The safety, mental health, and overall well-being is of children is often compromised on a daily basis through maltreatment. Intervening effectively in such cases is a shared community concern. Human services professionals (HSPs) and child protective services (CPS) are tasked to provided community, family, and child protection services ( Font & Maguire-Jack, 2015) . HSPs is a generic term for experts or professionals who assist individuals, families, and communities in functioning properly in the major living domains. On the other hand, CPS, which is comprised of HSPs, is a governmental agency in the U.S. that provides children protection services ( Sinanan, 2011; Wilson et al., 2014) . In particular, this agency mainly investigates cases that pertain to child abuse and neglect. This paper's principal goal is to explore the philosophical tenets of child protection, the roles and responsibilities of CPS, and the stages of the CPS process.
The Philosophy of CPS
Primarily, CPS are tasked to provide a safe and permanent home and family for maltreated children. Children have the right to receive adequate care from their parents and families. In addition, they have the right to be free from maltreatment. Parents are mainly responsible for ensuring the basic needs of their children are adequately met. CPS are required to intervene effectively when parents request assistance or fail to fulfil their responsibilities ( Wilson et al., 2014) . Secondly, most parents can provide the necessary care for their children. In such cases, CPS focuses on strengthening families. In addition, CPS provides parents with the help they need. This way, the parents would be able to care for their children as well as ensure the family stays together and stronger.
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Thirdly, CPS agencies' chief responsibility is to ensure child safety and develop plans to give the child permanence. To achieve this, CPS ought to engage families or their clients to identify and reduce the risks that contributed to the maltreatment ( Wilson et al., 2014) . This way, the CPS and family would be able to collaborate and ameliorate the effects of maltreatment. In case a family fails to collaborate and meet their obligations, CPS ought to intervene directly to prevent the maltreatment. Lastly, if a child is placed in out-of-home care, CPS must develop a permanency plan to assure the children's safety ( Wilson et al., 2014) . But first, they should work towards reunifying the children with their families. They should develop a family reunification plan and include efforts like frequent visits between the children and their families to sustain parent-child relationships. In addition, the caseworkers must develop plans to support reunification.
Responsibilities of CPS
Based on the philosophical tenets of CPS, the mission of CPS agencies is to assess or evaluate the safety and well-being of children, provide effective interventions to protect children from abuse, neglect, and exploitation, strengthen families, and increased their ability to care for their children and provide family reunification service or alternative plans that are designed to ensure child safety ( Dettlaff et al., 2015) . As stated earlier, CPS agencies were created to provide children protection services. They receive reports that pertain to child abuse, neglect, and exploitation. In addition, these agencies evaluate children's risk to and safety and provide interventions to ensure the children are safe. Other responsibilities of CPS agencies include family reunification and providing permanent families for children who have been maltreated ( Wilson et al., 2014) . These agencies also facilitate community collaborations and engage other stakeholders to engage families and protect children maltreatment.
To fulfil their roles and responsibilities, CPS usually provide their services directly or indirectly through other agencies. In most cases, CPS provide services directly. However, they can also provide their services through other agencies to achieve the intended goals. Most of the agencies which CPS usually work with are child-centred, family-focused, and culturally responsive. In case a family continue to maltreat their children, CPS petitions juvenile or family court on behalf of the children to provide interventions that are aimed at keeping the children safe, regardless of whether the safety is provided at home or in out-of-home care.
Stages of CPS Process
The CPS process is comprised of seven stages, namely, “intake, initial assessment or investigation, family assessment, case planning, service provision, family progress, and case closure” ( DePanfilis, 2003, 25-27 ). This section's principal focus is to provide an overview of these seven stages.
Intake
Intake entails receiving reports of suspected child abuse, neglect, and exploitation. The caseworkers gather the necessary information required to make informed decisions, such as decisions pertaining to the child's safety, risks involved, and the type intervention required ( Damman et al., 2020) . In this stage, the CPS collect reports from community professionals and citizens ( Frankel et al., 2018) . The caseworkers treat each report as a potential case of child abuse and neglect.
There are specific guidelines that caseworkers must take into account during the intake process, and these guidelines vary from State to State. First, caseworkers ought to collect enough information from the reporter and agency records. This will enable the CPS to locate the abused and/or neglected children and their families. Besides, gathering sufficient information help CPS determine if the reports provided by the community professionals and citizens meet the statutory and agency guidelines for child abuse and neglect. Secondly, caseworkers ought to provide support and encouragement to the reporter. To achieve this, the caseworkers must explain why they are collecting the reports, emphasize the importance of reporting, describe the type of cases accepted by CPS, respond sensitively to their fears and/or concerns, and assure them of the confidentiality of the information they provide.
Next, the caseworkers must gather the required information from reporters. The reports should be very comprehensive and extensively explore the case in hand. This way, it would be the easier it is for the caseworkers to determine if the report provides is appropriate for CPS intervention. Similarly, there are specific guidelines that caseworkers must consider when gathering information at intake. Generally, caseworkers must obtain the contact information of the children maltreated and his family. The contact will help the caseworkers to not only locate the child and his/her family but also determine the immediate risks involved. Secondly, caseworkers should obtain information regarding alleged child abuse and neglect. This includes collecting information regarding the type, nature, severity, and chronicity of the maltreatment.
Thirdly, the CPS should acquire information and compile reports on the child. This includes information regarding the child's condition and behavior. This type of information will help the CPS determine whether the child us at an immediate risk of harm or danger. In addition, the information will help the caseworkers determine the urgency and type of response needed. Lastly, the caseworkers should collect information om the parent and family. The information they should collect includes information about the emotion status, physical condition, child-rearing practices, family characteristics, dynamics, support, and view of the child, among other information.
Initial Assessment or Investigation
During this stage, caseworkers are pressured from different directions. The family members start to pressure the caseworkers to tell them what they accused of, the consequences, and what they are expected to do. On the other hand, the agency pressures the caseworkers to quickly gather information and determine if maltreatment have occurred. While managing these pressures, the caseworkers are expected to manage their own fears and doubts as well.
The purpose of this stage is to collect and assess information in response to CPS reports (Salus, 2004). The caseworkers then critically interpret the CPS’s role in terms of the maltreatment, and find out which of the involved parties will benefit from further agency intervention. In this stage, the CPS caseworkers are required to interview all the involved parties, and gather more relevant information ( Frankel et al., 2018) . The caseworkers are then supposed to evaluate the information gathered ad determined whether maltreatment has occurred and if the abuse and/or neglect can be substantiated. The deadline to complete the initial assessment or evaluation report varies from State to State. Some States can take up to 30 days, while others can take up to 60 or 90 days ( Frankel et al., 2018) . In this report, the caseworkers are supposed to indicate whether maltreatment is likely to occur in the future. They must also indicate if the children are safe as well.
Family Assessment
Family assessment is the third stage of the CPS process. This stage entails engaging the family to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the family strengths and needs to ensure the safety and well-being of the children and the risk of maltreatment is reduced. This stage is usually initiated once the caseworkers and the CPS agency decides that ongoing services are needed.
Several principals guide family assessment. First, the assessment ought to be culturally-sensitive and strength-based. This is because parenting practices and family structures vary from one family to another as well as a result of ethnic differences. The assessments should consider the diversity of the family. Besides, the family assessment should be strength-based (Salus, 2004). This is because individuals can change and grow. Recognizing the family can be its own agent of change is essential for healing a family characterized with child abuse and neglect. Moreover, the family assessment should be developed with the family. The aim is to recognize and remedy condition to maintain parent-child relationships.
To accomplish the family assessment process, caseworkers must review the information from the previous assessments, such as the information from the previous stage. Afterward, the caseworkers should develop a family assessment plan as well as interview all family members interested in the safety and well-being of the child. Furthermore, the caseworkers ought to hold consultations with other experts and analyze all the information collected. Based on the family assessment, the caseworkers can make informed-decisions.
Case Planning
This stage serves as the road map of successful intervention. The purpose of this stage is to provide intervention to prevention further maltreatment and modify the conditions contribution to its risk (Salus, 2004). Besides, during this stage, the caseworkers establish a benchmark to measure the performance of the interventions identified. To achieve this, the caseworkers engage all the parties who are interested in the safety and well-being of the child. The intervention provide ought to be well-planned and purposeful in order to achieve the desired outcome.
Service Provision
This stage succeeds case planning. Here, the caseworkers provide for services identified in the case plan. In other words, this is the stage where the case plan is implemented. The caseworkers are mainly responsible for arranging and coordinating the delivery of services to all the parties involved. The services should be readily accessible to the families and children. In case the services are not available, an alternative plan.
Family Progress
This step involves conducting a family assessment. Typically, CPS are required to evaluate family progress frequently and must follow the following steps: “review the case plan, collect information from all service providers, engage the child and family in reviewing progress, measure family progress, and document family progress” ( DePanfilis, 2003, 99 ). Here, the CPS engages the family to help them understand their strengths and needs. More specifically, the aim of the CPS is to provide foundation for change after identifying the family’s strength, address the conditions that put the child at risk, and minimize the chances of child abuse and neglect from happening in the future. Besides, it is the role and responsibility of the caseworkers to help the abused or neglected children to cope with the effects of maltreatment.
Case Closure
The final stage of the CPS process is case closure. Basically, this stage entails terminating the caseworkers’ relationship with the family. This may result in a wide range of feelings. There are for types of case closures: “termination, referral, transfer, and discontinuation by family” ( DePanfilis, 2003 ). With regard to termination, the caseworkers may terminate the relationship if the child maltreatment case is resolved or if the child is safe. In case the family is able to continue working with the agency or willing to work with another agency towards a certain goal, then the caseworker or the other agency will continue to work with the family. In case the family want to work with another agency, the family may be referred to the other agency. Similarly, is the caseworker’s time with family comes to an end, the family may be transferred to another caseworker in the agency. Lastly, if the family is receiving voluntary services and decides to end the relationship with the case worker, the family may end the relationship.
Conclusion
To sum up, this paper explored the philosophical tenets of child protection, the roles and responsibilities of CPS, and the stages of the CPS process. CPS is comprised of three philosophical tenets: provision of safe and permanent home and family, strengthening families, ensuring child safety and well-being, and developing a permanency plan for maltreated children. The roles and responsibilities of CPS is based on the four philosophical tenets outlined above. They include assessing and evaluation the safety and well-being of children, providing effective interventions, strengthen families, and providing family reunification services. In conclusion, The CPS process is comprised of seven stages, all of which were explored in this paper.
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