Intensive Family Based Services Essay

The study carried out by Raschick (1997) offered a keen input on how to create family preservation services and enhanced choice for families in opposition to out of home placements, stating that ‘the information proposed that IFBS (Intensive Family Based Services) services lessened average restrictiveness and extent of out-of-home placements. ’ Still, there are a number of researches that has very short-range, study-focused outcomes that has no long term assurance, picking out the direction that the three sides being argued in this paper is a part of the managing a cruel cycle which is neither stepladder arrangement nor cause and effect, only directed by conditions taking place on a case per case basis. While systematic Family Preservation Services (FPS) was associated vis-a-vis to the enrichment in substantiated reports relating to exploitation and out-of-home placements because of, as Littell imagines in Children and Youth Services Review, case-finding consequences given that FPS contact prioritized cases is considered as high-risk. , ‘the duration, extent, strength of family preservation services had small effect on succeeding youngster maltreatment, out-of-home placement, or the closing of cases’ (Littell, 1997). Extending the scope – is there more to out of home placements and its being used in juvenile delinquency reduction? Juvenile delinquency, as a problem, presents several courses of action which can be explored to combat juvenile delinquency, and two of the several options are sitting at both ends of the social order pole: family preservation efforts and out of home placements. It has a very tyrannical tone in it, as if the government is saying that ‘if you cannot stick together, we will pull you apart. ’ Some do not have a clear cut, black and white clarification on how to keep citizens from stepping within the gray part. Some claim ‘that family preservation agendas bring about substantial decline in the placement of children are based fundamentally on non-experimental studies’ (Littell, Schuerman, 1995), and this is just one of the many cynical or / and critical voices speaking out and representing the greater part of the social behavior discipline that needs a more clear cut answer on where each foot stands in the issue that has continued to threaten homes when it is not inquiring its reliability and firmness to stay together and work competently, contributing optimistically to the the community without the imposition of state- sanctioned procedures. Littell and Schuerman (1995) upped the stake with their disagreement, adding up the learning that ‘there is little solid attestation that programs planned at preventing out-of-home placements or reunifying families with the youth in foster care have the predictable outcomes. ’ Indeed, one of the pressing concerns that should be answered if there are hopes in being able to define what constitutes success and failure in out of home placement programs, juvenile delinquency programs and family preservation programs and how these three agendas are linked with each other (if not, then by designing allowing each to step on another’s foot on purpose) it should depend on the identification of the exact parameters that will dictate success or failure of any program, and the intended affects of each program should be clear to anyone and everyone involved so that the formulation of what was achieved should be in line with what the programs are designed to accomplish in the first place. â€Å"These conclusions do not inevitably mean that thorough family preservation services are weakening, but that researchers and practitioners must recognize that the purpose of services is to assist families attain basic goals and skills needed to keep a child at home, not to attempt to make major changes in family performance† (Wells, Whittington,1993). The trouble may also be intensified by the fact that actions taken by persons who are openly involved in the categorization of out of home placement, family preservation indicators and juvenile delinquency disregard the stipulated characteristics of each of the three areas of discussion and generating more gray and puzzling areas since there are no alternatives provided for or by researchers on how to enumerate or evaluate disparities from conventional behavioral patterns that makes the classification more complicated, success or failure of any of the three. This was the position of Wells and Whittington (1993) who stated that children who are not formally subjected to relationship or non-kinship out of home placements yet still travel from house to house disqualifies it as being measured as family preservation, noting how researchers, as a substitute, give importance on the constancy of a child’s living arrangement; ‘if a child moves from home to home, but avoids placement, the researchers argue that this does not constitute family preservation’ (Wells, Whittington,1993) and adding that ‘out-of-home placement is an inadequate indicator of how well children and their families are functioning after discharge, because child placement may be a result of a large number of factors, like the child or family’s mental health’ (Wells, Whittington,1993). Still, some study shows some positive signs from any one of the three interlinked areas. The study using the Emergency Family Care Program in Northern California to address the out of home placement problems of truly high-risk families yielded a result of ‘eighty-eight percent placement prevention rate found after one year (1985) of treatment’ (Berry, 1994). III. Quantitative and qualitative approaches – how each differ in impact in previous studies and in this paper’s objectives Different studies pertaining to out of home placements and juvenile delinquency cases take different routes, and while research designs, both quantitative and qualitative are unquestionably both generally accepted approach in which data is taken out from the focus groups and, it should also be put in proper perspective that both qualitative and quantitative study styles undoubtedly yield important when used in studying juvenile delinquency and out of home placement and other juvenile delinquency alternative solutions simply because either of the two can provide either a means by which crucial statistical information can be obtained or first hand individual sentiments are determined, sentiments, feelings or emotions that can represent a prevailing emotion residing in the realms of the issue this paper wishes to address. There are researches that provided quantitative output which can be key references in understanding the intricacies of the study focus. A very good example is the identification of Potocky and McDonald of the figures pertinent in determining which among the families with regards to number of children have a higher rate of sending the kids to foster care, pointing out that those with an average of 4. 8 children have higher chances of sending the children to foster care while those with an average 2. 6 children have a greater chance of staying together.