- Darcey H. Merritt
- September 2021
- Focus-on-Poverty-372b
- Link to Focus-on-Poverty-37-2b (PDF)
- Link to Focus-on-Poverty-Classroom-Supplement-37-2 (PDF)
Darcey Merritt of New York University considers links between families with lived experience of child welfare system interaction and associated parental behaviors and decision-making among mothers in New York City. Merritt provides interview-based data and analysis from the important perspective of CPS-impacted families. Direct insights from CPS-impacted parents are rarely considered by agency administrators, researchers, or policymakers; this line of inquiry may help to create more efficient avenues of understanding and communication as well as more effective policy.
Takeaways
- Parents’ lived experiences of CPS involvement are under-reported yet vital in making efforts to decrease stigmatizing service delivery for those referred for child maltreatment, particularly neglect.
- Parenting choices are directly related to differences in resource-rich or resource-poor settings, both inside and out of the home.
- Scholars have rarely considered the links between families’ lived experiences of child welfare system oversight and associated parental behaviors and decision-making.
- Every child and parent impacted by CPS involvement is subject to varying levels of stress and trauma related to the system’s inherently intrusive nature.
Categories
Child Maltreatment & Child Welfare System, Children, Family & Partnering, Inequality & Mobility, Parenting, Racial/Ethnic Inequality
Tags
Child Protective Services (CPS), Mothers, Pilot Study, Qualitative Research, Race/Ethnicity