The history of child protection in America is quite old and divided into three eras – first one expands from colonial period to 1875 which is referred as the era before the child protection became organized, the second era extends from 1875 to 1962 the era which witnessed the creation and growth of child protection with the help of NGOs and child protection societies, and the third era is the from 1962, known as the era of government regulated child protective services.
The first organization that came into existence is The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1875, and prior to that the children hardly got any kind of protection. To specify some incidents; in 1809, a New-York shopkeeper was convicted for committing
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The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 has been enacted to that purpose which grants permission to the States to implement child abuse and neglect preventing programs. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1974 empowered the States to receive federal reimbursement for the foster care to create social programs in order to help the families for preventing them from putting any children into risk and removing the children if required. When a child is removed from his biological family, the court tries its best to reunite the child which his family, but the rehabilitation process include a number of formalities which results into the child’s stay with a foster family for a long time. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 supported that and suggested the States to take necessary steps to do so, for eg., in every six months, a judicial or administrative review of a child’s plan and the families are given a goal for a set of eighteen months for making it better to reunite the children with their respective families or terminating the parental rights and make the child free for adoption.
The child protection system protects the children from being abused though it is a difficult work to do. Though it seems to be a cruel system to many to separate a child from his or her biological parents, and there is obviously risk about the nature of the foster parents but it is true that the system is saving lives and futures of the abused and neglected