IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v692y2020i1p140-161.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Social Welfare Policy Landscape and Child Protective Services: Opportunities for and Barriers to Creating Systems Synergy

Author

Listed:
  • Megan Feely
  • Kerri M. Raissian
  • William Schneider
  • Lindsey Rose Bullinger

Abstract

Contemporary child welfare policies in the United States are well-suited for prevention of child abuse but fail to account for the relationship between family financial hardship and neglect, that is, the lack of safe and consistent care. We argue that rates of child neglect have been stagnant because of two failures: (1) lack of recognition of financial hardship as a causal mechanism of neglect and (2) federal policy that purposefully omits alleviation of financial hardship as a solution to the occurrence of neglect. Because U.S. antipoverty programs operate independently of one another, our siloed policy structure misses opportunities for the alleviation of child maltreatment and, worse, creates negative and unintended consequences in child welfare. We present a model for change: systems synergy for the promotion of safe and consistent care that makes reduction of child maltreatment the responsibility of every social service program in the United States.

Suggested Citation

  • Megan Feely & Kerri M. Raissian & William Schneider & Lindsey Rose Bullinger, 2020. "The Social Welfare Policy Landscape and Child Protective Services: Opportunities for and Barriers to Creating Systems Synergy," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 692(1), pages 140-161, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:692:y:2020:i:1:p:140-161
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716220973566
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716220973566
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716220973566?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:692:y:2020:i:1:p:140-161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.