What makes a good cps worker

They may be enormous, life-changing events such as adoption, that you have been instrumental in progressing. They will mostly be small shifts or changes that you never thought possible. The parent who has started to take her child to nursery, the mother who came to one last contact, the family that came to court without tracksuits on on your advice.

They are all small things that make a difference to outcomes, and if you decide to stay in this role, make sure you allow yourself mental space to consider the outcomes you achieve. It will preserve your sense of self-efficacy and spur you on. The learning and development hub is funded by Skills for Care. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature.

Find out more here. Leadership, learning and development in social care Social Care Network. Victoria Gent, principal social worker for children and families at Lancashire county council. Wed 1 Oct You will not be bored No two days will ever be the same. What you will learn about yourself The physical and emotional demands placed on you will highlight levels of personal resilience and skill that you never knew you had, or were capable of. Child protective services CPS caseworkers investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect for their county or state CPS agency.

They typically work with law enforcement officers during the course of their investigations. According to "Child Protective Services: A Guide for Caseworkers," a caseworker's main focus is to determine whether a child is safe and whether there is a risk of future maltreatment. Caseworkers also offer services to aid children who have been abused or neglected as well as to their families.

Abuse may be physical, sexual, or emotional. Neglect is the failure to provide food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, or supervision. Caseworkers may get burned out on their work because they encounter many people with difficult problems and they may feel they aren't able to make a difference.

Some caseworkers are able to continue in the job for a long period of time by taking heart in the small victories they achieve and by focusing on the help they provide. This job generally requires the ability to do the following tasks:. Caseworkers keep families together if possible. If they determine children need to be removed from a home for their own safety, caseworkers look to place them with an extended family member or someone else in the same community.

Caseworkers aim to reduce the trauma neglected or abused children experience. They also act to provide the person or people who have harmed the children with the services and support they need to end the abuse or neglect. Caseworkers may find themselves in dangerous situations while confronting people they believe to have harmed children. They also are called on to testify in court proceedings and may help prepare the case against the abusive person or people. The U.

Bureau of Labor Statistics BLS does not compile statistics specifically for child protective services caseworkers, but it does for the similar job of social worker.

Source: U. Bureau of Labor Statistics , CPS caseworkers have at least a bachelor's degree, often in social work or psychology, and sometimes a master's degree in social work. The child typically goes to a foster home as counseling begins. While the goal of the CPS worker is to be able to reunite the child with their family after intensive counseling, they also begin to develop a concurrent plan.

This means seeking out a safe adoptive home for the child. CPS workers are very educated on seeing the signs of child abuse and neglect, and they know how to respond to every unique situation. So when a child is deemed to be at immediate risk of abuse, the CPS worker will take the child from their home and place them with a foster family. Workers then begin counseling the family, in hopes of reuniting the child and parents.

However, when the family is uncooperative or does not seem to make progress, CPS will coordinate a new home for the child. CPS has several basic philosophical tenets that their workers follow. These are as follows: The best place for a child to grow up is in a safe and permanent home.

When adequately supported, most parents can be good parents.