Matilda Jones
English 1302.019
November 15, 2013

Role of Child Welfare and the Importance of Caseworker Visits Every state has a public agency that is charged with the delivery of services in response to reports of child abuse and neglect. These child welfare agencies also play a role in prevention and early intervention, and they are required to ensure a child’s safety when the child is abused or neglected or when a caregiver is unable or unwilling to protect his or her child. They do so by receiving and assessing allegations of abuse and neglect, assessing children’s safety and risk of future harm, evaluating a family’s capacity to participate in services provided, and planning and coordinating services and interventions for the child and family.3 In addition, these agencies are involved in determining whether children need to be removed from their homes. More important, once children enter the child welfare system, child welfare agencies are responsible for monitoring their ongoing safety and providing services to promote their well-being and that of their families.
Child welfare agencies conduct these activities by assigning caseworkers to families that come to the attention of the child welfare system. Caseworkers work closely with families, conducting regular visits with intact families and with children in foster care and facilitating visitation between family members when children are placed outside the home.
These caseworker visits are a critical component of child welfare system procedures for ensuring the safety of children and the well-being of families. Caseworkers meet with children and families to monitor children’s safety and well-being; assess the ongoing service needs of children, families and foster parents; engage biological and foster parents in developing case plans; assess permanency options for the child; monitor family progress toward established goals; and ensure that children and parents are receiving necessary services. At each stage of the intervention, caseworkers, with the support of their supervisors, determine the type of supports that children and their families need to ensure that the children are safe, are in or moving toward permanent homes, and have stable living arrangements that promote their well-being. Caseworkers obviously play myriad roles when they intervene in the lives of children and families. In addition to their case management activities, caseworkers prepare for and attend court hearings, arrange for and facilitate visitation among family members, manage crisis situations, and handle vital administrative duties. These include documenting case histories, managing case records, and

entering case data into the state’s child welfare management information system. Ensuring that caseworkers have the time needed to visit with children and families requires that they have a manageable caseload size. The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), one of the national organizations that represents and provides training for the child welfare field, has recommended standards of excellence for caseload ratios for workers in child welfare program areas. Although CWLA acknowledges that computing caseload size is an