Lalayants Marina
Child Welfare. 2013;92(5):107-36.
Child welfare-involved parents are often isolated and lack support and skills to navigate complex systems. Programs using a parent representation service model in child protection can offer an exceptional and critical form of support and empowerment to birthparents, promote parental engagement and cooperation, and teach system navigation skills. While there is a notable emphasis on an overall family-centered and strength-based approach in child welfare, much progress is still needed in giving voice to parents, empowering them, including them in decisionmaking about the case, and seeking their cooperation. Funding should be directed to recruiting more parent representatives to assist birthparents in their communities as well to educating and training child protective services workers by transferring values and strategies implemented by parent representatives. Although additional research is certainly necessary, it appears that programs such as the Child Welfare Organizing Project in New York City may be an important step toward building partnerships with families impacted by the child welfare system in promoting child safety, well-being, and permanency.
涉及儿童福利的父母往往处于孤立状态，缺乏应对复杂系统的支持和技能。在儿童保护中采用父母代表服务模式的项目可以为亲生父母提供一种特殊且至关重要的支持和赋权形式，促进父母的参与与合作，并教授系统导航技能。虽然在儿童福利中显著强调以家庭为中心和基于优势的整体方法，但在倾听父母声音、赋予他们权力、让他们参与案件决策并寻求他们的合作方面仍有很大进展需要取得。资金应用于招募更多父母代表，以在社区中协助亲生父母，并通过传授父母代表实施的价值观和策略来教育和培训儿童保护服务工作者。虽然肯定需要更多研究，但纽约市的儿童福利组织项目等计划似乎是朝着与受儿童福利系统影响的家庭建立伙伴关系迈出的重要一步，以促进儿童安全、福祉和永久性。
