Child Welfare Services

My name is Sam Goldberg, and I’m a junior sociology major at the University of Pittsburgh, with minors in social work and women’s studies. After I graduate in April 2009, I plan on going for my Master’s in social work, focusing on child welfare services. I am currently interning at the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth & Families, where I work in the intake department doing home assessments. I have taken numerous courses on children and the family, including the Sociology of the Family, Developmental Psychology, Marriage and Child Welfare Services. I’m also currently working on my Honors Thesis, which involves doing a content analysis on research themes and conclusions on gay and lesbian adoption, a topic within social work that I am extremely interested in. It is my hope that over the next few decades we will sincerely address huge social issues that enable child abuse and neglect to continue, as well as acknowledge the changing definitions of “the family” in order to critically examine current child welfare systems and practices to make them work more efficiently.