Reference no: EM132211044

Discussion : Child Welfare and Family Preservation

An essential aspect of social work practice is the support and preservation of the family unit. Building and empowering strong, resilient families is a focus of social work practice within organizations and communities.

Social work research is an integral aspect of working with families. The research component of social work is essential to providing effective policies, programs, and services to support and empower families.

As a social worker, you need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills required for effectively working with families for child welfare. You also need to interpret and evaluate research findings involving family and child welfare.

For this Discussion, review this week's resources. Consider the role of family preservation in child welfare, the research regarding family preservation, and the assumptions about foster care. Think about whether you agree with the research, and whether there are any gaps in your state foster care system that might contribute to the assumptions. Reflect on the benefits and shortfalls of permanency planning and family preservation and which approach you prefer.

Post an explanation of the role of family preservation in child welfare. Then, explain whether research supports the assumption that foster care is harmful for children, as presented by the cornerstone argument for family preservation. Be sure to include whether you agree with this assumption and why you agree or disagree.

Subsequently, identify the gaps in your state foster care system that contribute to the idea that foster care is harmful to children. Then, compare the benefits and shortfalls of permanency planning and family preservation. Finally, provide a description of whether you prefer the permanency or the family preservation approach as a child welfare social worker and why you prefer it.

Support your post with specific references to the resources. Be sure to provide full APA citations for your references.

Read a selection of your colleagues' posts.

Respond to at least two colleagues by offering an insight for the comparison of benefits and shortfalls of permanency planning and family preservation your colleagues described based on your state's child welfare policies.

Tanya's response

In this week's discussion, we are communicating how a family who has sensitivities within their culture have an impact on the social policy of child welfare. We are to describe the duties of encouraging the Hernandez family by handling the young person's need in the family by extending social welfare policies. Families with a diverse background have an impact on the child welfare policy because they have a difference within their cultural existence.

Culturally, the child welfare policy does not adhere to their difference of parental upbringings, family rules, and just beliefs per the Department of Health & Human Services the absence of cultural competence from a child welfare professional stricken the means of effectively assisting the people who the child welfare policy is set in place to protect (childwelfare.gov).

The influence of a family who has difference culturally provides education, awareness, and knowledge to the social worker. Cultural matters will affect the child welfare policy because the social worker will need to address their case with the expertise and mindfulness of the parent's philosophy.

For instance, a child welfare worker cannot treat a family who believes that the professional is there to negatively impact their family due to the viewpoint of their traditional upbringing. The child welfare (social worker) will have to become educated with that particular families culture by asking questions, doing research within the child welfare policy to address the difference. By practicing with the knowledge of the cultural difference, the child welfare policy will need to be revised to adhere to that part of the community. The child welfare policy will then need to recognize how to handle the cases with the cultural difference (childwelfare.gov).

As a social work practitioner assisting the Hernandez family responsibilities will be to attend to the identified challenges of financial means by referring the family to an expert who handles careful planning (budget) and relates to family counseling (separate at first and then together). In addressing the Hernandez family with the referral, the strength perspective approach will part of the intervention.

Affirming that there is a positive force within their family from the parent(s) wanting to provide for the children adequately is a major strong suit. In that strong suit of the parents wanting to succeed in supporting the family entails that there is love for one another, and the strength perspective will bring that in range while in therapy (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016).