The latest issue of KidsPeace's award-winning publication, Healing Magazine™, is now available online. Visitors to KidsPeace.org or HealingMagazine.org may now read the latest articles online or download a pdf of entire the issue. The special focus of this issue is "Child Welfare Reforms," and there are several articles that both inform the reader and at the same time raise raise thought-provoking questions. Read an excerpt from this new issue:
Child Welfare and Children’s
Mental Health Services:A Decade of Transformation
By Ken Olson, LCPC, Executive
Director, KidsPeace National Centers of New England
The line between “child welfare services” and “children’s
mental health services” has never been particularly clear. In general, policy
makers, bureaucrats and service providers all agree that there is substantial
overlap among the populations of children and families that need these
services. Common sense and research both tell us that children who are victims
of abuse or neglect are more likely to have mental health needs than those who
are not. Similarly, children with mental health problems often live in family
situations that can benefit from a range of child welfare prevention and
intervention programs. It might not even be too glib to say that deeming a
program to be a “mental health service” or a “child welfare service” is
sometimes determined as much by the nature and requirements of the funding
source as anything else.
In the most recent decade, both of these have undergone
significant transformations: Underlying philosophies have been questioned, and
new paradigms have emerged. Providers of these services to children and
adolescents have scrambled to adapt, to differentiate “fad” from “trend” and to
remain true to organizational mission, vision and values. The changes have
been, at times, tumultuous, with mature agencies going out of business and new
agencies and new models of care growing and disappearing rapidly. Other new
models have become a new standard of excellence, with long-standing providers
of one service in one location adapting and diversifying into multi-service,
multi-state and multi-regional providers. While there has been loss, there has
also been a real opportunity to better serve children and families with new and
more effective strategies and interventions. >>> Read More >>>