Saturday, 15 January 2005 - 11:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Domestic Violence and Child Welfare

Engaging Families in Child Welfare Services: A Confluence of Perspectives

While thought to be an important process in social work change, little is known empirically about the process of engagement with vulnerable families. Recent federal legislation has shortened the timeline child welfare workers have to work toward family reunification with the birth families of children who have been placed in out-of-home care. Knowledge of how best to engage and move forward with change with these families is now absolutely critical. This presentation reports the results of a recent qualitative study that examined the process of engagement between families and social workers in the public child welfare system in New York City. The purpose of the study was to better understand the process of engagement between workers and client families in neighborhood based foster care services. This was done through a qualitative examination of the perceived attributes of successful parent-worker engagement from the viewpoint of various stakeholders in one neighborhood-based child welfare agency. Intensive interviews were done with a sample of 35 parents, social workers, social work supervisors, and foster parents. Themes of effective engagement per respondent group were uncovered using Spradley’s ethnoscientific methods. Seven themes were found common across all respondent groups: 1) the need for families and workers to set common and clear goals together; 2) the need for parents and workers to maintain a sense of hopefulness during the change process; 3) the need for parents to be aware, to acknowledge, and to understand their situations accurately; 4) the need for parents to be consistently motivated in their change efforts; 5) the need for workers to identify, understand, and respect cultural issues in their relationships with families; 6) the need for workers to communicate truthfully, honestly and respectfully; and 7) the need for workers to be persistent, diligent, and timely in their efforts to help families. Implications for social work practice drawn from this evidence are focused on worker preparation and support, and agency change. These include the need to better prepare child welfare workers with timely intervention and communication skills that match the needs families have, to better support workers in their cultural awareness and respect, and to consider agency changes that may support these practice changes.

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