Child Care: Family Preservation, Foster Care System Analysis Essay

This essay critically examines the role of family preservation in child welfare, contrasting it with the foster care system. It begins by defining family preservation as a crucial support system designed to keep children within a family environment, emphasizing the importance of providing proper care and a healthy environment for their overall development. The essay explores the research supporting family preservation, highlighting its economic benefits and its role in preventing child maltreatment, while acknowledging cultural variations. It then delves into the assumptions and potential gaps within the foster care system, particularly in the state of Maryland, where the author provides specific data on the reduction of victims of abuse. The essay also compares and contrasts permanency planning and family preservation. The author agrees with the research, acknowledging the benefits of permanency planning and family preservation and discussing the benefits and shortfalls of permanency planning, ultimately expressing a preference for an approach that prioritizes the child's safety and well-being. The essay concludes by advocating for more consideration in permanency planning and family preservation, emphasizing the need for constant vigilance to ensure the best outcomes for children.

Running head: CHILD CARE
CHILD CARE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Authors note:

1CHILD CARE
Role of family preservation in child welfare
Child Welfare policy in family preservation was introduced as a support system to keep
children in a family environment rather than keeping them in a foster home or orphanage.
This was done keeping in mind about the fact that children get proper food, care and
healthy environment for their overall development. To prevent the maltreatment of the
child and the children whose parents are no longer able to meet the necessary means for
taking care of child in those cases family preservation is an important scenario. However,
this type of treatment may differ from culture to culture and may involve different
organizational structure to receive culturally equivalent atmosphere especially in case of
immigrants (Choi et al., 2013). The family preservation and child welfare enables the
society an economic benefit from the rising costs of living in foster care homes (Popple
& Leighninger, 2016). It is suggested in a study that poverty is one of the essential cause
of maltreatment of the children, and therefore, role family preservation gives new hope to
the people who are not able provide necessary care for the child (Hearn, 2014).
Think about whether you agree with the research, and whether there are any gaps
in your state foster care system that might contribute to the assumptions.
Along with maltreatment and abuse, the foster care system, has certain gaps and there are
certain loopholes that generate assumptions. It is often seen that foster care is related with
negligence and abuse that or there is an association of foster care placement which is
related adult criminalities. However, it is found that the development of a child mentally
and physically depends on the parameters of a steady and stable foster care placement in

2CHILD CARE
terms of health and a caring environment (Gypen, 2017). However, in my state Maryland
there has been reduction of victims around 50% for the year 2017, in comparison to the
year 2011 (Child Welfare League of America-Maryland’s Children, 2019). DHR or
Department of Human Resources has been taking care of the foster care program,
parental supervision and support in my state.
Benefits and shortfalls of permanency planning and family preservation and which
approach you prefer.
Permanency planning is method of criteria by which the child is taken care for a long
term basis, with respect to out of home placements, for example kinship/ specific
institutions or foster care. And according to that particular care plan has to be assessed
and prepared. The benefits include that the children will be in safe and secure
environment that from the environment the children were rescued from. Apart from that,
I agree to the fact that average duration of stay in case of out of home care will gradually
come down and enable a continuity of relationships. The benefits also include legally
sound and honest factor for all the participants. However, I feel there might be cultural
differences, as the child may belong to totally different background and adjusting to the
current family background may be challenging. The risk remains a questionable aspect
when it comes to permanency of the child and hence, therefore, there must be constant
vigilance. Hence, more consideration should be taken in case of permanency planning
and family preservation.

3CHILD CARE
References:
Child Welfare League of America. (2019). Maryland’s Children. Available at:
https://www.cwla.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MARYLAND.pdf
Choi, Y., Kim, Y. S., Drankus, D., & Kim, H. J. (2013). Preservation and Modification of
Culture in Family Socialization: Development of Parenting Measures for Korean
Immigrant Families. Asian American journal of psychology, 4(2), 143–154.
Edwards, H. R., Bryant, D. U., & Bent-Goodley, T. B. (2011). Participation and influence
in federal child welfare policymaking. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 5(2-3),
145-166.
Gypen, L., Vanderfaeillie, J., De Maeyer, S., Belenger, L., & Van Holen, F. (2017).
Outcomes of children who grew up in foster care: Systematic-review. Children
and Youth Services Review, 76, 74-83.
Hearn E, J. (2014). Child maltreatment entrenched by poverty: how financial need is
linked to poorer outcomes in family preservation. Child Welfare, 93(1).
Popple, P. R., & Leighninger, L. (2019). The policy-based profession: An introduction to
social welfare policy analysis for social workers (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Pearson Education.