One of the most important parts of the child welfare system is the professionals who work in it, dedicating their lives to ensuring the well-being of the children within their communities. Child welfare investigators are social workers who are responsible for protecting children from situations of abuse, neglect, and other forms of mistreatment, by assessing their social, physical, psychological and emotional well-being. Investigators do this by completing a number of different tasks: they make home visits in order to explore allegations of abuse or neglect; they provide assessments of home conditions to determine whether a parent or guardian is providing adequate care; they evaluate whether a child should be removed from their living situation; and they place removed children in either temporary foster care or permanent adoptive families.