CHILD-WELFARE POLICY IN THE UNITED-STATES

Recent developments in child welfare in the United States can be seen as enactments of state paternalism toward families. New programs and p rocedures in the areas of foster care and ''in-home ''family services aim to reinforce parents' and childrens' rights, but these rights are typically framed as protections against bureaucratic abuse rather than as rights to basic material resources. The prevailing cultural assump tion toward child welfare in the United States is that the government should not in family life unless there is legal evidence of functional failure. Families are still seen as autonomous units that essentially determine their own fates. This ideology serves to limit the public a nd political perception of more preventive and developmental options.