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CFS Team Contributes to Child Welfare League of America's Publication on COVID-19 and Child Welfare

COVID-19 and Child Welfare: Challenges and Responses

 

Anna Davidson Abella, PhD, Flandra Ismajli, and Linda M. Callejas, PhD have contributed an essay collection of the Child Welfare League of America's publication COVID-19 and Child Welfare: Challenges and Responses. The publication includes essays by human services professionals, academics, legal experts, child welfare practitioners, and others as they discuss the challenges, significant developments, and innovations resulting from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the child welfare field—including how communities are exposing and addressing difficulties, reawakening a sense of connectedness, and taking the steps needed to advance the goals of the CWLA National Blueprint for Excellence in Child Welfare.

The essay by Abella, Ismajli and Callejas, Exploring the Potential Benefits of Virtual Child Welfare Services, explores the implementation of remote services for families awaiting reunification with children placed in alternate care settings. They draw on perspectives from parents and stakeholders involved in family reunification using remote services, gathered through a rapid ethnographic assessment (REA) conducted between March and June 2020. Based on their findings, they suggest that a hybrid model of service delivery may harness the benefits of virtual innovations in service access while also ensuring protection of parental rights and child safety. They also call for more research on the effects of remote service delivery on vulnerable families is needed.