Failure To Protect: The Child Welfare System

The child welfare system has evolved over the years, but still has issues that need to be worked out. After watching the film Failure to Protect? A National Dialogue and the hearing the scenario that they played out, there are still questions left to be asked about some of the decisions that were made when it came to the welfare of the children. Trevor the caseworker gets to home and is able to get inside to take a look at what the living conditions are like, they are not the best and there are what appears to be drugs and alcohol in the home with two young children (Failure to Protect, 2003). This in itself leaves me questioning why the children are still there, if the mother is on drugs or drunk then her judgement when taking of her children
may be impaired. The situation brings differences of opinion about how it should be handled, I agree with Trevor about educating Miss Smith about resources that are available in the community based on what he sees in the home. She may be the type of person who is ashamed to ask for help or does not know where to go to get the assistance that she needs. Being without work is hard and she is doing what it takes to make sure her kids have a roof over their heads and food to eat, in some communities that is all that is required to keep children in the home. After finding out that there is a boyfriend living in the home that has been convicted of having sex with a minor, the idea to put in place that the boyfriend needs to leave due to that and that he abuses Miss Smith is put in place (Failure to Protect, 2003). I feel that just telling Miss Smith that the boyfriend is not allowed in the home and he cannot be around the children is not necessarily going to work due to there are ways to get around that issue and if she feels that she needs him than she will make sure that she can see him even if means putting her and her kid’s life in danger.
This film really hits home for me because right now we are dealing with a situation where my stepchildren’s mother put the safety of her children in jeopardy by allowing a registered sex offender into her home.
This man did inappropriate things to my stepdaughter and now we are involved in a case with DHS to have the custody of the children placed with us, because at this time they are not being kept safe in the care of their mother. The difference we are seeing compared to the film is that DHS was adamant about keeping the children together so that they had at least each other, whereas in the film Ben and Brittany are separated due to no family to take them, which makes it hard when Ben was the one there to take care of Brittany (Failure to Protect, 2003). This makes me wonder if there was enough done to try to keep the children together because with them ending up in to different foster homes, they are not only dealing with being removed from the home that they are used to, but also dealing with being separated from their siblings. The best interest of the child was taken into consideration in my opinion by removing them and trying to find foster homes that were going to be safe for them, but when their emotional well-being is looked at then we need to consider how all these changes at one time are going to affect them. Based on the film not all the correct decisions were made by the child welfare system, but there is not a system out there that does not have its flaws and there are issues and children that get left unaddressed by the child welfare system due to the amount of work that is being piled on to the
caseworkers.