Child services exist to protect children in the society, they protect them from abuse, problems, danger, and they also provide them with some basic needs and necessities that each child may lack.
There is no doubt that child services have saved the lives of many children. They protect children and take them away from abusive environment and abusive people, and taking them away might mean that the child or children has been saved from death. Child services has also helped a lot of children from growing up in a wrong environment or with people that can have negative impact on children, imagine a man sending a 5 year old boy on an errand to buy cigarettes and other harmful things who knows, the boy might end up taking that cigarette without knowing if it is the right or wrong thing to do. Taking him away to a foster home or a welfare center has actually done a good impact than bad for the boy.
However, there are concerns about how these agencies operate especially when it comes to taking away a child from his or her family leading to a broken home.
Sometimes the reason children are taken away from their families is not just based on the fact that they are being abused or neglected sometimes it can be due to poverty,cultural misunderstanding or in some cases due to report heard from a third party and sometimes the report aren't always entirely true.
If children are separated from their families due to the reasons stayed above then it can lead to a broken home and can even be traumatic for the families. Imagine a struggling woman with two kids and then all of a sudden, those working with child services comes to take her kids away from her just because a third party said the children are not being fed well and the mother is not responsible, the incident can be so traumatic for the woman it can even put the woman in a more dangerous situation.
And instead of addressing the root cause which is lack of resources,families are penalized instead because they are poor
Is there a better way?
Yes there are better ways and it starts with a more compassionate and better way of approach. Child services shouldn't only listen to what third party has to say but instead they should really know and watch the families by themselves, they shouldn't just go and hijack kids from their parents.
Food should be provided, good housing and financial assistance to struggling families. Conduction of a thorough investigation before coming to a conclusion on taking a child away from a family. They can also provide parental education and awareness to teach parents on how to raise and treat their children right.
At the end, prevention is better than cure, helping families before problems arise is still the best option.
Child services goal should never just be to remove children from their parents but to support families to become safe and healthy places to raise their children.
The image used in this blog was gotten from Canva