Summary: Multi-Disciplinary Team Meeting

The organization under investigation is Child Protective Services, also referred to as CPS, which is an agency within the Department of Family and Protective Services. CPS is a governmental organization that has existed for years. The agency is designed to protect children from abuse and neglect. There are numerous cases that are called in on a daily basis in the state of Texas, and it is the duty of state employees to address all allegations in a timely manner. The positions held as a caseworker within the agency are either Investigator, Special Investigator, Family Based Safety Services Specialist, or Conservatorship Specialist. Due to the required work and deadlines involved with being a caseworker at CPS, the job can become very

This office conducted an investigation of your allegations by reviewing the associated child welfare case file which includes histories of visits, legal documents and correspondence. Robert Byczkowski, Child Welfare Program Manager was also contacted for information and clarification. Additionally, the Citizens Review Board (CRB) which met on April 8, 2015 as well as safety plan documents and Letter of Expectation documents were reviewed.

The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services was created in July 1996 by joining children’s services programs from six different departments. This merge occurred during a time when the Tennessee child welfare system was undergoing a massive crisis. The amount of children with significantly higher levels of needs were rising, warning the state to find ways to provide services for children in a more effective manner (www.tn.gov). The mission of DCS is to ensure forever families for children and youth by delivering high-quality, evidence-based services in partnership with the community (www.tn.gov). The vision statement of DCS is Tennessee’s children are safe, healthy, and back on track for success (www.tn.gov). The department’s ultimate responsibility is always to protect children from abuse and neglect. In order to uphold this responsibility, DCS case managers investigate allegations of abuse and neglect, and works with families to resolve issues that

Child Protective Services (CPS) is a complex system of assessments, investigations, and conclusions. CPS is the central agency in each communities child abuse and neglect service system. It is responsible for ensuring that preventative, investigative, and treatment services are available to children and families endangered by child abuse and neglect. As a result, CPS workers must perform a variety of functions when responding to situations of child maltreatment and play a variety of roles throughout their involvement with child protective clients. Reporting a suspective case of child maltreatment to the local CPS agency (or a family member’s own request for help with the problem) initiates

I hope to use my law degree to change the lives of mistreated children from all over the world. As a victim of child abuse, serving this community has become a part of my identity. My aspiration to represent mistreated children, albeit vitalized by personal turmoil, has been intensified through professional experience. Through my work with Child Protective Services (CPS), during an internship with a family law attorney, I developed my passion for advocating on behalf of children. While working on CPS cases, I have seen how the lives of children can improve through diligent efforts by authority figures. However, I have also witnessed the shortcoming of the system as well where there is room for improvement. These vulnerable children deserve

My field placement will be at Child protective services in El Paso TX. The department of child Protective Services withholds a wide range of services and responsibilities that include, investigating reports of abuse and neglect of children, provide services to children and families in their homes, providing services to help youth in foster care successfully transition to adulthood and helping children find adoption. There are many subdivisions within the department itself which offers different amenities during an open case with CPS, although these services solely justify the department, there is a unit known as Family Based Services or also FBSS which focuses on resources that will strengthen the family’s privation in order to ensure child safety and wellbeing. The Department predominantly benefits from task groups rather than treatment groups, because the department is on deadlines with each individual case, a treatment group would not benefit for the departments ultimate value which is Family Reunification. If the department is involved with a family for too long this may cause emotional distress on the children as well as the family. Every year in the United States, more than one out of every hundred children are victims of substantiated child abuse and neglect. For instance, in 2006, 3.6 million cases of child maltreatment were investigated, which is a rate of 47.8 per 1,000 children. In that year, nearly 1 million maltreatment claims were substantiated

EREPORT # 19130 stated the following: The child is at Diamond Grove Center. Mya reported that 7 years ago her cousin Charron raped her when she was 8 years old. They stayed overnight with their relatives and Charron took off her clothes while they all slept in the same bed. Onautyca, Deja, her, and Charron slept in the big bed together. Mya reports thst she told her mother, but her mother didnt do anything about it. Mya reports that she sees Charron often at church or the weekends, and her mother continues to take her and her sisters around him. It was reported to the nurse and the nurse completed an allegation of abuse form and submitted it to me 0n 2/15/2016. Mya states that there is constant conflict with her mother, and she gets put out

My field placement will be at Child protective services in El Paso TX. My Target population for my field placement will be Children who have been maltreated, neglected and abused. Child abuse prevention has grown exponentially in El Paso over the past 31 years. In El Paso alone the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigated 4,979 reports of alleged child abuse in 2014 in El Paso County. They confirmed that 1,339 children were indeed victims of abuse; 379 confirmed cases of Physical abuse, 166 confirmed cases of sexual abuse, 56 cases of emotional abuse and 70 cases of medical neglect (Lee & Beulah Moor,2016) A troubling trend has emerged regarding the prevention of child maltreatment in the state of Texas. A tragic loophole contributing to continued abuse and in many cases child fatalities, continues to be exploited to the detriment of one of our most vulnerable populations. From 2009 to 2014, there were 800 child fatalities reported as abuse and neglect deaths by Child Protective Services in all of Texas (Ball, 2015). An analysis of these cases by an independent research group found gross errors by CPS and other agencies during ongoing abuse cases enabled the abuse or neglect to continue, inevitably leading to death. Although the percentage of child fatalities is just a tiny fraction of the exorbitant

This memorandum recommends that the Michigan Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW-MI) use its resources to support House Bill 4298. This bill, which was passed for re-review by the Committee on Judiciary, addresses the Michigan Child Protection Law regarding the process of electronic recordings of child interviews involved in child abuse and neglect. It would require that the electronic recordings be stored in a central location, via the Department of Health and Human Services. I recommend that Michigan Senators and the NASW-MI Chapter support HB 4298 now, because it proposes a solution to the ongoing social problem of added trauma caused by children being subjected to multiple or ineffective forensic

The Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS)- Division of Family and Children’s Service (DFCS) is an agency that serves and protect children and families from neglect, abuse, exploitation, and many more services. Through this department, it provides security and reassurance of stability with a sense of belonging to children and families. In addition, this agency provides many workshops to improve the quality of life for children by focusing on the family’s ability to safely parent their children. In order to fulfill state regulations and requirements when dealing with families and children, drug test and visitations are done to make sure that problems within families are improving. This results in records that are

IRTC spoke with Detective Kenefick who reported that this case was transferred to him because of his recent involvement with this matter. Detective Kenefick conveyed that he initially received this case in February of 2017 with concerns pertaining to two separate children that the alleged subject reportedly sexually abused. Detective Kenefick voiced a few weeks ago, similar concerns were received with concerns pertaining to sexual abuse regarding the subject child against the alleged subject. Detective Kenefick indicated that the subject child and several other children were interviewed at the Manhattan CAC and there were wasn’t enough evidence for a criminal arrest. Detective Kenefick indicated that it appears as if the children are receiving

As in most child sexual abuse cases there are investigation that require a trial. The center provides a video-taped recording of the victim’s statement for the court in order to eliminate the re-victimization of the children by the utilization of repetitive interviews. Training is provided for the both professional and volunteers to help through the process as well as volunteers offering services of supervision of the children while resources are being sought. The agency on their website provides information

My organization uses evidence based practice to improve patient care by setting up "practice council meetings". These meetings have several groups of individuals in the hospitals departments. Comprised of Med-surg Nurses and Clinical assistants, Progressive care RN's and CA's, and pharmacy staff. We meet the last Wednesday of each month to talk about good things that has happened on the Units, practice goals, and problems in practice. Having many disciplines in the meeting allows for different points of views and many solutions. Using PICO we determine what the problem is and talk about what the interventions should be. We explore alternatives and find our outcome. (Masters, 2014).

Henrico County Court Appointed Special Advocates, Inc. (Henrico CASA) harnesses the power of more than 100 volunteers who are supervised by only three paid staff. The volunteers contribute a value of nearly $300,000 back to our community through contributing a yearly average of 15,000 hours of their time. The volunteer advocates provide thorough investigations of each child’s situation and follow-up reports to the Court for as many as 400 abused and neglected children each year. The program’s focused and intense training program empowers these everyday citizens to play a powerful role in abused and neglected children’s lives. Each child’s voice is brought to the Court as the advocates investigate the child’s circumstance and then makes

Now taking a look at possible reasons why child protective services could not be involved. The main concern is that CPS workers already have a great deal of work to handle and if they where to take on extra cases the question would then be whether or not they could deal with that many more cases efficiently. I would state that it is highly unlikely that child protection service workers could handle additional cases, and still be asked to perform to high standards. “It is unlikely that CPS could handle the additional cases that would result from defining all child exposure to domestic violence as child abuse” (Findlater and Kelly 1999, 88). Without looking at adding additional domestic abuse cases, child protection workers are already overwhelmed by the amount of work that they need to complete. With high case loads the workers are left with underperforming on their jobs, leaving child protection workers with more stress. “Interviews with child protection workers support the assertion that high caseloads levels result in low service quality”