The Child Protection Service (CPS) has two basic plans for managing child protection issues and they are the immediate protective strategy, or plan, and the formal plan of continued safety. When a child is in immediate danger, which is something that is usually recognized during the first meeting or contact with a family, CPS puts the immediate protection strategy into place. After the danger has been acknowledged, they place a hold on all of the different activities that take place during an intervention, such as the initial assessment, in order to guarantee immediate protection for the child. When the immediate danger has been acknowledged, CPS has the responsibility of ensuring the child’s safety during the remaining intervention activities. Naturally, an immediate plan should contain certain documentation and elements and the abuse report should reflect those elements.
The formal safety strategy will usually happen during or at the end of the first assessment, after all of the pertinent family information has been taken and analyzed. This formal plan is written on a document and it helps to recognize any foreseeable dangers; it lists child safety products, services and childcare providers.
The biggest difference between the two plans is that the immediate protective strategy takes effect with only a limited amount of information about the child and family, which was gathered during the first encounter. However, the formal child protection strategy does not occur until full and complete information on the child and the family has been documented.
Some feel that there should be additional provisions added to the ones already in use. They believe that safety care management and intervention should be provisional; that it should refer to specific actions and arrangements that CPS may take at the present time based upon current threats to the child’s safety, or if there is not a sufficient childcare provider available to ensure protection.
In order for this type of arrangement to work, the provisional safety care management would remain in place while still searching for a more stable permanent arrangement. Often times those employed with a Child Protection Service say that in order for this to work, they need to give protective responsibility to child care providers and supply them with child protection training; or they have the opportunity to find other permanency options by looking outside the child’s home and family.