ABSTRACT
The implementation of permanency planning has been concurrent with the explosion of child abuse and reporting. Child welfare services traditionally served parents of children in conflict and children with behavior problems in addition to abused, neglected, and abandoned children. The national concern about child abuse has resulted in a refocusing of child welfare services to address the needs of the nation’s most vulnerable children. Although the child welfare service system continues to serve older and troubled youths, it most often follows a child abuse allegation and a child protective services (CPS) investigation. Kamerman and Kahn (1990) portray a dramatic, perhaps overly dramatic, picture of this trend: “Child protective services today constitute the core public child and family service, the fulcrum and sometimes, in some places, the totality of the service” (p. 8).
