In the United States, the child welfare system and Child Protective Services are used interchangeably to describe anything related to the government and child protection, including family/juvenile court, but the child welfare system is a distinct entity in its in right. In fact, the child welfare system consists of four main, distinct components: Child Protective Services, Foster Care/Kinship Care, Prevention Services and Adoption.
Child Protective Services
Child Protective Services (CPS) is responsible for collecting reports of and investigating allegations of child maltreatment. Child Protective Services runs the intake hotlines (in most states, these hotlines are run at the state level, but some have county-level hotlines). Reports that are accepted for investigation or investigated by the local Child Protective Services agency (this includes alternative response investigations, where applicable). This is often the first contact families have with the child welfare system. If they find enough evidence to support the allegations, they’re responsible for taking action. This can include implementing or referring to services, filing a petition in court and/or placement in foster care or kinship care. In court, they may also be responsible for any court-ordered supervision in certain cases. Child Protective Services is also responsible for maintaining the repository in which those names and cases are stored.
In addition, the Child Protective Services agency is also responsible for the other components, but they tend to rely heavily on outsourcing. Because of this and the way the different component personnel are segregated, they are not included under the Child Protective Services umbrella. Because the family and juvenile court have functions outside of the child welfare system, we do not include the court as part of the child welfare system, but rather as a tool used by Child Protective Services.
Prevention Services
Prevention services are services typically provided and paid for by or on behalf of the government through a state or municipal Child Protective Services agency as outlined in the Family First Prevention Services Act. Funded mostly through Title IV-E of the Social Security Act and often contracted out by the local Child Protective Services agency to a non-profit provider, these services may be provided with or without legal involvement. They’re almost ubiquitous in alternative response, as well as traditional response investigations that end with a substantiated allegation and no court involvement. While a few prevention services may be provided by CPS directly, the vast majority are outsourced to non-profit contractors.
While it’s a nice idea to preserve families, it is an even bigger detriment to parental rights, as the providers are mandated reporters paid by CPS and prevention services are almost always provided in-home. This means that they have an interest in reporting every frivolous concern they see back to CPS and they are among the most aggressive reporters of child maltreatment. This means the government is monitoring you on a regular basis at home and whoever sets the standard is the parent; the parent is delegated to the actual work if implementing the rules, which makes a parent seem more like a nanny or babysitter than a parent. This increased surveillance introduces the prospect of perpetual involvement, as new CPS cases keep being opened and services continue to be extended in response until it gets to the point where CPS determines involuntary placement is required.
Foster Care/Kinship Care
Foster care placement occurs when a child is placed with another family, because it is determined that the child’s family is determined, for whatever reason, to be unable to safely care for him or her. Kinship care is similar to foster care, but involves a close friend or family member well known to the child. Foster care can also included institutional placement or group homes, which may also be run by contracted agencies. These group homes and foster care placements are a modern re-imagination of the orphanages of old. Historically, CPS agencies also managed foster care, but in the past two decades, much of foster care/kinship care case management has been outsourced to non-profit agencies. Many prevention services providers also provide foster care case management services under a separate contract (and vice versa).
Through contracts signed between the local Child Protective Services agency and the contracted provider, the contractor provider is responsible for providing the foster care case management services in return for being paid as agreed by CPS. This means that CPS will not handle the home visits to biological parents or their children in foster care- instead, employees of these contracted agencies will. While foster families are visited by the foster care case manager, the initial home study and approval may be done by a contractor or by CPS directly. The foster care case manager will also write the court reports detailing the status of the child(ren), as well as the progress of the parent(s). While these contractors will do the foster care case management, the attorney representing CPS in court will remain an employee of CPS; However, she or he will be reliant on the reports provided by the foster care case manager when it comes to the family, as for all intents and purposes, the contractor is paid to act as an extension of CPS.
Typically, the employees of private contractors are paid less and there are more instances of corruption arising from these private contractors than those on the front lines in the governmental agencies. Unfortunately, when there is an issue, not much usually happens unless it’s bad enough to get the attention of those in charge at CPS. Because CPS wasn’t technically aware of what was going on, they tend to act shocked; if needed, they replace the contracting agency with another one to appease the public outrage and then resume business as usual.
Adoption
Adoption is also typically handled by private contractors to CPS and many of the non-profit contractors that handle prevention services and foster care may also handle adoption. While there are private adoption agencies that operate independently of government, we’re going to focus solely on those who accept children in the child welfare system. When parental rights are terminated of a child in foster care and the child has not been adopted, the government maintains custody over the child, as they’re considered a ward of the state.
Adoption agencies handle the adoption process on behalf of the government, including identifying, interviewing and screening prospective adoptive parents. The child may reside in a group home run by the adoptive agency or may continue to remain in their foster care placement during this time. Children who age out before being adopted will linger in this system until such time.
While there is confusion as to what people are referring to in conversation when discussing the child welfare system, generally, they’re speaking collectively about these four components, which comprise the child welfare system. At CPSprotect Consulting Services, our goal avoid letting our subscribers get deeper into the child welfare system than a CPS investigation, because the deeper you get, the harder it is to climb out and the less opportunity for recourse you have. While it is sometimes unavoidable, most cases end up going much further than they should. Don’t let it get that far and don’t face CPS alone.