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Family-Centered Services are provided to families which either voluntarily ask for them or who are determined to be in need of them after a family assessment. Depending on the nature of the service, they are either provided by the Children’s Division or purchased from community agencies. The Children’s Division augments its services by having a specialized case treatment plan whose main objective is to help the family unit sustainably change the conditions that brought them to the Division’s attention, and thereafter provide adequate care for their children. This falls in with the overall goal of any family centered service of improving the family unit for the well-being of the children (Jay).
Family-Centered Services fill in a niche often left out by other children protection programs. Most other programs are reactive- often investigating cases of mistreatments that have already happened, or working to provide out-of-home care for children who have already been mistreated. Family-Centered Services, however, caters for the preventive measures, foreseeing and mitigating family disasters before they occur, and assisting in the overall stabilization of the family unit. The approach is also family-based rather than the government or otherwise external approach sponsored by the other children protection programs. This approach has two main execution routes: family support and the family preservation avenues. Family support is applied to normal families trying to cope with normal parenting stresses. Family preservation is given to those units facing serious problems (Jacquelyn).
The working of Family Centered Services is a balance between the integrity of the family unit, and fundamental rights of children. The understanding is that ideally, the family is the best atmosphere to raise the children. In this respect, the family has a right to a fair access to resources needed to raise the children. The family also has a right to privacy, unless this privacy is abused at the expense of the children. The fundamental rights of the children dictate the parental obligations to their children. They also dictate a child’s basic rights like the right to socialize, have a sense of belonging, and an access to opportunities. Any child at risk of being denied these basic rights can be assisted by the intervention of the wider society (Jacquelyn).
Due to the complexities and subjectivities involved in the very working of any Family-Centered Service, some basic foundations have been elected as guidelines. The overriding principle common to all such services is that the family should ultimately get empowered, together with the children. An open communication channel should always be provided through which honesty, trust and respect are maintained between the service provider and the family unit. All decisions made must involve the understanding and consent of the family members. The continued working of the service providers should always focus on identifying family concerns, while simultaneously determining family strengths and weaknesses. Throughout, effort should be made to utilize local community assistance before resulting in professional, formal help. Ultimately, the solution crafted by the service provider should be custom-made for the particular family unit in question, fitting and satisfying all its unique needs (IOWA).
All in all, Family Centered Services work towards the preservation and improvement of the basic unit of society: the family. Their work has been built on the principle that they should never be unnecessarily invasive- they should ideally be more influential than manipulative. Through this mode of operation, Family Centered Services have helped maintain a great many family units, and save a whole lot more units in danger of disintegration. Of course, their subjective approach makes it hard to determine just how effective they are, but their influence in the modern family setups can not be denied.
Works Cited
Jay Nixon: Missouri Department of Social Services- Children’s Division: Family-Centered Services. 2009. Web.
IOWA: Family-Centered Services: Guiding Principles and Practices for Providing Family-Centered Services 2004. 2009. Web.
Jacquelyn McCroskey and William Meezan: Family-Centered Services: Approaches and Effectiveness 2006. 2009. Web.
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