Running head: ALTERNATIVES RESPONSES 1

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Alternatives Responses to CPS Investigations
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 ALTERNATIVES RESPONSES 2

Alternatives Responses to CPS Investigations

Alternative child response is a government-based institution that plays a vital role in

offering child protective services. Among these services, the agencies are tasked with

determining child abuse cases, mediating situations, and investigating maltreatment cases among

children across different states in the US. Besides, the alternative child response insists on the

importance of assessing the family situations believed to have underlying factors that influence

child safety in making sure a conducive environment for children is achieved. Moreover, these

alternative responses play a critical role in allowing the change in response direction that helps

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the agencies understand how to navigate the new emerging evidence that risks child safety.

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Mississippi like any state have varied alternative response in place that are tasked in providing

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the children with the much-needed safety. the agencies determine the case of low risk through
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services intervention and high-risk cases of children maltreatment that has been neglected which
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the AR provides the platforms of helping such families in the state.

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As stated earlier, different states have different approaches to the child's alternative

response, which are derived based on the risks involved. For instance, in Mississippi's case, the
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number of track options aimed at determining the type of response is more elaborate to cover all
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aspects of child abuse. Statistics from the child welfare department in the state indicate that child
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abuse is far higher than that of the country. According to State Fact Sheet: Mississippi. (2016), its
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statistical figure put the Mississippi at 9.6% higher than that of the country, which is 9.3%

maltreatment of children. The state of Mississippi has made strides in addressing child
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maltreatment by adopting an alternative response system. Through the 1997 Mississippi

children's justice act, legislated under the federal government effort, several informed approaches

have been adopted to address the statewide child abuse (Division of Family and Children's

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 ALTERNATIVES RESPONSES 3

Services, the State of Mississippi, and Department of Human Services, 2011). the developed

task force operating under the Children's Justice act of the Mississippi state is responsible for

improving response systems to streamlining how child maltreatment is dealt with through AR.

Besides, in Mississippi, different approaches in child mistreatment levels are applied in

categorizing children. For instance, a victim child reported deposition adopted contains less than

one maltreatment levels classified into AR victims that indicate and substantiate cases. In this

case, the AR systems adopted focuses on responding to the non-adversarial way of child abuse

cases. The Mississippi framework on AR is set to investigate the cases relating to child abuse

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without faulting perpetrators or the victims(Herbert & Bromfield, 2017). Their main focus is to

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deal with child abuse issues from a broader perspective to solve family problems. Though the

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Mississippi State AR is well designed, child welfare programs face varied challenges reported in
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child abuse, especially food insecurity. In specific cases, the child abuse scenario in the state has
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overly invasive, leading to no viable permanent solution being offered to families in question.
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Seemingly, the state of Mississippi, like other states, offers alternate response systems

that add flexibility, especially on child protection agencies' response. With this in place, AR in
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the area agencies responds to child abuse by offering an effective way to engage with the family
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in question. For instance, during the intake process, the screened cases are given profound
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evaluations to ascertain child safety and risk concerns(Kim, Wildeman, Jonson-Reid & Drake,
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2017). The state then, through its agencies, handles the cases presented through AR or the

investigation process. Besides, the state applies set referrals track resources available in their
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designed AR in dealing with cases that may not meet the set screening criteria in Mississippi. In

such a scenario, the cases are handled without necessarily opening the formal AR rather than

community services.

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 ALTERNATIVES RESPONSES 4

After an AR has been selected, the agencies involved with child protection contact the

caregivers to inform them of the alleged concern. To achieve this, Mississippi State AR ensures

specific standard criteria for safety assessment are adhered to in evaluating the child's risk

position. During the family assessment response stage, there are no possibilities of triggering

allegations in the disposition report(Herbert & Bromfield, 2017). In such an incident, the accused

parents, in most cases, are not named or branded the name of the perpetrator since there is the

belief that such case has not been placed in the state registry, which is mandatory to qualify them

as suspects. Once the child safety assessment report does not place the child in question is a

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dangerous state, the parents or guardians can decide whether they will participate in the process.

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The intervention programs on the victims aim to solve the consequences of child abuse of

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physical and psychological problems. These interventions involve victimization, strengthening
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social support networks, and increasing self-esteem among the victims, guaranteeing adequate
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solutions to the child abuse problems when adequately addressed. The task can be achieved by
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channeling through trained professionals' intervening services, i.e., prosecutors, activists, and

psychologists. Looking at these scenarios, they have been common, especially in the military.
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The federal government has adopted a family advocacy program to help children and families
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face child abuse cases (Herbert & Bromfield, 2017). The program is more common, like those

applied by both Mississippi, Kansas, and Virginia states. Education programs, especially for
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investigators and parents on how to navigate, have been given priority. Besides, as researchers

put forward, the programs provide parents with more skills after counseling services and varied
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financial assistance, especially in transports.

However, the scenario is different in the State of Kansas. Here, investigators play an

integral role in deliberating on how and where the data involving child abuse as presented in the

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 ALTERNATIVES RESPONSES 5

case will be collected. Those who will be responsible for the collection and how it will be

captured, safeguarded, and archived. Critical answers to food security and family income also

change based on the case. Besides, the survey tool used by trained detectives mandated to deal

with child protection is highly screened. Moreover, the interviewing training manuals that

usually accompany the training tools are incorporated during the process, making their AR more

unique, which are different as compared to those in Mississippi. Unlike in Mississippi State, in

Kansas, investigators consider how effective it is to transfer completed questions that do not

infringe the confidentiality from the point of data entry.

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For the Virginia state case, the investigation tools used must be ethically approved,

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usually achieved through writing by a formal set committee. In other words, investigators must

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obtain formal ethical approval usually provided by the county's research ethics committee before
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the commencement of information gathering. In this case, the committee is tasked with
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reviewing the presented protocol(Kim et al., 2017). Data gathering to provide consent to the
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provided investigation forms. In addition to the existing institutional ethics, Virginia State

advocates for child protection agencies; investigators seek department written approval before
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data collection. The investigators in this state also discuss and document all information
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regarding child protection procedures in relation to the investigation, which is also applied in

Mississipi. In this process, the vetting of investigators tasked with collecting child protection
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data, monitoring, and training are involved. In essence, the Virginia state requires that the

investigator reports child abuse whenever they hear about the situation, making sure the child in
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question is made aware of the exception to confidentiality.

Like any other state, Mississippi can carry out various AR measures to improve their

effectiveness to meet the children's needs. First, program staff and decision-makers in the

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 ALTERNATIVES RESPONSES 6

designed child protective agencies can use the available child abuse data and statistics, program

design, resource allocation, and advocacy in mobilizing the required resources. This data will

present the needs of the population in question(Douglas, 2016). For instance, if the agencies take

a representative sample of the beneficiary and have analogous data from earlier stages of the

program, the differences achieved will be valuable in providing the indicators' levels in the

progressive change. Besides, the agencies should be able to check and detect risk factors in each

case to make it possible to identify the major cause of sexual assault within the family.

Secondly, Mississippi child protective agencies should enforce the set guideline to raise

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awareness of the type of treatment offered to the victims. One of Mississippi's biggest problems

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is the lack of implementation of parameters or instruments that gives the investigators the ability

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to evaluate the possible significant causes of the rimes in each case presented(Douglas, 2016).
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Therefore, it is valuable for the agencies in this state to develop tools to improve the
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management to fast-track the set objectives' achievement. In most cases, the risk matrix that
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should be prioritized is settling the risks usually detected in the cases, i.e., forms, effects, and

indicators collected during the agencies' investigation process.

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 ALTERNATIVES RESPONSES 7

References

Douglas, E. (2016). Testing if social services prevent fatal child maltreatment among a sample of

children previously known to child protective services. Child Maltreatment, 21(3), 239-

249. doi:10.1177/1077559516657890

Herbert, J., & Bromfield, L. (2017). Better together? A review of the evidence for multi-

disciplinary teams responding to physical and sexual child abuse. Trauma, Violence, &

Abuse, 152483801769726. doi:10.1177/1524838017697268

Kim, H., Wildeman, C., Jonson-Reid, M., & Drake, B. (2017). Lifetime prevalence of

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investigating child maltreatment among US children. American Journal of Public

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Health, 107(2), 274-280. doi:10.2105/ajph.2016.303545

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State Fact Sheet: Mississippi. (2016). Retrieved from https://caseyfamilypro-wpengine.netdna-
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ssl.com/media/state-data-sheet-MS.pdf
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