Free Essay: Policies and Programs for Children and Families

Some of the values and beliefs that have influenced child welfare policy include factors such as children being abused, inadequate housing, lack of proper health care, parental incarceration, and also the discrimination of children against race (Pecora et al., 2018). Moreover, drug usage and a high rate of poverty add to the list hence challenging the capacity welfare system.

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In Queens, New York, family preservation is offered to help families that are in crisis by improving the parenting and functions of the family while ensuring that the children are kept safe. The offered services include intensive family preservation services formulated to maintain children within their homes and reduce unnecessary family separations. This suggests that children should be entitled to a stable family for their growth and mental health. Besides, separating children from the specific families that they grew up in is very traumatic. It can interfere with their health and impact their lives negatively hence affecting them in the future. There are state services that have been built to help many children and such services ensure that the children are safe, protected, and also treated within their own homes with their biological parents who are provided with the services that are essential and also the kind of support that empower them to change their lives hence proven to be effective.

According to Hairston (2017), the primary purpose of any child welfare system is to ensure that children abused and neglected by their families are protected and catered for. However, within Queens, New York, there have been numerous challenges faced by the child welfare systems that need to be resolved for improved outcomes. One of the main problems associated with securing the required level of resources for both families and children is quite challenging for the welfare systems. This is because of the existing mismatch between the offered services and what is required by families to resolve their issues. This can be resolved if agencies consider developing cooperative agreements with different agencies to ensure the providence of the required services to control issues associated with complicated networks of service delivery. In addition, the safety of children should be given the first consideration as the agencies are in a position to ensure children are properly catered for under their care.

The utilized approach entails building a community partnership to enhance child welfare. Child welfare works best when a public agency reaches out and seeks partners to do the work, especially community partners. I particularly like the program because of the fact that it utilizes different strategies, such as building community strategies. They are working with the community, which aids in solving problems affecting the children because they care for the children, and the welfare organization wants the children to be safe.

The talk emphasizes the need to change the culture within our jails and prisons, most particularly the youth inmates. In changing the juvenile justice system, young people should not be treated as adults by being violent; rather, they should be treated with a bit of care despite being criminals. I would offer programs that ensure proper care for everyone, most particularly young inmates. In Queens, New York, juvenile offenders are offered an Adolescent Diversion Program. The programs feel like the juvenile system is not doing rehabilitation because the young inmates are not subjected to proper treatment. I would recommend services such as interpersonal training skills and individual counseling to the correction manager.

References

Hairston, C. (2017). Children with parents in prison: Child welfare policy, program, and practice issues. Routledge.

Pecora, P. J., Whittaker, J. K., Barth, R. P., Borja, S., & Vesneski, W. (2018). The child welfare challenge: Policy, practice, and research. Routledge.