“Family friendly” programs such as Intensive Family Preservation Services and Differential Response (DR) – or Family Assessment as it is known in Minnesota – have dominated child welfare since the 1970’s.
Supporters of these programs have said that these parent-centered practices are a needed corrective to child protection workers’ historic disrespect of parents, especially parents of color. But, as Hughes and Rycus have shown (p. 13), assertions of pervasive caseworker arrogance have never been substantiated.
Pro-parent advocates also argue that child protection will work better if parents engage cooperatively in services. The obvious dilemma is that most parents don’t want child protection services. So, as Kathryn Piper demonstrated unsurprisingly in her 2019 meta-analyses of DR research, uptake of voluntary DR services has been quite low, particularly for substance abuse.
Realistically, protecting children will require parents to accept some child protection services involuntarily.
Listen to this blog post as well as our in-depth commentary, in this week’s podcast.