The Child Protection Services in the USA, Essay Example

The Child Protection Services (CPS) in the USA is a powerful organization aimed at securing the fundamental rights and freedoms of children, as well as to monitor the ability of parents to provide their children with the basic conditions for existence, normal physical and emotional development, provision of education, care giving, etc. Hence, one should note that CPS is highly effective in terms of monitoring the suspected or reported cases of child neglect and/or maltreatment and reacting in a timely manner in case the recurrent maltreatment cases occur. CPS plays a positive role in the coordination of child maltreatment responses, and it is actively involved in designing suitable, individually tailored interventions in case children are victimized (Goldman & Salus, 2003). Another obvious strength and benefit of CPS functioning is that it not only tackles the cases of child maltreatment that have already taken place, but also conducts active educational work in the community on clarifying what child maltreatment is, how it can be avoided and managed, etc. to make the community more responsive to the cases of suspected child neglect or maltreatment in their neighborhood.

However, there are certain flaws in the work of CPS that may be negatively reflected in the quality of care for children who suffered from maltreatment. First, there is the growing evidence that CPS data are usually insufficient for the child maltreatment allegations to be brought to the attention of legal authorities – it is necessary to check whether police also investigated the case, and in case it did, the CPS allegations are judged credible (Cross, Filkenhor, & Ormrod, 2005). Second, the CPS approach to child maltreatment is focused on the family, and dictates the need to intensify the internal family sources for the sake of improving the child treatment. Therefore, taking the child away from the family occurs only in cases when severe abuse or maltreatment is suspected, or when the offender appears guilty of some other grave criminal offenses.

Law Enforcement Response

The law enforcement response to child maltreatment cases in the USA is highly formal, and it often lacks sensitivity to the realm of forms in which children may be maltreated, bused, and neglected. As Cross et al. (2005) indicated, child neglect cases are generally considered through a multi-disciplinary team’s approach but without involvement of law enforcement forces, which is strange, taking into account the grave consequences to which long-term and grave child neglect can lead. Moreover, Goldman and Salus (2003) admitted that the law enforcement officers usually react to the reports about some graver crimes than child abuse is, and the major part of child maltreatment cases are revealed in line with other crimes such as battering, sexual abuse, severe maltreatment, alcohol and drug abuse, etc. The present evidence suggests that the law enforcement officials have less flexibility and sensitivity for the consideration of child maltreatment cases, and the evidence they can collect on the case is usually rather scarce to initiate a criminal investigation.

Taking these claims into account, one may admit that the way in which the law enforcement system is designed is now unable to respond to the diverse threats to children’s emotional, physical, and psychological well-being. Therefore, there is a need to design more sensitive approaches to reacting to child maltreatment allegations; children should be provided with adequate protection from abusive parents or peers, while the causes of maltreatment and the consequences the abusers are likely to suffer are to be decided by other law enforcement officials. Protection and caution towards the risky cases (the families in which child maltreatment was already repeatedly reported) have to be monitored not only upon the next call’s coming, but also on the continuous basis to ensure the high quality and safety of the child’s existence.

References

Cross, T. P., Finkelhor, D., & Ormrod, R. (2005). Police Involvement in Child Protective Services Investigations: Literature Review and Secondary Data Analysis. Child Maltreatment, 10(3), 224-244.

Goldman, J., & Salus, M. (2003). A Coordinated Response to Child Abuse and Neglect: The Foundation for Practice. U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Children’s Bureau Office on Child Abuse and Neglect.