Method Survey Section of Paper Psychology Research Paper

Abuse in the Child Services System
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Abuse in the Child Services System
Introduction
Taking care of children as they grow is a very delicate sector because children grow up to adopt how they were brought up. A child brought up in a violent environment is likely to behave in a wearied way, isolating himself or herself from the company of other people. Child services step in to ensure that children grow up in a conducive environment that builds them physically, emotionally, culturally, and morally. Therefore, child abuse refers to when parents and caregivers fail to protect or directly inflict harm or even death to children. Child abuse can be physical, sexual, neglect, or emotional (Fortson et al., 2016). However, we should not trust the child service providers with our children’s lives without knowing how the children are handled. Some officials in the department might abuse the children since they are helpless on their hands. Several reports have emerged in the media with children allegedly used within the child services system. Therefore, there is a need to investigate child abuse in the child services system.
Literature Review
Professional competencies have led to the emergence of several complaints of child abuse within child protection units. At the same time, praises are also poured upon the same system for rescuing many children going through different forms of abuse. Several scholars have investigated child abuse to inform the public about the real situation. This section reviews past research on the issue of child abuse, especially within the child services system.
In the pursuit of child protection, the law has its procedures of prosecuting a case. Customary laws are some of the considerations that are recognized by the law. Some customary laws treat children in a way that may look like abuse, yet it is not. Fortson et al. (2016) note that it is challenging to assess child abuse evidence involving customary practices. For example, many African cultures put male teenagers through a comprehensive circumcision ceremony where initiates undergo the cut without anaesthesia to grow into manhood (Muzingili & Taruvinga, 2017). Such practices are very hard to conclude as child abuse because the law recognizes them. Child abuse systems are sometimes accused of ignoring it.
Parents have the mandate to shape the morals of their children, and different parents do it differently. Some use corporal punishment as a way of disciplining children (Lansford et al., 2015). It becomes tough to conclude that the parents are abusing the children because everybody wants a morally upright child at the end of it all. It is vital to attempt to discipline your child before becoming notorious, and the parent is blamed. The child abuse department often gets involved in such cases accusing parents of child abuse, yet in the parents’ minds, they were correcting the child. When parents win such cases, other people might see it as neglect or ignorance on child abuse department social workers. Prinz (2016) calls it coercive parenting. According to him, coercive parenting is child abuse because it uses force in the child’s upbringing. However, it is not justifiable not to use coercion in parenting, yet prisons use coercion to discipline lawbreakers. In any case, lawbreakers are people who did not get good parenting.
Caffrey (2017) looks at the importance of the perceived goals of an organization on child abuse. The child abuse system often uses contact tracers and informers to get information about child abuse. Domestic abuse of children has not been fully explored. Many children fear their parents and would not dare go against them in many cases making domestic abuse cases difficult to prosecute (Caffrey, 2017). Social workers often carry the blame in such cases because contact informers might accuse the social workers of ignorance. It is, therefore, essential to consider the perceived goals in handling a domestic abuse case. It will help serve justice.
The child abuse system is discriminatory in prosecuting children offenders. McLeod (2015) notes that social workers tend to ignore female offenders in child abuse because women are perceived as useful and cannot offend children compared to men. Thus cases involving women are either dismissed or fail. Children reporting cases of abuse involving women are also ignored or perceived to have malicious intent. Shireman (2015) blames underfunding on the ignorance of social workers on child abuse. Money is essential for the success of the child abuse system in rescuing children. When they lack funding, it means they will not be in a position to prosecute their mandate fully and are likely to brush off cases that involve parties like women who are hard to suspect.
Furthermore, several studies have been done to investigate child abuse, different reasons for the vice, and how child abuse cases are prosecuted. Cultural abuse and domestic abuse are among the complex cases that are hard to deal with because it is hard to draw the line between cultural practice, abuse, domestic abuse, and discipline. Therefore, is it true as some suggest that social workers ignore signs of child abuse within the social system?
Conclusively, this question is a thought-provoking question. Social Workers must consider how different cultural families raise their children which may seem like child abuse to some but are a normal practice of discipline method for other cultures. The exploration of Social Workers accountability is hard; they must take in consideration of cultural practices and follow the bylaws that are set forth for all Social Workers.
Research question
The issue of child abuse excites interesting debates. It can be hard to distinguish the boundaries between discipline, child abuse, and cultural practices. Some cultures would permit harsh punishments on children, which the social wo...