|
|
Standards and Values for Public Child Welfare Practice in California: Values for Public Child Welfare Workers, Supervisors, and Administrators 1. The goal of public child welfare is to protect children from abuse, neglect, and exploitation and to promote their health, safety and nurturing so that they can grow to have positive, productive adulthoods. 4. When there is danger to children, the state has the responsibility to intervene in family affairs to protect children. In such a circumstance, the safety of the child takes precedence over the rights of the parents. 5. Child welfare service should work with the family to create a plan that emphasizes the family's and children's strengths. 6. Families and children should participate in their process for change to the greatest possible extent. Children should participate in decisions regarding their care and needs. 7. Decisions about services and provision of those services must be available, accessible, timely, and effective. 8. The family has the right to privacy and confidentiality and to be informed of the limits of confidentiality in public child welfare situations. 9. Every reasonable effort should be made to preserve and strengthen a child's existing family before an alternative placement is considered. The state requires an adequate, not an ideal, standard of care for children. 10. Every child has the right to a permanent home for his or her care and upbringing; legal permanency should be achieved as quickly as possible. 11. Child welfare practitioners must be able to use the self skillfully, be aware of the potential impact of personal feelings upon professional decision- making, and manage those feelings appropriately. 12. Management practice must be responsive to the ways in which clients and employees are diverse in values, ethnicity, gender, disabilities, affectional preferences, age, and religion. 13. Society has a responsibility to children, and the public child welfare agency and its staff are accountable to the community when providing child welfare services. 14. Social work practice must take into account the impact of social and economic deprivation and personal problems on child abuse and neglect. |
