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Lesson Seven: (Continued)
The social worker’s responsibility is to offer services to help
reduce the problems of the family and child. These services can include
such things as counseling, referrals to self-help groups or assistance
in obtaining medical care, emergency shelter, transportation or a
temporary in-home caretaker. The social worker’s activities are
designed to protect children and enable families to stay together
whenever possible.
Q: What does the Law Enforcement Officer do?
A: The law enforcement officer also has a primary responsibility to
protect the child. The officer will interview the parent(s) and child and
gather information based on the interviews, physical evidence and information
from other sources such as medical and school records. Usually the parent or
caretaker is neither arrested nor criminally charged in a child abuse case.
This is because the goal of intervention is to protect the child from further
maltreatment and to help the parent(s) change their behavior.
However, there are instances of serious abuse and crimes when the parent(s)
or caretaker(s) are arrested and the case is referred by law enforcement to
the district attorney for criminal prosecution.
Q: What does the Court do?
A: In California, more than one type of prosecution may result from a
report of child abuse or neglect. For example:
Juvenile Court. When it is a parent or guardian
or other person in the child’s home who appears to bear the
responsibility for the abuse or neglect, the issues of whether the
child should be removed from the home and of whether services should
be ordered in the interest of the child and family are heard in the
Juvenile Court. The proceedings are confidential, and ordinarily only
parents, involved family members and others whose presence is required
by the court will be in the courtroom. Since the primary purpose of
these proceedings is the protection of the child, the legal standards
and rules of evidence differ from those in criminal court, where the
defendant’s constitutional rights are foremost. The Juvenile
Court is a department of the Superior Court.
Criminal Court. All criminal prosecutions are
initiated in Municipal Court. Misdemeanor cases will remain in that
court, but felony cases will frequently wind up in Superior Court. The
issue in a criminal prosecution is whether it can be proved beyond a
reasonable doubt that a particular person abused or neglected the child.
The same incident of maltreatment may lead to both a dependency case
and a criminal case.
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