Resolving Problems Associated with Child Disparities in Minnesota

Multicultural Child Welfare Resources Paper: Child Welfare
The Native American and Latino Hispanic populations in Minnesota experience disparities that come externally from the child welfare system. Some of them include socioeconomic factors such as limited access to healthcare, education, and corrections, historical trauma for the families, discrimination, and prejudice when interacting with others (DHS, 2010).
The disparities experienced have forced child welfare systems to work in assuring that their experiences are fair and equitable especially in cases where children are involved. The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) is more committed to multicultural child welfare center (MCCWC) development because they are programs that help practitioners and social workers in child welfare services to diversify their purposes in reducing disparities. The information that practitioners and social workers attain from such programs goes a long way in seeing that children have permanency in an attempt to reduce out-of-home care, which is temporary.
Langworthy, Robertson, and Bhakta (2016) showed that the education system of Minnesota is complexly inter-related to child welfare systems, but the inefficiency of such systems has led to the overtaxing of front-line social services and educational professionals who are constantly working with children and their families. From this perspective, it has become very difficult for the professionals to provide their clients with the high service levels. Therefore, it is important to understand and identify the barriers that relate to collaboration efforts that will enable work to happen across systems.
Langworthy, Robertson, and Bhakta reported on findings of focus groups on the collaboration efforts that professionals found useful and this included effective communication practices (2016). Moreover, new professionals in the child welfare systems also suggested practical solutions that would help in minimizing disparities among racial and ethnic communities in Minnesota. Therefore, the underlying question for their study was in re-designing the child welfare system and education systems to promote effective operations in minimizing the menace of disparities. Such information is useful in attaining the intended objective of the study, which is having multicultural child welfare systems center that will be useful in diversifying the efforts of practitioners and social workers in child welfare services. From the findings, it is evident that despite all the obstacles faced by educational professionals and social service personnel, they still work hard in providing children and families with high-quality service. The systems also have rules, regulations, and structures that have hindered the professionals from attaining their intended objective that provides service to children and families. The aspect of data is important in such instances because current data has proven to be absent in the systems and this for professionals means that their hard work does not pay off on attaining high-quality practice.
The idea of incorporating practitioners and social workers has become diverse to the extent of building relationships with other professionals across child welfare systems. This has proven to be useful because such relationships build on professionals providing children and families with effective services. Notably, the community is also involved in this program as they influence the success of the whole system. Leaving out community work from child welfare services will mean that children and families cannot work together in implementing changes in their environments. Therefore, it is vital for communities to be engaged in the multicultural programs that bring a stop to racial disparity issues in Minnesota (Font, Berger & Slack, 2012).
The resources provided have restated the research problem clearly by giving directions on how professionals and social workers in child services can diversify their efforts in helping meeting the clients’ needs. It is evident because they have managed to use MCCWC programs with integrated training for the professionals in solving the problem of disparities in child services (Curry & Barbee, 2011). The research is expected to come up with solutions and strategies for use by professionals and social workers who work with child services in ensuring that children and families from ethnic communities are well catered for regarding enjoying community resources.
Methodology
The research purposes to gain an understanding of Division of Indian Work (DIW) staffs perspective on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the clients they are serving, Native Americans. Before commencing with the research methodology, consent had to be given by the University’s Human Subjects Review Board in an attempt to promote ethics and justification in research activities. The research used a qualitative approach to gather data because it has tremendous practice relevance when it comes to the field of child welfare. As such, through this approach, the DIW staff’s general thinking and feelings of ACEs are observed.
The sample consisted of 12 staff members from different age groups, gender, sexual orientations, and ethnicities all working directly with DIW clients. Therefore, ACEs questionnaires (Appendix section) were given to these staff members to answer on behalf of their clients. Therefore, the researchers did not question any client. However, there was variation concerning the number of questionnaires completed by staff members because some asserted that they had memory lapse in remembering pertinent issues of their clients. Moreover, the sensitivity and privacy of their clients prompted them to resist answering some questions.
Since the research questions explored by respondents did not offer final and conclusive solutions to existing problems in the systems (Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, 2016) interviews were also conducted to give a reflection to the staff members on what they answered in their questionnaires. Through the interview session, researchers were able to deduce the mood of their participants when answering the questions. Furthermore, the interview looked at deducing the participant’s feelings when it came to the questionnaire. Results of the interview are found in the appendix section showing the results. The team of researchers consisted of four individuals who handled three participants each, and this was 12 responses submitted.
After the interviews, all researchers came together with the aim of compiling their results, and this made them look for subtopics that would stand for each category of question. The subtopics helped researchers in identifying the similar answers given by the DIW staff members. The limitation of the research was that many participants were not available and those working directly with clients were hesitant to take part in the study.
For Native Americans and Latino Hispanics in Minnesota, aspects such as lack of employment, education, and healthcare services have huge effects on parents and children. It contributes to the disparity especially child welfare because the services not readily available. It makes them more adversely involved with child welfare systems (AdoptUSKids, 2012). Child welfare agencies should commit to providing the services either directly or even through contacts with other organizations.

Child Welfare
Annotated Bibliography
When serving the Latino families, it is wise for child welfare systems to have Spanish-speaking staff that incorporates cultural translation in their work to help minimize misunderstandings coming from communication and culture aspects (AdoptUSKids, 2012). Through the adoption of appropriate strategies, social workers and practitioners will be able to meet the multicultural aspect expected from them by child welfare systems. With the competent staff in place, the system will be confident when it concerns meeting the needs of the disproportional representation of children by race and ethnicity. Therefore, reformations conducted were geared at advancing practices that resulted in having strength-based and family-centered approaches. The high involvement rate of affiliated children and children of color in child protective services is due to their over-representation, and this has resulted in having many out-of-home placements and adoptions (DHS, 2010).
The issue of disproportionality has led authors to explore nuances present, and this has led them to look at what the children facing the obstacles go through on a daily basis (Langworthy, Robertson, & Bhakta, 2016). Therefore, the child welfare system should collaborate with other stakeholders such as practitioners and social workers to build support systems for both the organization and community. Having such support system will mean that the issue of MCCWC will be enhanced to serve the needs of children and their families (Curry & Barbee, 2011). The strategies adopted by social workers and practitioners have seen them address the issue of disproportionality and specific decision points have incorporated principles of cultural competence and biases recognition (Font, Berger & Slack, 2012). Wisconsin Department of Children and Families looks at issues of the Indian Child Welfare Act. This shows how well they cover the needs of all children facing discrimination due to their ethnicity and race (Homer & Nation, 2017).
Utility Paragraph
The selected resources offer insights on how the child welfare system can work together with social workers and practitioners in meeting the needs of multiculturalism due to disproportionality. The resources have given more emphasis to aspects of multiculturalism as they relate to the child welfare system in Minnesota.
Conclusion
The annotated bibliography has managed to meet its intended goal of bringing out the whole issue of multicultural child welfare system by looking at the useful materials when training social workers and practitioners in the system. Considering the child welfare system, various stakeholders can play a role in ensuring that quality service is delivered.


References
AdoptUSKids. (2012). Benefits for children of recruiting Latino foster and adoptive families. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nrcdr.org/_assets/files/NRCRRFAP/resources/latino-tipsheet-packet.pdf
Curry, D., & Barbee, A. P. (2011). Combating disproportionality and disparity in training and Professional Development. In D. K. Green, K. Belanger, R. G. McRoy, & L. Bullard (Eds.), Challenging racial disproportionality in child welfare: Research, policy, and practice (pp. 91–100). Washington, DC: CWLA Press.
Font, S. A., Berger, L. M., & Slack, K. S. (2012). Examining racial disproportionality in child Protective services case decisions. Children and Youth Services Review, 34, 2188-2200.
Langworthy, S., Robertson, L., & Bhakta, S. (2016). Building collaborations across child welfare and education systems.
Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS). (2010, February). Minnesota child welfare disparities report. Children and Family Services. Retrieved from http://www.mncourts.gov/Documents/0/Public/Childrens_Justice_Initiative/Disparities_-_Minnesota_Child_Welfare_Disparities_Report_%28DHS%29_%28February_2010%29.Pdf
Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. (2016). Frequently asked questions regarding the Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act. Retrieved from http://dcf.wisconsin.gov/children/icw/statsadmin/pdf/faq.pdf