The golden standard for any organization or government that deals with a child is to always act in the best interest of the child under all circumstances. The best interest of a child cannot merely be objective but must be subjective since the intent is secondary with the primary focus being in the outcome (Laub & Hastings, 2018) . The most important ethical and moral question that any officer who is dealing with a child’s welfare case has to ask is how the action will affect the child. In almost all cases, the impact to a child when a matter has gotten the attention of welfare officials is a tradeoff with the determination being which decisions will be most advantageous and least adverse to the interest of the child (Birchley, 2016). Anytown’s Department of Job and Family Services (the Department) has come up with omnibus rules and regulations about how to deal with children living in the same home as a documented offender. The term omnibus in the instant case includes a variety of generalities. For example, only one party with a parental obligation has to have a documented offense and the scope of offense is extremely wide, including vague generalizations such as alcohol-related offenses. Based on the generalities in the rule, it leaves little room for the officers handling the cases regarding respective children to canvass the specific interests of these children, hence the new policy must be wrong.
Potential Ethical/Moral Issues
The omnibus policy developed by the Department is quick to remove children from the safety of their homes into the children’s services system whose safety cannot be guaranteed, without offering room for compromise. Under the law, the moment one parent has a documented offense, the child is automatically removed from the family. The first ethical issue is that the policy may lead to the removal of children from a mildly bad situation to a worse situation. It is important to note that in many circumstances, a child’s safety and welfare is at risk when sharing a house with a criminal. For example, a child who is residing with a sex offender may be at risk of physical or psychological harm. However, not all offenders are bad parents and the fact that there is a singular offender in the house does not make the home a danger to the child. Conversely, according to Children’s Rights (2018), children who are placed in foster care temporarily without quickly resulting in permanent adoption have a higher propensity for being homeless, unemployed, and incarcerated in their futures. Children who are placed in foster care are also at a greater risk of delinquency and substance abuse (Laub & Hastings, 2018). What the Department is suggesting is exactly what is defined in Children’s Rights (2018) as they are not taking the children away permanently, but just keeping them until the parents get their act together, as prescribed by the Department.
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On the other hand, according to Tickle (2015), the approach taken by the Department is rigged to fail. As per the article, taking a child away creates a massive psychological impact on the parent that will adversely affect the behavior and character of the parent. The Department is taking away the child, then expect the parent to undergo reform process and prove that the reform has taken place for six months. While citing family judge Stephen Wildblood QC, Tickle (2015) argues that taking away a child places the parent in a situation that makes reformation difficult. The Department’s actions will thus be counterproductive to both the parent and the child. The child will be placed in temporary foster care to its detriment and the parent will have a child taken away, which will adversely affect the reformation process. The new policy is thus wrong as it is doomed to fail both the parent and the child.
Positive and Negative Impact of the Policy
It would be unfair to state that the Department’s policy will be detrimental to all the children all the time as it has some positive attributes. For a start, many children suffer because they live with parents who keep on making a string of wrong judgment calls (Birchley, 2016). For example, parents who keep on physically and verbally abusing one another hurt their children more than they hurt one another. Similarly, a parent who drives while drunk is more likely to make a mistake that may harm the children. Finally, under the social learning theory, children do not need to be taught to learn, and can learn negative things by staying with irresponsible parents (Akers, 2017). To this end, a policy that removes children from homes where the children can be harmed is good for the children. From the general perspective of the Anytown community, the policy may have some advantages as it will give parents yet another reason to act responsibly and avoid breaking the law. The threat of losing a child, no matter how temporarily will encourage the most parent to avoid mistakes that might lead to them having documented offenses.
The main disadvantage of the law, as outlined in the ethical argument segment is that it might do some good to some children but it will also cause a lot of harm, to a lot of children. The propensity for harm lies in the fact that the policy does not provide a chance for the decision to take away a child to be determined in a child to child basis. Many children will be taken away from loving and caring parents who simply make one mistake and end up with a documented offense, even from a plea bargain. Unfortunately, the moment the child is taken away, a slippery slope effect may be triggered, leading to the full termination of the child to parent relationship. It is important to note that the overall welfare and well-being of a child can only be determined on a child to child basis (Birchley, 2016). It is impossible to tell for a fact that the policy as set out by the Department will lead to positive outcomes of the children who are involved. Implementation of the policy would thus amount to gambling with the welfare and well-being of the children, a risk that would not be morally right. Finally, from the perspective of the general community, the policy will present some adversities as it places an unseen burden in law enforcement personnel. When a police officer arrests a suspect, then a district attorney decides to press charges or a jury makes a determination, they are no longer dealing with the defendant alone as the children have also been drawn into the picture. Law enforcement might be tempted to ignore criminal activities in the interest of the child, to the detriment of the entire society. From a careful and close reading of the policy, it might have more adverse outcomes than positives ones, hence it is a bad tradeoff for the children involved.
Application of the Social Learning Theory by the Department
The department has correctly interpreted the social learning theory to some extent, although not fully, but has proceeded to absolutely misapply the theory. The social learning theory is a social behavior and learning theory that holds that behavioral development can be developed from passive learning (Akers, 2017). When applied to the instant scenario, modern society has always invested in teaching children virtues so that they can grow into responsible adults. However, even if children are taught virtues in school, church, and other social centers, they also learn from the environments that they live in. For example, a child will observe, imitate, and even emulate the adults on the child’s life. If the adults lack the virtues that the child is being taught, the child is less likely to lead a virtuous life (Akers, 2017). Towards this end, the Department has applied the theory correctly. The part where the Department has missed the point is that the social learning theory is also about reward and punishment. The child is only more likely to ape, imitate, and emulate bad behavior if it is accompanied by either a sense of impunity or a reward. In the instant case, the parents of the children who are targeted by the policy have just been caught doing something wrong and been punished for it. The children have just learned firsthand that crime does not pay but is instead punished. The social learning theory would thus recommend leaving the children with the parents, as the parents are an instrument of learning about the vagaries of breaking the law (Akers, 2017).
Conclusion
Anytown’s Department of Job and Family Services may have had good intentions, but the outcomes of their actions will be more detrimental to the children than they will be beneficial. Since the making of decisions about children is all about carefully evaluating outcomes to come up with a tradeoff that most benefits the child, the instant policy should not be implemented. For a start, the evaluation of the best interest of a child can only be made on a child to child basis. The proposed policy, however, is an omnibus that leaves little room to maneuver. The Department’s employees will thus be compelled to take away children from parents, even when they may feel that doing the same might be detrimental to the child. It is important to note that there are situations that taking a child away from the home of the offender is the right thing, however, it is not always so hence the need of a more flexible and dynamic policy. Further, taking away children from parents and placing them in temporary foster care is detrimental to both the child and the parent even as it risks any chances of the eventual reunification of the family. The well-intended policy of the Department should thus be reviewed prior to implementation.
References
Akers, R. (2017). Social learning and social structure: A general theory of crime and deviance . New York: Routledge
Birchley, G. (2016). Harm is all you need? Best interests and disputes about parental decision-making. Journal of Medical Ethics , 42(2), 111-115.
Children’s Rights. (2018). Foster care. Retrieved from https://www.childrensrights.org/newsroom/fact-sheets/foster-care/
Laub, J. H., & Haskins, R. (2018). Helping children with parents in prison and children in foster care. Policy Brief , 1-8
Tickle, L. (2015, April 25). Are we failing parents whose children are taken into care? Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/25/are-we-failing-parents-whose-children-are-taken-into-care
