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Mother Blaming in the Child Welfare System

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Submitted By michaella1
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Mother Blaming:
How Welfare Systems Reinforce Institutionalized Oppression

Critical Response Paper

Mother Blaming: How Welfare Systems Reinforce Institutionalized Oppression
Introduction
States have established several entities to ensure the safety and well being of their citizens; of particular importance is protecting the welfare of vulnerable populations, such as the disabled, minor children, and the elderly. Social welfare policies and programs also serve to afford equal and/or equitable opportunities for vulnerable populations, to level the playing field and minimize the effects that years of oppression tends to have on members of the non-dominant culture. Although welfare systems aim to improve the lives of our nation’s vulnerable populations, institutional oppression has also permeated this system, influencing the research, practices, and policies of professionals in their respective fields. Consequently, a system that was established to protect and assure the well being of vulnerable populations has also served to re/victimize and reinforces the oppression of the lives of those involved with these systems.
The manifestation of gender bias and institutional oppression in the welfare systems are social justice issues with vast implications for vulnerable populations; according to the NASW Code of Ethics, as professional social workers, we have an ethical responsibility to challenge social injustice and pursue social change, particularly on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people (NASW, 2008). Being that welfare systems are reinforcing gender biases, institutional oppression and grave inequities, immediate attention to reforming these systems, which were established to assure the wellbeing and human rights of its citizens, is compulsory.
Hereinafter, the broad collection of social welfare programs will be referred

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