Beyond CPS: Building a System to Protect the Safety and Basic Development of Children Experiencing Problematic Parenting

Abstract

The role and scope of non-voluntary state intervention to protect children from “maltreatment” has been debated for the last 50 years. In the 1970s, many states actually narrowed the definitions of maltreatment. Yet, over the past fifty years, there has been a substantial increase in state monitoring and regulating of parents by child protection agencies (CPS). Recent studies indicate that over one-third (37.4%) of all children have been investigated by a CPS agency at least once by age 18; a majority of African American children are reported to CPS at some point in their childhood.

There is consensus that current policies and services regarding maltreatment are not meeting the needs of many children. Given the failures of past reform efforts, there is a movement for substantially limiting the jurisdiction of CPS. Some commentators call for abolishing CPS entirely, which is seen as reflecting racial bias at its core, harming the children it seeks to help, undermining poor communities, and functioning in negative ways that are not amenable to reform.

In this chapter, I discuss the reasons why CPS intervention should be limited to situations involving parental behaviors that cause or threaten severe harm and may be repeated. These constitute less than twenty percent of the cases now seen by CPS. Reducing the role of CPS should not, however, reduce efforts to help families where the parents are unable to provide the types of parenting needed to protect and promote the basic emotional and social development of children The chapter proposes a new system for helping parents and protecting children in most of the situations now referred to CPS, one that offers a full range of services to promote positive parenting and help parents facing barriers to providing adequate parenting. It concludes by examining a range of issues that must be addressed in designing a new system and the substantial challenges in implementing a system that truly helps parents and children.

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