The purpose of this document is to explore why and how Child Protective Services (CPS) evolved from a highly specialized system designed to investigate and respond to allegations of serious child abuse and neglect to a system expected to provide social services and material supports to impoverished families unable to meet their children’s basic needs.
The authors consider how this policy shift created confusion in agencies as well as service discontinuities for families struggling to meet their children’s survival and developmental needs. They also offer recommendations to promote universal access to the array of services needed by impoverished families to safely and effectively parent their children, without undermining the responsibility and capacity of CPS to identify and respond to culpable child neglect to ensure children’s safety.
