Stoneleigh Fellow Steve Volk authors an article in Billy Penn on the ways in which child welfare reformers have sought ways to create a less adversarial family court system.
Pennsylvania Child Protective Services Law (23 Pa.C.S. Chapter 63, Child Protective Services) was established in 1975 to protect children from abuse and preserve and stabilize the family whenever appropriate.
The Philadelphia DHS homepage states: “We work with families to safely care for children in their own home to reduce child abuse and neglect,” and even more pointedly, “The goal of foster care is to reunite children with their families.”
In practice, however, the relationship between child welfare services and families has been fraught — a problem that leading system observers have long acknowledged and tried to resolve. In fact, a 2014 study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation called for a new team decision making model to defuse the “traditional agency versus family” dynamic.
