Path: Child and Family Welfare

Agency and Position: Texas Department of Family and Protective Services/Family-Based Safety Services (FBSS) Caseworker

FBSS Caseworkers are designed to maintain children safely in their homes—or make it possible for children to return home—by strengthening the ability of families to protect their children and reducing threats to their safety.

When a child's safety can be reasonably assured, CPS provides in-home services to help stabilize the family and reduce the risk of future abuse or neglect. Most children receiving these services continue to live at home while CPS works with their families. In some cases, children may live elsewhere temporarily, usually with relatives or close family friends – in what is called a Parental Child Safety Placement (PCSP) – until it is safe for them to return home.

FBSS can provide a variety of services – either directly by CPS staff, through contracted services providers, or through referrals to community-based providers. Services may include, but are not limited to, family counseling, crisis intervention, substance abuse treatment, domestic violence intervention, and day care. Currently, FBSS caseworkers may also provide one-on-one parenting and homemaker skills in areas where community-based services are not available.

For the Unit 9 Assignment, you will synthesize your understanding of the theories, best practices, and current trends in human services to create a case presentation that would be used during a staffing meeting/case conference in an agency. While most of these meetings are informal, many agencies/organizations use a more formal approach. To prepare for this future job responsibility and leadership role, you will create a paper that could be used during one of these meetings. Use the paper structure below to organize the facts and recommendations for your hypothetical client.

Begin by deciding the type of agency and job that interests you, and imagine you are a professional working at this. (Note: The career planning exercises you completed for the Units 1-8 Learning Space Blog will help you with this part of the Assignment.)

Next, create a hypothetical client or use one from a prior exercise in our class. Follow the suggested structure below for writing your paper. Add relevant details and leave out minor ones that are not relevant to the client’s progress. While you will not be required to write papers for these meetings, you will be required to report this type of information and to be organized and prepared. This exercise will assist you in developing a case presentation for when you really will be making them.

Suggested Organization of Paper: use sub-headings to organize your information:

• Client name and demographics (no sub-heading)
• Presenting problem (sub-heading): What was the reason for the client enrolling in service at your agency? Be specific about the problem, but do not add many extra details by “telling the client’s story;” just write a few sentences about the problem as the client perceived it.
• Goal (sub-heading): What are the client’s main intervention/treatment goals? Be specific and add as many as you can think of that would relate to the full scope of services that your agency might provide. However, remember that clients may want to limit their goals to three goals at a time or fewer, so it is important to prioritize goals.
• Needs (sub-heading): What other needs does your client have that others in your agency might be able to provide or assist in making referrals?
• Crisis (sub-heading): Probably, your client is not currently in crisis, so you would simply report that the client is stabilized and there are no ongoing crises for the moment. If your client is in the middle of a crisis, you would briefly describe it, only giving facts that are relevant.
• Recommendations (sub-heading): This is the part of the paper (meeting) where you provide your professional opinion about the continued direction of the client’s progress, ideas for future goals, planning or strategies for helping the client, resource referrals, and any other suggestions that you must advance your client’s care. You will spend time using information from your past classes to support your prioritized recommendations, so make this one of the longest sections of your paper.

This paper should be a minimum of 6–8 pages or 1500–2000 words to respond to the sections in the case presentation. Write the paper using guidelines of Standard American English and consult the Writing Center if you have questions about grammar or format. Remember that all work must be your own and plagiarism is not tolerated. Be sure to review the plagiarism policy in your syllabus. References are not required; however, any citations for scholarly academic references to support of your recommendations should be in APA format, including the addition of a reference page.