SW 100: Chapter 9

Adoption Process

-child identified as being in need of adoption -child must be legally freed so adoption can take place -adoptive parents are selected -agency places the child with them -family reconfiguring itself and intra-family relationships to accommodate new child

Characterization of Family Preservation Programs

-crisis orientation -focus on family -home-based services -time limits -limited, focused objectives -intensive, comprehensive services -emphasis on education and skill building -coordination -flexibility -accessibility -accountability

Possible Causes of Child Maltreatment

-need for personal support and nurturance -need to overcome isolation and establish social contacts -need to learn appropriate parenting skills -need to improve self-esteem

Child Neglect

-the failure of a parent, guardian, or other caregiver to provide for a child's basic needs -may be: physical, medical, educational, emotional

Goals of Child Welfare

-meeting vulnerable children's unmet emotional, behavioral, and health needs -improving internal family conditions involving interpersonal dynamics, communication, substance abuse, and conflict -safeguarding children from various forms of neglect and abuse -when necessary, making permanent family living conditions available through adoption or transfer of guardianship

Family Preservation Services

Short-term, family-based services designed to assist families in crisis by improving parenting and family functioning while keeping children safe

Child Welfare

The traditional term for the network of policies and programs designed to empower families, promote a healthy environment, protect children, and meet children's needs

Residential Care

Treatment provided by child welfare agencies that reflects greater intensity and restrictiveness on the substitute care continuum than foster family care

Stepfamily

family structure in which either or both spouses have been married before and have one or more children from the previous marriage

Blood-Related Adoptions

include a step-parent married to a birth parent adopting the birth parent's child, grandparents adopting daughter/sons child, and other relatives adopting a child born into some branch of their own family

Support Services

involve a wide-range of programs providing assistance in helping parents undertake their daily tasks and assume their responsibilities

Special Needs Adoptions

involves children who have traditionally been more difficult to place in adoptive homes

Physical Abuse

a child younger than 18 has experienced an injury asa result of having been hit with a hand or other object or having been kicked, shaken, thrown, burned, stabbed, or choked by a parent or parent-surrogate

Single-parent Family

a family unit consisting of one adult, and his or her children.

Informal Kinship Care

a situation where a family takes children in without intervention by social service agencies

Substitute Services

those replacing another family for the child's own family, so that someone else takes over all aspects of the parental role on a temporary or permanent basis

Parental Aides

trained professionals, sometimes volunteers, who go into the home, serve as positive role models for behavior management and parent-child relationships, and provide someone for the parents to talk to

Terrorizing

verbally assaults the child, creates a climate of fear, bullies and frightens the child, and makes child believe the world is hostile and unsafe

Kinship Care

the placement of children in the home of a relative, close family friend, godparents, or tribe or clan member when the children's parents are unable to provide care

Child Maltreatment

the umbrella term for physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, neglect, and psychological maltreatment

Transracial Adoption

those by parents of a different race than that of the child

Day-care Centers

Agencies that can care for from 15 to 300 children, although they average about 60

International Adoption

parents adopt children from other countries

Primary Group

people who are intimate and have frequent face-to-face contact with one another, have norms in common, and share mutually enduring and extensive influences

Family

primary group whose members assume certain obligations for each other and generally share common residences

Big Brother/Big Sister and Adopted Grandparent Programs

programs where volunteers are paired with a child and, under supervision, offer that child guidance and friendships

Subsidized Adoption

adoptions involving financial assistance

Formal Kinship Care

A situation where a social services agency gains legal custody of a child and places that child in a kinship home, which it licenses

Child Protective Services (CPS)

Interventions aimed at protecting children at risk of maltreatment

Unrelated Adoptions

Occur when the adoptive parents have no prior blood link to the child being adopted

Shelter Homes

Provide a transitory haven for children during assessment and placement

Legal Custody

The formal assumption of caregiving responsibilities for a child (or for persons who are not children but who cannot function independently) including meeting that person's daily needs

Family Structure

The nuclear family as well as those non-traditional alternatives to nuclear family which are adopted by persons in committed relationships and the people they consider to be family

Foster Family Care

The provision of substitute care with a family for a planned temporary or extended period when parents or legal guardians are unable to care for a child

Day Care

The regular provision of care for children or others dependent on help when regular caregivers must work or be away from the home

Child Day Care

agency or program that provides supervision and care for children while parents or guardian are at work or otherwise unavailable

Treatment Milieu

an all encompassing environmental setting, in which rules for how to behave are more clearly specified than in most families, thus providing greater structure

Blended Family

any nontraditional configuration of people who live together, are committed to each other, and perform functions traditionally assumed by families

Independent Adoption

are initiated and conducted ind. by the adoption and birth parents, without agency involvement

Denying Emotional Responsiveness

being detached and uninvolved, interacting only when absolutely necessary, and failing to express love and affection to the child

Spurning

belittling, degrading, shaming, ridiculing; singling out one child to do most of the household chores or to criticize and punish; and publicly humiliating refusing to help a child who asks for or needs help

Residential Treatment Center

bigger agencies that are more structured and therefore more restrictive than smaller group home settings

Isolating

caregiver cuts the child off from normal social experiences, prevents the child from forming friendships, and makes the child believe he/she is alone in the world

Permanent Placement

comprehensive care planning process directed toward the goal of a permanent, stable home for a child

Agency/Relinquishment Adoptions

conducted through a public or private social service organization, with the agency contracting with the adoptive parents, providing counseling, assessing the placement, and overseeing the entire adoption process

Family Life Education (FLE)

involves group or classroom learning experiences for the purpose of increasing people's knowledge, developing skills, or enhancing self-awareness concerning issues and crisis relevant at some point during the life span

Exploiting or Corrupting

modeling, permitting, or encouraging such antisocial behavior as prostitution, performance in pornography, criminal activity, or substance abuse; and encouraging developmentally inappropriate behavior such as parentification or infantilization

Long-Term Foster Homes

offer an ongoing residence for children unable to return to their parents' home and unadaptable for various reasons

Generational Family

one in which family members include persons spanning at least three generations

Treatment Foster Care

provides specialized treatment for children with serious behavioral and emotional problems

Psychological Neglect

repeated pattern of behavior that conveys to a child he/she is unwanted, worthless, valued only to the extent he/she can meet others' needs or is threatened with physical or psychological attack

Specialized Foster Homes

serve children with special needs, such as intellectual disabilities or conditions such as fetal alcohol syndrome or being infected with HIV

Group Homes

setting that provides a substitute living situation and family environment for a group of children originating in different families

Independant Living Services

settings that serve as a traditional residence between out-of-home placement and entrance into adulthood with its onerous responsibilities

Supportive Services

support, reinforce, and strengthen the ability of parents and children to meet the responsibilities of their respective statuses

Respite Care

temporary provision of care for those requiring such care so the regular caregivers have some time away from caregiving responsibilities

Adoption

the legal act of taking in a child born to other parents and formally making that child a full member of the family

Guardianship

the legal responsibility to care for another person and oversee that person's affairs