SAP103 Introduction to Welfare Law 3B Essay Sample

Assignment Task

Part B: Essay

The second part (Part B) will be the full essay, based substantially on what you had outlined (in Part A) and may take into account any feedback received as part of assessment of Part A.

The essay topic

The assessment will require you to research and review the welfare law and its application in practice for one of the following vulnerable client groups -

a) mental health inpatients requiring protection of their human rights

b) children requiring protection from parental abuse

c) people with a disability requiring protection from discrimination in the workplace

d) elderly requiring protection from financial abuse

Your essay must include the following:

a) analysis of the reasons why legal protection is needed

b) overview of the relevant principles of welfare law that underpin the legal protection

c) critique of the current application of the law for legal protection of your chosen vulnerable group

Research literature

Your essay must be based on a review of the literature and should include at least eight primary academic references, ie peer-reviewed (scholarly) journal articles or book chapters.

Structure of essay

As the assignment conveniently provides a number of issues that need to be addressed, there is a lot of sense to follow them as they form the basis of assessment criteria and use them as major headings, in addition to an introduction and conclusion.

If there are identifiable sub-issues or topics within any of the issues (which are represented by headings), then it may be a good strategy to also include a limited number of sub- headings under each of these headings.

Solution

Introduction

Family violence especially in the form of parental abuse involves physical, emotional, and or sexual abuse of children and is a major concern to child welfare. It erodes their feelings of safety, trust, and emerging self-esteem, and results in human flesh memory in the form of physical and psychological trauma. Path findings as child protection has emerged as a global issue, the “United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child” (UNCROC) puts into liquidation children's right to protection from all forms of abuse. However, countless children still live in danger's periphery, and legal protection, society's recognition, or intervention processes and policies are still inadequate. Responding to parental abuse involves a combination of legally, socially, and psychologically based measures. This essay presents the laws for the protection of children, the kinds of abuse as well as their effects, and the approaches to help that must be applied to prevent child abuse. Knowing and resolving these problems can help societies fulfill the protection and general welfare of these children.
Legal Framework for Protection

Legal protection is vital for children facing parental abuse because it safeguards their strong fundamental rights to safety, health, and well-being as recognized under the "United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC)". Abuse whether sexual, physical, emotional, or through neglect can result in lifelong physical and psychological harm that signifies a child's development. Parental abuse often places children in environments where their basic needs are unmet, increasing the basic risk of harm (Monterosso, 2020). The legal frameworks aim to intervene when parents fail in their duty of care and ensure children are shielded from harm and are provided with adequate care and opportunities for recovery. These protections are the vital process to measure the cycles of abuse that can perpetuate the main intergenerational trauma.

“Principles of Law”, Across Australia the welfare laws reflect the UNCROC's principles that enhance the best interests of the child in all decisions, for university assignment help the key principles include:

“Best interests of the child”: Laws prioritize decisions that promote a child's safety, development, and health. As an example, section 162(1) of the Children, Youth, and Families Act 2005 (Victoria) outlines circumstances where the child is considered in need of protection, such as exposure to physical or sexual abuse or emotional harm (Davies et al, 2024).

Participation of children in Decision-making: Children have a right to express their views in matters that affect them. The Children and the Young Person (Care and Protection) Act 1998 (NSW) reflects these principles to allow children's voices to influence care orders.

Parental Responsibility: While the laws hold parents accountable for providing care, they also address scenarios where the parents are incapacitated, as seen in the Children and Community Services Act 2004 (WA), which allows care orders when no suitable guardian can be found (Farrell, 2021).

Early intervention: the legislation aims to intervene proactively to measure abuse before it escalates. The Child Protection Act 1999 (Queensland), enhances early support to the families to measure situations where the children require protective orders.

Psychosocial Effects and Intervention

The psychological effects of parental abuse on the children are the main aspect and it ranges from impacted emotional development and mental health issues to difficulty forming trusting relationships. The Victims often experience anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress, and their cognitive and educational outcomes may be severely affected. With the legal protections in Australia, the ground is set in the international commitments such as the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Child (UNCROC) that aim to address these issues and is most significant gaps that remain in their application and their effectiveness (Matthews et al. 2021).
The current legal framework lies in its inconsistent implementation across states and territories. Although all the jurisdictions adopt similar principles, such as the best interests of the child and early intervention and child participation, disparities exist in their practical enforcement (Oyeyemi, 2022). While the Children and the Community Services Act 2004 (WA) includes provisions for the emotional and psychological factors, some states prioritize the physical abuse cases, leading to the uneven recognition of the less visible forms of harm such as neglect or emotional abuse (Blackstock et al. 2020).

Another important challenge is the limited enforceability of international standards. The Ratifying UNCROC its global principles lack a direct legal force in Australian domestic law, relying instead on integration through state and federal statutes. This often leaves children vulnerable to varying levels of protection depending on the local policies and the resource allocation. The main sections of the Children, Youth, and Families Act 2005 (Victoria) provide detailed guidance on protective interventions, and underfunded child protection services can signify the title action, leaving children at risk for extended periods. Moreover, laws' main focus on removing the children from harmful environments rather than addressing root causes of abuse, such as parental mental health or socioeconomic issues, limits its global long-term effectiveness (Oyeyemi, 2022) The programs aimed at family rehabilitation and prevention, while existing, are underutilized due to system inefficiencies and the funding gaps.

Moreover, to enforce this law's impact, a more uniform national framework, strong preventative services, and better enforcement of the UNCRC principles are violated. Addressing these gaps would ensure that children in all parts of Australia receive comprehensive protection and support, mitigating the psychological need for abuse.

Types of Abuse and Their Impact

Conclusion and recommendations

Conclusion

Child abuse particularly parental abuse is an important social problem that requires an urgent and complex response to protect children. To understand the subject of this essay, an attempt has been made to explain legal aspects, as well as different categories of abuse, and their psychosocial consequences on the development of children physically and psychologically. Increasing commitment to child protection legislation, enhancing the range of early intervention practices, and guaranteeing children to receive trauma-informed services can be the steps to begin moving towards changing it. To develop a proper construct and a strong web of protection for vulnerable kids, law, social, and psychological fields should work together.

Recommendations

- Enhanced Training for Professionals: Teachers, nurses and caregivers, policemen, child welfare officers, and social workers must prepare themselves for the safeguarding of children to be in a position to detect abuses and act accordingly.

- Public Awareness Campaigns: Raising awareness of parental abuse can in itself bring about a change making individuals within such community act as they learn.

- Integrated Support Systems: Integration of legal, social, and psychological services offers the abused children, needed comprehensive services.

- Policy Reform: Institutions must be funded to assist the governments in addressing issues related to the protected children to have timely efficient services rather than having inefficiencies in the legal systems thus protecting all children by ensuring that legal provisions for their protection are observed to the maximum potential. 

Reference

Blackstock, C., Bamblett, M., & Black, C. (2020). Indigenous ontology, international law and the application of the Convention to the over-representation of Indigenous children in out-of-home care in Canada and Australia. Child abuse & neglect, 110, 104587. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213420302428

Davies, C., Waters, D., & Fraser, J. A. (2024). Implementing Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in health care: a scoping review. International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, 17(4), 378-391. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Clare-Davies-2/publication/366155352_Implementing_Article_12_of_the_United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the

_Child_in_health_care_a_scoping_review/links/656f99708ac8542fd87c45d7/Implementing-Article-12-of-the-United-Nations-Convention-on-the-Rights-of-the-Child-in-health-care-a-scoping-review.pdf

Farrell, A. (2021). Young Children's Rights to Provision, Participation, and Protection: Challenges of Applying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to Early Childhood Education and Care in Australia. In Young Children in the World and Their Rights: Thirty Years with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (pp. 151-166). Springer International Publishing. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-68241-5_11

Hoeboer, C., De Roos, C., van Son, G. E., Spinhoven, P., & Elzinga, B. (2021). The effect of parental emotional abuse on the severity and treatment of PTSD symptoms in children and adolescents. Child abuse & neglect, 111, 104775. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213420304300

Martinkevich, P., Larsen, L. L., Græsholt-Knudsen, T., Hesthaven, G., Hellfritzsch, M. B., Petersen, K. K., ... & Rölfing, J. D. (2020). Physical child abuse demands increased awareness during health and socioeconomic crises like COVID-19: a review and education material. Acta orthopaedica, 91(5), 527-533. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17453674.2020.1782012

Matthews, L., Chin, V., Taliangis, M., Samanek, A., & Baynam, G. (2021). Childhood rare diseases and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases, 16(1), 523. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13023-021-02153-0’

Monterosso, S. (2020). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Australia: Are Human Rights Protected in the Domestic Juvenile Justice Domain? UW Austl. L. Rev., 48, 389. https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.20211206057890

Oyeyemi, K. K. (2022). Cultural and traditional practices and the implementation of the right of the child to be heard under Article 12 of the UNCRC (Doctoral dissertation, North-West University (South Africa).). https://repository.nwu.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10394/40104/Oyeyemi%20KK.pdf?sequence=1’

Ramaswamy, S., & Seshadri, S. (2020). Children on the brink: Risks for child protection, sexual abuse, and related mental health problems in the COVID-19 pandemic. Indian journal of psychiatry, 62(Suppl 3), S404-S413. https://journals.lww.com/indianjpsychiatry/_layouts/15/oaks.journals/downloadpdf.aspx?an=01363795-202062003-00017

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