1. Reimagining Child Welfare: Paradigms that Support a System of Child and Family Well-Being.
- Author
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Ports, Katie A., Rostad, Whitney, Scardaville, Melissa, Troy, Adam, Harmon, Willie C. J., and Claps, Matthew
- Subjects
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PREVENTION of child abuse , *CHILD welfare , *CHILDREN'S rights , *DECISION making , *PUBLIC health administration , *SOCIAL case work , *CHILD development , *FAMILY support , *HEALTH promotion , *SOCIAL support , *WELL-being - Abstract
Childhood provides the foundation for development across the lifespan. Everyone has some connection to the issue of child well-being, and although most agree that child abuse and neglect is unacceptable, the systems and people meant to protect children and families encounter persistent challenges when making decisions about child safety and well-being. The tendency to conflate response and prevention strategies as opposed to seeing them as unique paradigms that have different goals and require different skills and resources has stunted the effectiveness of systems intending to support well-being. In this paper, we outline key differences between response and prevention paradigms. While both are integral and necessary to comprehensively address child abuse and neglect, only prevention reduces the burden on the already taxed child welfare system. Preventing families from experiencing abuse and neglect ensures that the child welfare system can prioritize its limited resources to those who are already systems involved. Important steps toward ending child abuse and neglect are understanding the purpose and goals of the tasks at hand and selecting the most effective approach to achieve them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024