A model of culture-centered child welfare practice

This article presents a framework for culture-centered child welfare practice, including child-family-system interactions, service provision, recruitment and retention of homes, and culturally responsive legislation. There should be no one-size-fits-all approach to child welfare practice. In a diverse society, child welfare practice must be responsive to the particularities of various cultures. A culture-centered framework allows for a holistic system of child permanence, with consideration of a child's mental, physical, and emotional growth. This framework cherishes the distinctiveness of America's cultures.     

Culturally Competent Practice with African American Juvenile Sex Offenders

African American juveniles adjudicated for sexual offenses may struggle with the mistrust of both the judicial and treatment systems. Unlike general mental health services, juvenile sex offender treatment is often mandated by the court or child welfare services, thus these youths and their families must engage in the treatment process. Without clinicians and services that can acknowledge and respond to a minority youth’s experience in a sensitive, culturally competent manner, there could be significant resistance to treatment. Traditional treatment approaches fail to prioritize issues involving cultural competence. This article addresses the unique challenges of African American juvenile sex offenders and makes recommendations for creating culturally competent practice for these youth and their families.     

African American Families and the Role of Physical Discipline: Witnessing the Past in the Present

The use of physical discipline within African American families is examined from a historical perspective within the context of institutionalized racism and racial disproportionality in the child welfare system. African American parenting strengths are explored, demonstrating that the use of physical discipline can be purposeful, controlled, and appropriate, utilized to protect African American children and instruct them how to behave and survive within a racist society. Available literature on corporal punishment is reviewed, and implications for culturally informed child welfare practice are provided.     

Challenging implicit bias: preparing students to practice with African American families

ABSTRACT

The disparity of African American families in the foster care system is a concern in the field of child welfare services and the social work profession. African American families experience unique challenges related to discriminatory practices and implicit biases in the child welfare system and by mandated reporters. To address these inequalities, state and local agencies have implemented prevention and intervention services to support minority families. Additionally, child welfare agencies have invested in professional development training for their workers to alleviate possible intolerant practices. This article describes implicit biases and considers how they could contribute to the disparity of African American families involved in the child welfare system. Furthermore, the article presents approaches to help social work students to identify and challenge their implicit biases to support culturally sensitive practices while working with African American families. It concludes with implications for social work education.     

An educational model for child welfare practice with English-speaking Caribbean families

Implemented in New York City, the Child Welfare Fellowship Project is an international collaboration between social work educators in the United States and Jamaica, the West Indies, the public child welfare agency, and selected community-based agencies. This model educational program prepared selected Masters of Social Work (MSW) Fellowship students for exemplary child welfare practice with English-speaking Caribbean families by providing enhanced programs designed to support culturally competent skill development and a preventive approach to child welfare practice. These educational enhancements, combined with academic course work, increased professionalism, self-efficacy, and culturally competent skill development among participants and averted foster care placement for families seen over the duration of the project.     

Comparative analysis of two community-based efforts designed to impact disproportionality

Children of color are overrepresented in child welfare in Iowa at a rate double their percentage of the population. In 2005 the Iowa Department of Human Services implemented two pilot demonstration projects to address overrepresentation of Native American and African American children in the child welfare system. The projects, called the Minority Youth and Families Initiative (MYFI), included ongoing evaluation. Results obtained over two years indicate improved worker and participant alliance, family functioning, and outcomes for children. Findings are discussed and recommendations are provided for further improvements in practice, research, and evaluation to reduce racial disparities the child welfare system.     

Beyond the rhetoric: strategies for implementing culturally effective practice with children,families, and communities

Culturally effective practice remains elusive within child welfare agencies. Recognizing the hierarchical nature of becoming culturally competent, this article presents specific strategies that enhance cultural effectiveness at the individual, interprofessional, middle management, and upper management levels. The approaches evolve from a five-stage model of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Becoming culturally competent requires a clear assessment of where the individual practitioner and agency are on the change continuum. The article also explores barriers to culturally competent practice, with a focus on multilevel strategies that work within child welfare agencies.     

Culturally Responsive Teaching in an Oglala Lakota Classroom

In response to the widening academic achievement gap between Native American students and other students in the United States, a culturally responsive approach was used in a Native American social studies class with positive results. Eighth-grade Oglala Lakota students in an American History classroom experienced a unit infused with lessons that highlighted Native American culture, history, and values. Students' knowledge, skills, and culture were used as frames of reference for the teacher, enabling students to personally engage with the content and making learning more meaningful. By incorporating culturally responsive teaching practices into the social studies curriculum, teachers not only give students the opportunity to come face to face with multiple perspectives but students are able to come face to face with their own ancestors, bringing history home, and bringing it to life.     

Factors predicting placement of urban American Indian/Alaskan Natives into out-of-home care

American Indian/Alaskan Native children have disproportionately been placed into out-of-home care compared to White children in the child welfare system. What were the factors that child protective services (CPS) workers considered when deciding to remove a child from the home? Utilizing data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, this study examined out-of-home care factors for 2215 urban American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) and White children. In the urban sample, children from White families were younger and were more likely to be investigated for lack of supervision, while AI/AN families were investigated for physical neglect. In the placement regression models, urban AI/AN children came from homes where caregivers had greater alcohol, drug and mental health problems. Decisions by CPS workers to place AI/AN children may have been influenced by racial bias. A CPS system that acknowledges culture and race may reduce overrepresentation in placement. Efforts to work with AI/AN families prior to a child's removal may prove to be beneficial and less expensive.     

Conducting culturally competent evaluations of child welfare programs and practices

As the population of the United States has changed over the last two decades, so has the population of children who come to the attention of the child welfare system, resulting in increasing calls for cultural competence in all aspects of child welfare programming and practice. Given the changing demographics among children involved in the child weltare system and the increasing need to address the racial and ethnic disparities observed in this system, the need for culturally competent approaches to evaluate the outcomes of services for children and families is essential. This article discusses the challenges in conducting culturally competent evaluations and provides strategies to address those challenges within a child welfare context.     

Culturally and ethnically diverse communities: building blocks for working relationships

Acceptance of diversity in American society, as well as the will of diverse populations to perpetuate their cultures, have created a need to understand building working relationships with and among diverse populations. This article discusses facilitating opportunities for a grounded knowledge base, building culturally competent relationships, facilitating discussion of stereotyping, and forming collaborative alliances with culturally and ethnically diverse communities as foundational strategic building blocks. Child welfare workers need to lay a foundation of excellence in these areas before moving to higher levels in pursuit of working relationships with culturally and ethnically diverse communities. The article presents child welfare workers and agencies as initiators who build relationships with these communities.     

Providing psychiatric-mental health care for Native Americans: lessons learned by a non-Native American PMHNP

Providing culturally sensitive psychiatric-mental health nursing care to Native Americans requires a unique set of understandings. Traditional tribal customs and beliefs, historical events of the past 500 years, and acculturation and enculturation have affected Native Americans' health and well-being. In 2004, I had the opportunity to practice as a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner with a Native American tribe in the southwestern United States. This article describes the lessons I learned while practicing on the reservation and suggests ways other non-Native American practitioners can best serve this population.     

A Three-Pronged Approach to Addressing Racial Disproportionality and Disparities in Child Welfare: The Santa Clara County Example of Leadership, Collaboration and Data-Driven Decisions

Disproportionality and disparities in the treatment of children of color has been a growing concern in the child welfare system. System stakeholders have begun to recognize the problem through data, which help identify discrepancies within their jurisdictions. Nationally, the primary concern is the overrepresentation of African American children within the child welfare system, where African Americans represent proportions of the foster population at a level more than twice as high as they are represented in the community at large. In some jurisdictions, however, this is only one piece of the disproportionality concern. San Jose, for example, has both an overrepresentation of African American and an overrepresentation of Hispanic children in the child welfare system. Because San Jose’s child welfare population is unique, they have had to take a unique approach to addressing these concerns. This article outlines strategies and tools used to begin reducing disproportionality within the child welfare and juvenile dependency court system, using San Jose’s experience as an example. Some of the key approaches to addressing disproportionality include ensuring a systems approach (creating a Cross Agency Systems Team that prioritizes services for parents and children in various systems, e.g., mental health, substance abuse, etc.); addressing disproportionality from multiple perspectives and examining the roles’ of caseworkers, supervisors, service providers, judges, and attorneys; gaining community and system stakeholder buy-in by maintaining momentum and providing opportunities for dialogue about the complex issues facing families of color; using a data-driven approach to inform ongoing initiatives and changes in policy and practice (e.g., closely examining policies and practices such as the frequency of recommendations to by-pass reunification services); and implementing changes in practice at multiple levels including child welfare and on the bench. The examination of San Jose’s approach reveals challenges, successes, and lessons learned.     

Promising Innovations in Child Welfare Education: Findings From a National Initiative

For many years, schools of social work have engaged in partnerships, especially with public child welfare agencies, to prepare a competent and professional child welfare workforce through the mechanism of Title IV-E training. In 2008 the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI) established an additional resource for preparing students in social work schools for child welfare practice. Twelve NCWWI traineeship programs supported a diverse group of BSW and MSW students from 2008 to 2013 and prepared them for client-centered practice informed by child welfare and leadership competencies. This article highlights a curriculum innovation in an MSW program and a field innovation in a BSW program that were designed to increase the readiness of BSW and MSW students for child welfare practice.     

AsianWORKs

ABSTRACT

Achieving economic self-sufficiency through employment is the ultimate goal of recent changes to the welfare program. The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) population is most vulnerable to failing in this goal because of language difficulty, low education levels and lack of job skills in the labor market. Many AAPI immigrants, and Southeast Asian Americans in particular, suffer from adjustment and mental health problems due to their experiences as refugees. These are but a few of the obstacles for AAPI welfare recipients to become self-sufficient, making them one of the most “hard-to-serve” populations. The goal of self-sufficiency through employment can be reached if culturally appropriate and adequate support services are provided to meet the unique needs of the population. Few programs, however, are targeted at AAPIs. Using key-informant interviews and the case material review method, this article highlights the difficulties of AAPI welfare recipients and describes a unique program serving the Southeast Asian American, particularly the Cambodian, population. The article focuses on the program components of outreach and engagement, day socialization and job readiness, and family support services, and it discusses improvement to service access and lessons learned for the practice of cultural competence.     

Engaging substance-affected families in child welfare: parent perspectives of a parenting intervention at program initiation and completion

Families affected by substance abuse are at an increased risk of child welfare involvement and poor child welfare outcomes. One strategy to improve outcomes among these families is evidence-based parenting interventions. While these interventions show the potential for advancing the child welfare field, they have not been widely and rigorously evaluated with birth parents, especially those affected by substance abuse, who face marked vulnerability and marginalization. We sought to draw on parents’ expertise and to understand their first and changing impressions throughout involvement in a parenting intervention, as well as overall impressions at program completion. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 10 parents who were involved in child welfare and a family drug treatment court. All parents were affected by parental substance use and had recently completed the Strengthening Families Program. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed for prominent themes. The study’s findings showed that parents described four key themes that influenced their perspectives of the parenting intervention: program reputation as communicated by peers, relevance and applicability of the program, children’s involvement and enjoyment of the program, and program structure issues that pointed to the need for high-quality group facilitation. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Children ever in care: an examination of cumulative disproportionality

Most studies of ethnic disproportionality in child welfare examine data in one of two ways: a point in time approach or an entry cohort approach. While each provides insight into disproportionality, neither gives a full picture of the differences among ethnic groups in the experience of the child welfare system over time. This study uses longitudinal administrative child welfare data to examine ethnic disproportionality in involvement with the child welfare system during the first seven years of life at three levels of contact: (1) initial referrals, (2) substantiated referrals, and (3) first entries. Findings suggest the experience of African American families, and probably Native American families, with the child welfare system is much different from other families.     

Integrating cultural competency and empirically-based practices in child welfare services: A model based on community psychiatry field principles of health

Acknowledging the existence of racism in our society is crucial to understanding the need for a culturally competent approach to developing empirically-based practices in child welfare, thereby providing a foundation for evidence-based practice in the field. Advancements have already been made in mental health to address cultural competence and evidence-based practice. This article presents a model of seven field principles of health promotion successfully used in the mental health services. Examples of the use of the model in various settings and evaluation projects are provided. Each of the seven principles – rebuilding/supporting the village; providing access to health care; improving bonding, attachment and connectedness; improving self-esteem; increasing social skills of target recipients; reestablishing/strengthening the adult protective shield; and minimizing residual effects of trauma (Bell et al., 2002) – is elaborated. The model's critical role in establishing culturally competent evidence-based practice is further outlined for application in the field of child welfare.     

Financial oppression and post-separation child positions in Sweden

The present paper deals with post-separation child positions in two domains of practice in the Swedish welfare state: welfare benefits such as financial aid and child contact. The area of concern is financial oppression in the context of parental separation. Empirically, the study draws upon three types of material: interviews with victimised mothers, court orders in welfare benefit appeals and court orders in contested contact cases. Findings suggest that financial abuse in the context of parental separation is a non-question in the domain of welfare benefits, and in the domain of child contact framed as a conflict between equal parties. Object without voice and with needs ignored was the typical child position in welfare benefits cases, whereas incompetent subject was more prominent in child contact cases. Age order as a form of domination may be reinforced by the practice of both domains.