a scale measuring PTSD reactions.
Imagine the mental health consequences for children without a family.
European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 9(2):84-90.

31. Incarceration/Criminal Involvement
Huang, Barreda, Mendoza, Guzman and Gilbert in 2004 compared abandoned street children and formerly abandoned street children in La Paz, Bolivia
Some findings:
higher risk of police abuse (95% versus 38%)
Higher engagement in robbery (26% versus 4%)
Archives of Disease in Childhood 2004;89:

32. Social Service Response
Must be collaborative
Medical Community and social services
NGO and public/government services
Faith-based community and secular community

33. Social Service Response
There must a continuum of services, focusing on permanency, safety & well-being
The continuum must be community and family based
It must incorporate our knowledge of child development as well as family and community development

34. A Permanency Priority: Strengthen & Preserve Families
Unless there is compelling evidence otherwise, initial efforts must focus on strengthening and preserving families
Abandonment Prevention for infants
Abandonment Prevention for children on the streets (children with families, children connected to families and children on their own)

35. Strengthen & Preserve Families
Requires workers who can assess, intervene and advocate on behalf of vulnerable and at-risk families
A systemic and ecological framework
Focus on strengths as well as problems and deficits
Case management
Crisis intervention
Immediate and long-term response
Any solution or intervention has to take account the historical and cultural context of the family being served

36. Identification of Children at Risk
Requires community standards about the level of need which triggers a need for intervention.
Determined by communities taking into consideration culture and resources.
What level(s) of Maslow’s hierarchy must be met in order for children to be free of risk?

37. Discussion
What are the legal definitions? Are legal definitions needed?
What mechanisms/ systems are in place to identify children at risk?
Do some components of your system focus more on some categories to the exclusion of others?
How well do the identification systems work together?
Are there gaps ?

38. Family Preservation
Intervention and supportive services provided to allow the child to remain with his family.
These services can address: basic needs, development, mental health, abuse/neglect, trauma, violence, and natural disasters.

39. Family Preservation
target population includes families who are at imminent risk of having a child placed outside the home or have been the subject of an indicated maltreatment report
in-home service provision

40. Family Preservation Crisis oriented and/or long term Case Management
Empowerment & strength based

41. Examples of Family Preservation Programs
Emergency referrals
Food & economic support
Job training
Prenatal care
Home visits for mothers & young children
Health & developmental assessment
Parenting classes
After school & youth development programs

42. Discussion
What family preservation programs currently exist in your community?
What level of Maslow’s hierarchy do they address?
How well do these programs coordinate their services / collaborate?
What are the gaps?
What additional services need to be developed?

43. Examples of Family Preservation Programs
Counseling
Child care
Mentoring
Support groups
Family activities
Life skills
Personal safety, and community awareness

44. Kinship Care
Is family preservation and is a very good permanency option
Involves identifying appropriate family members or fictive kin
Assessing their willingness and ability to provide safety, permanency & well being to a child.
Providing ongoing support.

45. Phases of Family Intervention
Evaluation
Implementing
Planning
Assessment
Joining

46. Joining

47. Professional conversations and personal conversations: What are the differences?

48. Personal conversations
Often spontaneous
Unstructured or semistructured
Subject to interruptions
Can be terminated abruptly
Do not need to reach resolution
Can tolerate a range of informalities – humour, touching, provocation, challenge, ignoring etc.
Are influenced by diversity – age, language, class, culture, ethnicity, politics, religion
Often are not strictly time limited
Can often be overheard by others
Are much influenced by the nature and history of the the relationship – power differentials, empathy/conflict etc

49. Professional conversations
More formal/constrained in language and style
Generally not accompanied by physical contact often structured or semi-structured
Time limited
Goal directed
Power differentials play a major role
Agency influenced
Context dependent
Voluntary or involuntary

50. Interview VS Conversation
Interaction designed to achieve a selected purpose & content is chosen to facilitate achievement of that purpose
One person takes responsibility for directing interaction and relationship is nonreciprocal
Actions are planned, deliberate, consciously selected; Interview requires attention to the interaction, is formally arranged, & unpleasant feelings & facts are not avoided
Concern with interface between clients and their social environment

51. Working together toward goals

52. Creating a rapport and establishing a relationship
A harmonious working relationship (Barker, 1995)
Rapport means “close and sympathetic”
Social workers place great value on the quality of the helping relationship (Coulshed, 1991)
“The relationship is the communication bridge between people”(Kadushin,1990)
Feminists have seen building relationships as central to empowerment and growth (Stone, 1991)
Cited in Trevithick (2000)

53. Features of an effective helping relationship
Concern for service user’s self-determination
Displaying interest, warmth and trust
Respect for individuality
Acceptance
Empathic understanding
Genuineness and authenticity
Establishing ground rules regarding confidentiality
Adapted from Kadushin (1990)

54. Discussion
Identify things that interfere with a worker’s ability to join with his or her clients.
Identify strategies that help to join with the individuals & families with whom you work.

55. Assessment

56. Assessment
Is the process of gathering information that will support service planning and decision making regarding the safety, permanence and well-being of children and families.
Assessments are based on the assumption that for service to be relevant and effective, workers must systematically gather information and continuously evaluate the needs of children and families as well as the ability of family members to use their strengths to address their problems.

57. Assessment is…..
Gathering information and formulating a coherent picture (hypothesis) of the client, their environment and their circumstances
The beginning of the working relationship
The basis for the rest of our work with the client: goals, interventions and progress
Constant
ALWAYS includes: 1) problems or concerns as seen by the client, 2) legal mandates, & 3) safety concerns

58. Assessment is a process
Begins immediately when your client walks through the door
Changes from moment to moment
Is based on both your and your client’s views
Influenced by your interviewing skills
Involves the process of gathering information from client, reading documents, observing client, engaging collateral sources of information…
Is accomplished through EXPLORING

59. Assessment is a product (e.g., A Written Document)
Provides guidelines for organizing information
Includes assessment of the problem, person and environment
Problem assessment is not always as easy as it seems
New problems emerge as work continues
Underlying issues not showing on the surface (e.g., Truancy)
Written in a clear, concise & relevant manner
Is strengths-based
Ongoing tool for work together

60. In the Child Welfare System Assessment
Cornerstone of family-centered child welfare practice
Can be very simple, can be very complex
Must be based on thorough, accurate, relevant and current information

61. Assessment of Child Maltreatment
Psycho-Social Factors
Child Characteristics
Environmental Factors
Family Characteristics
Parental Conditions that Impair Parenting

62. What do you see?

63. List all the items
you observed
in the previous slide

64. Information Processing
What do we notice?
What happens right in front of us that we don’t notice?
What leads us to notice some things over others?
What barriers that prevent us from noticing what matters most?

65. Salience depends on: Strength Repetition Strangeness
Movement and change
Emotional reaction

66. Our assessments are ineffective if we:
So what’s the point?
Our assessments are ineffective if we:
Draw conclusions with insufficient or erroneous information
Do not have relevant information
Speed up the process
Don’t know the area being assessed
Draw conclusions from only part of the information and allow . . .

67. Personal Factors that Cloud Assessments:
Cultural aspects of the worker or family
Bias of previous information
Confirmation bias
Limited available information

68. Personal Factors that Cloud Assessments:
Emotional condition of the assessor
Personal involvement in the situation
Environmental conditions

69. Types of Assessment
Safety
Risk
Family

70. Safety Assessment Imminent threats to safety
“if I walk out of here right now without intervention, will the child be safe?”

71. Best Practice in Safety Assessment
Use open ended questions to build rapport.
Talk to them at their level, from their starting place (cognitively and emotionally)
Interview the child in a neutral place
Talk to everyone in the family as well as others who may have knowledge of the condition
Talk to the parents of caregivers
Ask consistent questions
Get an understanding of the family’s perception of the current situation

72. Risk Assessment Future focused Risk factors Protective factors
Leads to a hypothesis of the likelihood of future harm.

73. Comprehensive Family Assessment
The following are characteristics or problem areas most commonly associated with families in the child welfare system:
Problems in accepting responsibility, in the ability to recognize problems, or in motivation to change;
Patterns of social interaction, including aggressiveness or passivity,
the nature of contact and involvement with others, the presence or absence of social support networks and relationships;

74. Categories of Parental Assessment
Parenting practices (methods of discipline, patterns of supervision, understanding of child development and/or of emotional needs of children);
• Background and history of the parents or caregivers, including the history of abuse and neglect;
• Problems in access to basic necessities such as income, employment, adequate housing, child care, transportation, and needed services and supports; and

75. Categories of Parental Assessment
Behavior/conditions associated with
o Domestic violence
o Mental illness
o Physical health
o Physical, intellectual, and cognitive disabilities
o Alcohol and drug use.

76. Elements of Child and Youth Assessment
Physical health and motor skills
Intellectual ability and cognitive functioning
Academic achievement
Emotional and social functioning
Vulnerability/ability to communicate or protect themselves
Developmental needs
Readiness of youth to move toward independence

77. Elements of Child and Youth Assessment
Readiness to live interdependently
Ability to care for one’s own physical and mental health needs
Self-advocacy skills
Future plans for academic achievement
Life skills achievement
Employment /career development
Quality of personal and community connections

78. Elements of Family Assessment
Social network
Relationships among family members

79. Elements of Environmental Assessment
Adequacy and safety of housing
Access to services
Presence / absence of health hazards
Exposure to violence

80. Assessment Tools
Genogram
Ecomap

81. Definition GENOGRAM = GENETIC MAP
Also known as family tree but has additional features.
It visualizes hereditary patterns and psychological factors that punctuate relationships. It can be used to identify repetitive patterns of behavior and to recognize hereditary tendencies.
/ 13

82. Drawing the Genogram

83. The basic skeleton of a genogram

84. Basic Symbols

85. Symbols: Marital and other Relationships

86. Symbols of Multiple Marriages

87. Generational Relationships

88. A more complex skeleton

89. Identifying information
Names
Nicknames
Birth date
Marriage dates
Divorce dates
Separation dates
Sibling position (birth order—include siblings who died)
Family comparisons
Personal characteristics or characterizations
Occupations and job histories
Illnesses
Hobbies and other interests
Death date (if appropriate) and cause of death

91. Three-Generation Genogram
Name:
Date:
Grandparents Great Aunts and Uncles
Parents Aunts and Uncles
Patient Siblings and Spouse(s)
lump
Children

92. Develop A Genogram
Your own family OR
One of your client’s families

93. Discussion What can you learn from a genogram?
How can you use this tool in your work?

94. Ecomap: What is it? A paper-and-pencil assessment tool
The ecomap is a “snapshot” of the client within their family and social environment at a particular point in time.
Used to assess specific needs and plan interventions for a client.

95. An Eco-map is a graphical representation that shows all of the systems at play in an individual's life.
They can also be used to depict the flow of “energy” into and out of a system.
Eco-maps are used in individual and family counseling within the helping professions.

96. Interaction With the Environment
Systems theory and/or ecological perspective view of the client’s family life.
Reveals the nature of the family’s relationships with the outside environment.

97. Social Environment

98. Basic Ecomap Symbols
Female
Male

99. Connections to the Environment
Connect the environment outside of the family with the family members.
Where is energy being directed and what is the nature of that exchange?
What is the quality of that exchange?

100. Interaction With Social Environment
Identified Client

101. Commonly Used Symbols Stressful, conflictual +++++++ relationship
Tenuous and/or
uncertain relationship
Positive relationship _________
or resource
The direction of the
giving & receiving
exchange or a relationship
(also known as energy)

103. Draw an Ecomap
Your own family
A client family

104. Discussion What can you learn from an ecomap?
How can you use this tool in your work?

105. Strengthen communities to promote permanency and child well-being
Families can only be a strong as the communities in which they live
We need to understand community values, needs and problems
We need to raise community consciousness about the problems being experience by their families
We need community workers who can promote social and economic development for vulnerable and at-risk communities
Micro-enterprise & job development
Neighborhood and housing development
Any solution or intervention has to take account the historical and cultural context of the community being served

106. Move away for linear planning models
Move towards concurrent planning for children rather than linear models of planning for children

107. The Social Service Response
Needs to be both reactive and pro-active
It is about programs but also about social policy
It is about services but it is also about advocacy

108. Application to Practice