Child Welfare Rev America's Child

Child Welfare Rev America's Child Welfare Crisis The issue of poverty in America represents one of the great ironies in Western capitalism. Founded on an atmosphere which is boldly advertised as one of equal opportunity and is quite clearly defined by its comparatively enormous affluence, the characteristics which we typically use to define the United States are at a loss for explaining poverty in America.

Today, it is a problem which continues to effect the nation in highly populated urban centers, recession damaged industrial towns and poor rural communities, where such crucial building blocks to an equal society as effective child welfare are absent. This discussion concerns the crisis situation in which the former Bush Administration's irresponsible economic policies and neglect of public agencies or outreach groups has created and will provide some insight into some prospects for improving this scenario.

Today, with the United States in a circumstance of indefinite but costly military conflict while simultaneously operating on a budget that can be characterized by its emphasis on income tax cuts for corporations and wealthy private citizens, the troubling unemployment rate, the steady financial draw-down of all strata of social programs and the privatization of Social Security which President Bush had made priorities of his administration all suggested that the federal government was not treating poverty eradication as a top interest.

Thus, during the last eight years, the United States has suffered considerably in such departments as child welfare. The accountability of locality, state and nation to help those least able to help themselves has been undermined by a diminishing availability of public resource and of public outreach.

Though the newly inaugurated Obama administration enters with a host of promises relating to the improvement of conditions facing children without great personal means, it must fulfill these promises under the heavy thumb of an economic crisis that has sapped cities and states throughout the U.S. Of the resources, personnel and agencies to effectively provide assistance where such is needed. The promises of public outreach coming from the new administration must overcome the conditions presented to us by President Bush's misappropriate of child welfare interests.

While many of the programs enacted by the previous administration are premised on the notion of supply-side economics, wherein assistance to corporate standard-bearers would incite a trickle-down effect of pervasive affluence, such was not yielded by major indicators, all of which point to the escalating problem of poverty in all living sectors of the country.

A retrospective of America's contention with its ongoing poverty problems illustrates that the top-down methodology advocated by this administration and many of its fiscally conservative forebears should perhaps be realigned with a greater consideration of the root causes of poverty.

The more effective and ideologically sound models of contending with poverty, such as Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, suggest that the impoverished are victims of a socially enforced cycle wherein lower classes are systematically subjected to a variety of restraints in breaking free from a spiral of poverty, ignorance, sickness and crime. A proper investment by the state in the needs of our impoverished youth has been demonstrated to produce positive results as such youths enter into society and the professional world.

In spite of a clear precedent and understanding to this end, the Bush Administration continually sacrificed the funding needed to sustain the effective function of such child welfare agencies as orphanages, juvenile correctional facilities, halfway houses and social service intervention groups in favor of politically motivated tax cuts. Simultaneously, the Bush Administration enacted a policy of agency grading, with failing grades leading to widespread fines, penalties and demands for improvement. This would prove an ironic and circularly flawed logic, coming down on many child welfare agencies with a double impact.

Indeed, an article from 2004 denotes that federal probes during the first years of the Bush administration had revealed that the very child welfare facilities which had been designed to help children in need were found to be guilty of widespread abuse. According to the article, a grading system produced by the Bush administration had failed every state in the U.S. For its conduct and maintenance of the standards ethically demanded. (Pear, 1) Accordingly, multi-million dollar fines have served to only deepen the woes of these already short-funded and short-staffed facilities.

(Pear, 1) This is a clear demonstration what has gone fundamentally wrong in the last years and what has landed us in a place of serious crisis today. Due to lacking funds, personnel are often underqualified and facilities understaffed, producing a frightening scenario which leads to widespread reports of abuse and internal neglect by the very agencies intended to prevent such conditions.

Thus, where funding lacks, agencies are not simply incapable of intervening where needed as is today the case, but indeed, many agencies become a manifestation of the negative circumstances enveloping subjected youths. Many well publicized incidences in recent years have underscored just how severe the problem is, with many children coming from broken, abusive and impoverished households to facilities where treatment and conditions are abhorrent.

To the point, the inability for organizations to be selective in hiring or to fully staff facilities as needed has contributed to a greater vulnerability for impacted youths to physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of counselors. As the New York Times article above tells, there is no single state in the U.S. that has succeeded in meeting federal standards. And more specifically, a great deal of scrutiny has absolutely discredited and devastated some state programs.

In both Florida and New Jersey, a spotlight has been shone upon abuse and neglect scandals that, research tends to suggest, are epidemic throughout the nations right now. (Pear, 1) the implication of course is that there is full public and political awareness of the extent and severity of the problem. However, the last eight years have represented a problematic downward spiral from which few child welfare agencies have been able to break free.

That is, as conditions worsen, so too do these agencies endure the simultaneous evaporation of public resources, owing most primarily to a misdirected set of policy priorities across nearly a decade. All evidence suggests, in fact, that in spite of the aggressive attention paid by the Bush Administration to the levying of penalties over those public groups which failed to meet applied standards, America's response to the issues of poverty, violence and vulnerability to criminality, abuse and addiction has been a uniform failure.

Indeed, the wealthiest nation in the world, UNICEF reported in February of 2007, ranks second lowest and topped only by Great Britain among the world's wealthiest nation in a categorical index of child welfare capabilities. (McHugh, A17) Indeed, this seems to be a product not of a lack of available wealth, with both nations ranking toward the top of the world's GDP's. Instead, there is a clear issue of poor and unequal distribution of wealth, which leads to a problematically wide gap between the fortunes of rich and poor.

(McHugh, A17) the findings which contribute to this resolution are both alarming and illustrative of that which is meant by child welfare. Considering such issues as greater access to medicine, the presence of public agencies with the interest and resource and the general patterns relating to family structure within a culture, the study found that the United States seems to invest far less of its public income in the health and well-being of its children than do many of its European counterparts.

Quite certainly, this is bore out by the Bush Administration, which largely illustrated that its interests ran counter-intuitive to the implications of public will on this issue. Certainly, by the last year of the Bush Administration, UNICEF would report, the United States could be shown to be performing poorly in an array of crucial areas from which indicators of general public health are typically assessed.

To the point, the UNICEF conducted its study by compiling a set of indicators which are typically used to characterize the living conditions of a nation's youth. In categories relating to healthcare available, access to education, familial circumstances and other areas contributing to one's well-being, the United States fared poorly. This was particularly true with respect to healthcare and safety, with a certain degree of violence and medical inequality seeming persistent.

(McHugh, A17) Most troubling was how poorly the United States ranked in the areas of infant mortality and childhood vaccination, to aspects of child welfare in which severe deficits appear in the U.S. (McHugh, A17) Most of these conditions, UNICEF finds, may be attributed to the presence of a very broad and severe economic disparity in such places as the United States, where the margin of wealth between the poorest and the wealthiest is extremely great.

And today, with joblessness, inflation and a general state of economic recession reigning, those who require the support of public outreach agencies -- especially children who are otherwise defenseless against the pitfalls of the circumstances -- are experiencing a greater severity in lifestyle and vulnerability as well. A consequence has been the increasingly common act by states and cities of slashing budgets which either eliminate child welfare agency resources or even the agencies themselves.

Today, in the anticipated aftermath of the rash of scandals pockmarking the Bush Administration's oversight in this area, many agencies are simply fighting to stay alive. And today, in so many state venues, there is a justified fear of the budget axe. In our current economic times, there is little statewide funding available. Child welfare agencies, their staffs and their resources are especially vulnerable, with budgetary policy today reflecting a sense of recession and an unwillingness to spend in such areas.

(Haynes, 1) This poses an extremely great challenge to the current generation of leaders poised to undo the failures of a decade of infrastructural neglect. President Obama has spoken frankly of the need for more aggressive law enforcement focus on areas such as domestic abuse, sex offender registering and neglect intervention. But he also brings his core philosophical focus on personal and public service to the discussion, acknowledging that one of the only real ways to undo previous damage in the face of current challenges will be through American volunteerism.

To that end, it does appear that the Obama administration is preparing to make dramatic changes in this area, promising to develop new foster homes and take a greater interest in the training and quality shaping such staffs. (Davis-Tanner, 1) to the point, Obama has recognized through his platform that those raised in foster care or public agency centers tend to have a significant disadvantage in many key areas.

Our research reports a 54% high school graduation rate, a less than 50% likelihood of unemployment and a 25% chance of being homeless for some period. (Davis-Tanner, 1) Thus, the current administration has pledged to improve the prospects of children raised by public welfare through employment-driven training and development programs. This is an ambitious set of objectives, but one that demonstrates a refreshing awareness on the part of our leaders of the depth of the problem and that which must be done to begin the long and difficult process of reversing this trend.

America is, as the new president has stated so frequently and so eloquently, in a rebuilding phase. Here, it will be working to return to the ability to meet the expectations of its people. Chief among them, Americans should be able to expect support for our young, impoverished and vulnerable. All evidence both internally and on the international level has come to illustrate beyond a reasonable doubt that America has failed these expectations and has.