Ethics and Social Justice | HUM220 A02
Module 5, Assignment 1: Analyzing a Social Policy

6/2013

In the past, more importantly today, many social policies have been created by humans, and can therefore also be destroyed by them as well. Social policies were designed to resolve issues that are “considered important by a mass of voters, media, and political actors” (Argosy, 2013). Social policy are only the start of help for some, yet they aren’t always effective, rational, or socially just (Argosy, 2013).
An important social problem at hand is child welfare. “The protection of children from harm by their families and the provision of safe havens for children who are maltreated in their home
Statistics say that in 2010, there were over 1,500 counts of child fatalities due to due to child abuse. Child neglect has resulted in 32.6% fatalities, 40.8% due to neglect, 22.9% cause by physical abuse, and 1.5% by medical neglect (FOCA, 2011). More frequently though if there was coined a certain population, “African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Pacific Islander children have higher rates of reported child maltreatment than do other children it would be the children who are African American. These families had different views of childrearing—their children raised under certain circumstances based on cultural roots, and oppression, different from that of ‘white’ children. It was stated that the structures of parenting were different when it comes to the African American and Caucasian communities, and there were many correlating factors which led to the abuse of children. It was hard to get a child in with a better family, or away from their abusers. Eventually this would change, as the ideas of equality between the groups and their children slowly increased- It was during the “1960s that African American children were able to get away from those treating them badly. They were soon able to be placed in private orphanages, which became residential treatment centers. States were reimbursed for the children to be placed in alternative homes.
A great policy that addresses child