Agency X is a state child protection service agency. The agency conducts child protection investigations and ongoing cases. The ongoing services include cases where the children remain in the home and cases where children are in foster homes. Carla works as a supervisor for the agency. Carla has an MSW and has worked for approximately 5 years supervising ongoing teams. Prior to her supervisory position, she was a front-line worker for approximately 10 years as both an ongoing and investigative worker. Marcy is a child protection worker. She also has an MSW. She was initially hired as a social worker who recruited and trained foster parents. After two years, she transferred to an ongoing team that invested child abuse/neglect. She has worked in that position for approximately 3 years. Marcy herself grew up in the foster care system. During the era of her placement she was removed from her mother several times for severe neglect and physical abuse. During the removals, she was placed in relative placement in which additional abuse occurred. Marcy worked an abuse/neglect case in which the infant child was removed and placed in foster care. The infant had other siblings who had already been removed from the home and placed with out of state relatives. Out of state relative placements require a court order and even after the court order the process can take well over a month to complete. Approximately 1 month after the removal of the infant, Joan, the relative who had the other siblings, contacted Carla to inquire why she had not been contacted for placement of the infant. Carla reviewed the case file and learned Marcy had not submitted the request to the court. Upon inquiry, Marcy told Carla that she had not submitted the request to the court because she felt the infant would be better off with the foster family than with relatives. She said the relatives had too many children and the foster family was a better fit for the infant. Marcy had trained the foster family; she knew the foster family was financially stable, were unable to have biological children of their own, and wanted to adopt an infant.

1- IDENTIFY THE ISSUE (A1.4)

a. What are the key facts?

b. What are the relevant ethical, legal and agency obligations? Be sure to identify the specific NASW Code(s) that apply in the dilemma. Provide justification/evidence to support your selection.

c. What additional information would be helpful to know? Provide at least 4 different examples/ideas. Be thorough.

d. What is the specific ethical question to be considered?

2. DETERMINE APPROPRIATE HELP (A1.2)

a. Who should be consulted? Consider different levels of practice (micro, mezzo, macro resources, i.e. supervisor, human resources, board of directors, attorney, licensure board, etc.)

b. Why? What type of help can each person provide