What are children?
Children are developing beings who have ensuing needs related to their development, education, and relations with their family on whom they generally depend.
Child is being under the age of 18 unless a nation recognizes earlier as a majority.
Child Maltreatment
All forms of physical and emotional I’ll treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development, or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power.
UN Perspective on Childrens Rights
UN convention on the rights of children, children have rights to:
protection(from abuse, exploitation,harmful substances)
- Provision(for education,healthcare, adequate standard of living.)
- Participation(listening to childrens views and respecting their evolving capacities)
- Specific protections and provisions for vulnerable populations such as Indiginous children and children with disabilities.
The convention makes clear of the idea that basic quality of life should be the right of all children rather than a privilege enjoyed by few. They apply to all children at all times without exception.
Legislation and policies of child protection in Canada
- Best interest of the child(BIC):
- Lest intrusive measures: provides for a testing of the need for state intervention into the family to ensure that the state is not unduly intruding on the private sphere of the family and violating family autonomy and integrity.
- a child centred approach: based on child’s rights perspective and the best interest principle, placing the child at the centre of policy and service is an axiom good child protection practice.
- Risk Reduction: tools were supposed to predict difficulties and dangers in advance so that administrative steps could be taken to manage problems and reduce, deflect, or obviate the need for actual services.- has always been used to identify whether a child is safe and, where maltreatment has occurred, the likelihood of recurrence.
Child Welfare System
A. Institutional/residual/social investment.
B. Child abus/neglect
C. Evidence based policy: refers to policy that is informed by evidence, rather than political ideology or pressure from special-interests group- the goal of is to produce well informed policies that successfully address the social problems identified. - physical abuse(home visitation, termination of the parent child legal relations etc), sexual abuse, intimate partner violence.
D. Permanency and family preservation:
Permanency is a concept that suggests stability and is defined as “an enduring family relationship that is safe and meant to last a lifetime.
-good enough parenting: which is a child centred approach, it recognizes that parenting does not fall into a neat binary of good or bad.
-kingship care: refers to a living arrangement in which a relative, community member, or another person who has a connection to a child or the parent takes primary responsibility for caring for and raising the child.
-sibling relationships: placing siblings together has been found to aid resilience when children face adversity.
-The signs of safety(sos) approach: the sos focuses on this question”how can the worker build partnerships with parents and children in situations of suspected child abuse and still deal rigorously with the maltreatment issues?
- SOS risk assessment: involves a conversation with the family about the safety of the children using 4 domains
1- what are we worried about?
2- what is working well?
3- what needs to happen(future safety goals.)
4- who will do what to build safety?
E. Types of support in/out house
National outcome matrix
Aging out of care
Aging out of care involves youth teaching a certain age and being expected to fend for themselves, often without a family support network and with limited or no financial resources.
Racial disparities in Canadian children welfare
Child welfare policy considerations
For serving children and families affected by parental disorders:
-supporting attachment and child development: offers opportunities for policies to address unmet parental needs that may threaten a parents ability to attach and care for their children.
- Supporting the resilience of families: children who experienced parental substance exposure or use have the safe, stable, nurturing relationships they need to thrive.
-providing resources to treat parental substance use and trauma history: policy that supports healthy parent child attachment with the family of origin as one component of substance use services reduces any additional trauma of family disruption.
- better serving maternal and child health: policy and program support the health and safety of infants prenatally exposed to substances, ensure access to appropriate diagnosis and treatment of developmental and behavioural needs.
- Embracinf a “family first” approach: provides access to impatient treatment and at-home support options that service parents and children together.
Opioid crisis
Impacts children:
-Child poisoning or OD
-impaired parenting and attachment
- material deprivation
- extended separation from parents
- indirect victims
- vulnerable group highly impacted: women in reproduction ages 2% in 1992 to 28%.
