Deck 10: Protecting Children: Child Protection Proceedings

Question 1

In 1601, Elizabethan poor laws established

A) Local, public responsibility for those unable to care for themselves
B) The responsibility of the church for the homeless, poor, and wayward
C) Responsibility of private citizens to care for not only their own families, but for fellow citizens
D) The legalization of child labor

Answer 1

Local, public responsibility for those unable to care for themselves

Question 2

One method of "helping" the homeless children in the mid and late 19th century was

A) To pl ace them in orphanages, both in the city and in urban settings
B) To ship children to western farm families who valued them for their labor
C) Envelope them into the church community where they became apprentices to priests and monks
D) None of these

Answer 2

To ship children to western farm families who valued them for their labor

Question 3

The New York law in 1875 preventing cruelty to children was novel because

A) It made public welfare departments responsible for child protection
B) It asserted the superiority the child's claim to protection over the parent's right to raise the child as the parent saw fit
C) Mandate that physicians, upon suspicion of child abuse, report such findings to the government or state officials
D) It obliterated the legalization of child labor

Answer 3

It asserted the superiority the child's claim to protection over the parent's right to raise the child as the parent saw fit

Question 4

The federal child abuse treatment act of 1974

A) Was an awareness program, educating the public about the prevention of and the prevalence of child abuse
B) Mandated child protective service investigations upon suspect of child abuse
C) Encouraged states to develop reporting laws and hotlines
D) Created shelters and free one on one counseling services fore abused children.

Question 5

"Family preservation policy" refers to

A) The requirement of the state to make reasonable efforts to prevent the placement of children into foster care and to return children to their families when placed out of their homes
B) the requirement of the state to fully investigate abuse accusations, making strong efforts to prevent unjustified removal from the home
C) The requirement of the state to prevent the injury or death of a child by sending a CPS worker to the home on a routine basis to monitor family behavior and interaction, looking for signs of abuse
D) All of these

Question 6

In order for a CPS worker to remove a child from the home, in a non- emergency situation, meaning, there is no immediate risk to the child, he or she

A) Must return in 14 days and monitor the living situation again and if there are signs of abuse the CPS worker can remove the child
B) Can remove the child immediately from the house if there is suspicion of abuse
C) Must seek a court order to remove the child
D) Cannot remove the child under any circumstances

Question 7

When a child abuse case is indicted (there is some credible evidence to substantiate maltreatment), there is a program for parents, which when they participate in it they avoid a hearing in family court. This program

A) Can only be enforced upon the parents by a CPS worker
B) Can only be enforced upon the parents by the court
C) Can only be forced if the child wants it to take place
D) The parents cannot be forced to enter into a treatment program by anyone. It is strictly voluntary

Question 8

One criticism of CPS is

A) workers don't stay with CPS long enough to develop expertise
B) many case workers presume that the child is being abused and the parents are falsely accused
C) The case workers are lazy and incompetent
D) All of the above
E) A and B only

Question 9

Therapists are distressed by the idea of mandatory reporting of a patient's disclosure of sexual abuse or rape because

A) Client treatment becomes more stressful for the therapist
B) They believe that placing a child in a less adequate foster care system makes the child a double victim
C) Therapists fear that the client will drop out of treatment if a report is made
D) All of the above

Question 10

In a trial pertaining to sexual abuse, the child who has allegedly been abused

A) Is required to appear in court and give a testimony to the court about the abuse
B) Is required to give a testimony to the non-abusive parent and have him or her testify in the child's place
C) Can tell someone else about the abuse and have him or her testify in court instead of the child
D) Is required to be present in the courtroom during the proceeding, but can choose to have someone else go to the stand and testify in his or her place.

Question 11

As specifically mentioned in the article, all of these are possible symptoms of child abuse except

A) Sleep and eating disturbances
B) Shame
C) Delinquent behavior
D) Running away from home

Question 12

Sometimes when a judge discovers that a parent has abused the, the abuser is ordered into treatment. Once in the treatment program, confidentiality

A) Is limited
B) Is full and guaranteed
C) Is non-existent
D) Is not an issue that is addressed either way

Question 13

How effective is involuntary treatment of the parent in child abuse cases? If the treatment is involuntary, will the parents really be willing to change, or are they there just to go through the motions and avoid a family court hearing?

Question 14

Is it accurate to have another person testify in child's place? Could this person misinterpret info? What about biasing?

Question 15

Trace the historical development of child protective services in the United States.

Question 16

Identify the standard of proof and the burden of proof at each stage of child protection from initial report by a mandated reporter to termination of parental rights.

Question 17

What problems do Child Protective Services workers face in making decisions about the initial screening of child abuse and neglect?

Question 18

What research evidence is available on the reporting practices of mandated reporters?

Question 19

What is meant by hearsay and how does it fit in hearings on child abuse in the family court?

Question 20

Sgroi, Porter, and Blick's (1982) identified twenty behaviors thought to be found in child victims of sexual abuse. What problems exist with these identified behaviors?

Question 21

Child protection laws are based on the state's

A) parens patriae powers
B) police powers
C) power to create useless liberal programs
D) power to cater to conservative political interests

Question 22

Child protection laws were adopted

A) when children in poverty were well cared for by faith based social service organizations
B) in order to be able to intervene legally when children were poorly treated by caretakers in their own homes
C) large numbers of homeless children lived comfortably in public housing
D) conservative politicians wanted to intervene in family life

Question 23

Child protective services were organized

A) before services to protect animals were in existence
B) before organized charitable services were in existence
C) after services to protect animals were in existence
D) after services and laws to prohibit child labor were in existence

Question 24

The battered child syndrome was

A) identified by police and prosecutors under their police power
B) accepted by physicians, but for a long time received no public attention
C) characterized by signs of injury discovered by the police when arresting a parent
D) characterized by signs of multiple injuries inflicted at different times

Question 25

Mandatory reporting laws require physicians and others to report to child protection authorities

A) only evidence of the battered child syndrome
B) suspected child maltreatment
C) parents who drink heavily or who use drugs whether or not they have children
D) only physical abuse, but not neglect or emotional abuse

Question 26

Mandatory reporting laws were believed to be necessary

A) because physicians wouldn't report because of patients' rights to confidentiality
B) because some had difficulty believing a parent would deliberately harm a child
C) a) but not b)
D) both a) and b)

Question 27

The police

A) have no role in child abuse because there is now a child protection agency
B) refuse to work with child protection authorities because it would compromise prosecution of child abuse as a crime
C) sometimes accompany child protection workers in potentially dangerous neighborhoods when it is necessary to visit the home
D) encounter potential cases of child abuse in the course of their work, but have no responsibility to make a report to child protection authorities.

Question 28

Since the child protection laws have been in existence,

A) cases involving 906,000 children were investigated in one year and there was sufficient evidence to support a determination of maltreatment
B) very few reports of suspected child maltreatment are made, showing that advocates exaggerated the level of need to pass the laws
C) terminology and procedures have become standardized from state to state allowing precise comparisons of numbers
D) none of the above

Question 29

The number of children in foster care

A) declined because the community had many resources to care for children who had been sexually abused
B) grew as the number of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect grew
C) declined because the federal government sharply reduced its support to the states for foster care
D) grew because more parents were uninterested in raising their children

Question 30

Originally, foster care was meant to

A) provide care for children whose parents just wanted the state to provide temporary respite from the rigors or child care
B) be a system for finding adoptive parents for children who were orphans
C) be a temporary expedient to care for children when parents were ill
D) provide state funds to the federal government to help care for children

Question 31

Because of the way children enter the foster care system

A) the need for mental health services and medical care is much reduced
B) many stay in care just a few months and are served by those professionals who served them while they were in their own homes
C) almost all children are returned to their parents' care within a few months
D) they and their families have needs for mental health and social services while the children are in care and to prepare for the child's return to the home.

Question 32

A child in foster care

A) is under the custody of the department of social services which is responsible for finding and supervising foster home parents
B) no longer has any relationship to the family court which determined the child was abused or neglected
C) stays in care for a term of years fixed by the family court judge
D) cannot "age out" but remains in foster care until he or she is well established in a job or in higher education

Question 33

Once a child is placed in foster care

A) the child must remain in the same foster home until he or she is returned to the parents or is adopted
B) the child may be moved from foster home to foster home for administrative reasons, or because of further abuse affecting the child's ability to develop attachments
C) foster parents must develop a reunification plan to return the child to the parents
D) another child in foster care must be discharged to keep the number in care constant for funding purposes

Question 34

Once a child is placed in foster care

A) almost all are adopted within a short time
B) the child is immediately eligible for adoption if under age 16
C) parental rights must be terminated for permanent neglect by a court before the child can be adopted
D) the child is supervised by the foster parent until the foster parent can find an adoptive home for the child

Question 35

The family preservation policy requires social serviced departments to

A) refuse to return children who are in foster care to their parents unless authorities are certain the parents won't further harm the child
B) refuse to work with parents who have abused or neglected their children until the parents show true motivation to preserve their family
C) observe closely parents who are suspected of abusing or neglecting their children in order to remove the child as quickly as possible to prevent harm to the child
D) make reasonable efforts to keep children in their own homes or to return children to their own homes if they had been placed in foster care

Question 36

The Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in order to

A) recognize traditional Native American child-rearing practices in which a child may live with different family members over time and not be homeless
B) reduce the degree to which non-Indian foster parents would alienate the child from his or her culture
C) make sure testimony is heard from someone familiar with Indian culture before the child can be removed from his or her home and placed in foster care
D) achieve all of the above

Question 37

Cases of child abuse are

A) primarily processed through the child protection system
B) primarily processed through the criminal justice system in order to punish as many child abusers as possible
C) are primarily processed through the criminal justice system because the family is more likely to receive help with its problems
D) almost always referred for criminal prosecution even when handled by the child protection system

Question 38

Reports of suspected child abuse and neglect are called into a hotline

A) professionals who are mandated reporters
B) parents, relatives and friends of the child's family
C) anonymously
D) all of the above

Question 39

The majority of reports of suspected child maltreatment made to a hotline are about

A) strangers who abuse children in the street
B) neglect (leaving a child alone, failing to provide food, shelter or medical care)
C) serious physical injury to a battered child
D) emotional or sexual abuse

Question 40

The standard of proof for substantiating a case of child maltreatment in the child protection system is

A) the strong standard of some credible evidence
B) the strong standard of beyond a reasonable doubt
C) the weak standard of some credible evidence
D) the weak standard of privileged evidence

Question 41

If a case is substantiated during the child protective service investigation, the child protective service worker will

A) order the parent into a treatment program
B) immediately remove the child from the home
C) engage a Court Appointed Special Advocate to help the family
D) offer a treatment program which a parent can voluntarily accept.

Question 42

A child protection case may be referred to family court if

A) the parent doesn't cooperate with the treatment plan the worker offered
B) the local district attorney wants to prosecute the case as a criminal matter
C) the Court Appointed Special Advocate is given the full responsibility for adjudicating the case
D) expert witnesses testify that the parents do not have abusive personalities

Question 43

Research evaluating the effectiveness of the CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates program in Family Court shows

A) that court appointed attorneys who are members of the bar are less effective than citizen volunteers in obtaining services for the children they were assigned
B) that CASA volunteers are ineffective because they are assigned too many cases at the same time
C) that court appointed attorneys who get relatively low fees are far more cost-effective than CASA volunteers in representing children's interests in family court
D) that judges are reluctant to accept the recommendations of CASA volunteers because they are not professionally trained

Question 44

Parental rights are terminated

A) in most cases of child abuse and neglect processed by CPS
B) when a court declares the child permanently neglected because parents were unlikely to become fit to resume custody of a child
C) when the child protective services worker and the parent cannot get along
D) when the infant save haven law doesn't apply

Question 45

Child protective service workers

A) make easily difficult decisions about a child's safety if left in its own home because they have a lot of information to guide them at the time of the initial investigation
B) judgments about removing a child from its own home are not swayed by the workers own emotions of anger, or fear because they are well trained professionals
C) may use standardized risk-assessment interview guides and scales to help predict later repeated reports of maltreatment, but better instruments are needed
D) are protected from criticism by the public's understanding of the difficulty of their jobs when a child with whom they have had contact is subsequently injured or killed

Question 46

The mandated reporter statute typically requires a professional listed in the statute to make a report of child maltreatment to child protection authorities

A) only when the professional is certain the child has been subject to child maltreatment
B) if there is no promise of confidentiality between a mandated reporter and the client
C) if the parent agrees to seek the help of the law
D) if the mandated reporter has a reasonable suspicion that the child the professional is seeing has been maltreated

Question 47

Mandated reporters

A) sometimes fail to make reports to child protection authorities about suspected child maltreatment when according to law they should have reported
B) invariably make reports of suspected child maltreatment when according to law they should report
C) often openly refuse to make reports of suspected child maltreatment in order to preserve confidentiality when according to law they should report
D) who favor corporal punishment will refuse to report even excessive corporal punishment that leaves severe injuries

Question 48

Behaviors that may be interpreted as sexual abuse of children

A) are easy to recognize and various professionals readily agree on whether acts other than sexual intercourse are sexual abuse
B) may be interpreted differently by people from different cultures
C) are so clear that psychologists and mental health workers in social agencies underreport sexual abuse
D) are so unclear that child protection service workers refuse to investigate these reports even when the reports come from mandated reporters

Question 49

The most frequent type of report investigated by child protection authorities is for

A) sexual abuse
B) excessive corporal punishment
C) neglect
D) emotional abuse

Question 50

Mental health professionals who make mandated reports of suspected child maltreatment

A) fear that clients will drop out of treatment after confidentiality is breached
B) do not emphasize their duties as mandated reporters for fear that clients will be inhibited from making disclosures
C) find that most clients do not drop out of treatment after a report has been made
D) all of the above

Question 51

Because of the differences between procedures in criminal and family court, it is

A) easier to find that a parent has maltreated a child in family rather than in criminal court
B) more difficult to find that a parent has maltreated a child in family rather than in criminal court
C) of equal difficulty to find that a parent has maltreated a child in family and in criminal court because the procedures are not really that different
D) not up to the judge to decide because professionals give validation testimony

Question 52

It is difficult to prove in criminal or family court that a child has been sexually abused because

A) Of negative hallucinations that interfere with testimony by children in the judge's chambers
B) there are usually few or no physical signs of sexual activity in sexual abuse cases
C) professional mental health workers are not allowed to testify in sex abuse cases because the psychological signs of sex abuse lack specificity
D) the symptoms associated with sexual abuse are also shown by emotionally disturbed children who have not been abused and by normal children under stress

Question 53

Parental rights may be terminated

A) whenever it seems more desirable to child protection authorities to have a child adopted than to return the child to the parent
B) whenever an adoptive home can be found for an older child because fewer people want to adopt older children
C) after a hearing in court in which it is established that the state has tried unsuccessfully to reunite the child with the parents, or the child has been in foster care for 14 of the previous 22 months
D) simply because a parent is shown to be mildly mentally retarded

Question 54

Family preservation and family reunification policies refer to a legal duty and practices to

A) encourage unwed parents to marry
B) keep a child from visiting a parent who is serving a long term in prison
C) have as many children in foster care adopted as possible
D) maintain a child in the home before removing the child, and to efforts to restore the child to the family as quickly as is feasible after removal