It is important to clarify that no approach should ever be used in a prefabricated manner, so to speak, but must always follow sufficient discussion, through which the nature of the situation will become as clear as possible.  Additionally, attention to the many subtleties that are present in every situation will mandate that no two situations be approached in exactly the same way.

Also important is a word about treatment.  In most child welfare situations another concept, and subsequently another word, rather than treatment would be more apropos.  That concept is learning or education.  Learning or education is really the essence of psychological counseling, but the term treatment connotes something related to illness; something more severe.  And that is not the case in most child welfare situations.  

The probability of parents' openness to learning new and more productive ways of thinking about their own behavior will be more likely if that learning occurs as part of their efforts to also positively change additional aspects of their lives.  Again, this may not be the case for everyone, but it probably will be for most.  Parents so engaged will see  a reason for what they are doing and will not be motivated by a hopeless mind-set.

As discussed earlier, this kind of intervention is fundamentally and philosophically different than the succession of child welfare interventions that over the past several decades have generally been unsuccessful. It probably does not fit well with bureaucratically generated systems nor with those seeking fast and easy means.   A very different mind-set will be required that should start at the top.

The relevance of higher echeloned thinking in child welfare is reminiscent of the explanation by a famed director for why Hollywood no longer made musicals.  When George Sidney, director of such cinema musical classics as Show Boat, Pal Joey and The Harvey Girls, was asked why they no longer made musicals, his reply focused on what took place at the top.  Sidney said that no longer were there producers like Arthur Freed and Gene Kelly, who themselves were song writers and performers.

There may be situations that call for some sort of treatment, but for a vast number of parents with open child welfare cases, treatment is not the answer to the family's problems.  This may be discerned by exploring three aspects of the situation.  First, the nature of the maltreatment allegation.  Second, the parents' thoughts and ideas about the allegation.  And third, the parents' thoughts and ideas about their general life satisfaction; about their past and present access to educational, vocational and avocational endeavors ;  and their hopes to have built the kinds of lives, for themselves and for their children, as they are well aware that the majority of Americans have successfully done.   

The implications of a life lived in poverty can be far reaching and can strongly influence one's decisions and motivation.  Rather than conceptualize the resulting hopelessness as depression, with clinical implications, usually, existential angst would be a more accurate  portrayal.   Hopelessness, together with a lack of resources, can lead one to not attend to some aspects of child care.   Slow and attentive discussion between the parents and caseworker will yield a mutual understanding of the nature of the problematic behavior.  And it is the nature of the problem that should determine the nature of the intervention.  The wholesale demand that almost every parent participate in counseling is both illogical and counterproductive.  It usually is not mental illness or disturbed behavior that leads most impoverished parents to fall short of the societal parenting standard, but rather a combination of hopelessness, day to day practical difficulties and unhelpful learned thought patterns.  

Not only is it wrong to mandate treatment in these situations, but it usually is also very much out of sync with how positive behavioral change can occur.  If the premise holds true that existential difficulties underlie much of the problematic situation, then that should be the area that needs to be addressed.  This will no doubt be a much more involved task then merely sending one off to a counselor's office.  In fact, there will be no sending off at all, but instead this will occur as a natural outcome of discussion between the parent and caseworker, and if the parent thinks that some life changes are in order they, together, will plan and locate the necessary resources. The caseworker's continued presence will allow for ongoing discussions about any possible  obstacles and will also serve as a source of encouragement. If the parent, for whatever reason, is not interested in pursuing any such  plan of action, their discussions will continue to focus on the problematic parenting.  We can  assume, however, that, prognostically, a more satisfied and hopeful parent will probably be more likely, over time, to continue to attend well to parenting issues.  

This approach too can not assume that parents, impoverished or not, have been unsuccessful in building the kind of satisfying lives they have desired.  This would need to be determined through patient and insightful discussion.  Nothing in any situation can be assumed, even when initial evidence seems to point in a certain direction.  Waiting for the most complete and accurate possible scenario to emerge is essential.  This would seem to be a given in this and in most similar interventions, but the reality of child welfare practice is testament to just how blatantly absent such diligent and careful efforts have been.  Otherwise, much of the well known dysfunction seen in child welfare practice would not occur.   

This approach requires that families from impoverished backgrounds be seen as human beings with the same kind of potential and wished for lives as the rest of us, rather than passive guinea pig-like throw aways, in the service of the never ending stream of so-called social service providers, whose jobs and careers depend on their eternal presence.  This approach also brings us back to the necessity that child welfare work must become elevated to the level of a prestigious and highly respected profession that will attract potential workers intellectually and ethically capable of doing the kind of work we have been discussing.     

What happened to Niveen Ismail and her three year old son, as described by Rachel Aviv in her December 2, 2013, New Yorker article, Where Is Your Mother?, can serve as a case study in the misguided, or worse, maneuverings often used by child welfare personnel that lead to very wrong and even tragic outcomes for families.  Rather than repeat in detail the particulars of this article, which can be read in its original context, I will only mention some of its salient points. 

Niveen Ismail, a 39 year old single mother who grew up in Kuwait City and living in Huntington Beach, California, went to work leaving her three year old son home alone on December 5, 2005.  The police and the Orange County Social Services Agency were called and the son, though apparently unharmed, was placed in a foster home.  Ms. Ismail, a computer consultant, later "told a social worker that her workload was too heavy, and that on the day she left [her son] alone she had reached a 'breaking point.'"  With few friends and no relatives in the United States, Ms. Ismail obviously found herself in a difficult situation. 

Once her situation became known, the local social services agency should have been able to step in and offer services, child care specifically, to help ease this difficult situation.  It did step in but it did nothing to ease the situation.  Instead, it  bombarded Ms. Ismail with an onslaught of utter gibberish in the guise of psychological evaluative intrusions and every conceivable pseudo-interpretive and plain stupid hogwash, all having absolutely nothing to do with her ability to provide, at the minimum, adequate parenting for her son.  In the end Ms. Ismail's parental rights were terminated and her son's childhood has been spent in the home of his adoptive parents.

Reading this New Yorker article can give one an idea of what happens, in one way or another,  not just to a few parents and children whose lives intersect with America's child welfare system but to untold numbers.  But one may read The New Yorker article and yet come away with some other viewpoint.  I say this, because obviously there are people whose thinking leads them to engage in exactly those behaviors that create the very situations described in the article and we can only imagine that that mind-set extends to others as well.  There are the knee-jerk child savers; the angry, punitive-minded folks whose attitude toward poor and otherwise put-upon parents leaves no room for compassion but plenty of room for any kind of harsh punishment; the self-righteous protectors of communal and societal mores whose intolerance of any breach of their rigid code of conduct demands a swift and immediate response, and of course, the mostly uncommitted,  whose uncritical mind-set has been formed by the popular media.

Yes, these people do exist and may see things differently when reading The New Yorker article.  But people with those modes of thinking are not the people who should be employed by the child welfare system.  So it is difficult to read about what happened to Ms. Ismail and her son without wondering what in the world was the Orange County Social Services Agency up to.  Were they enmeshed in so faulty a mind-set that they were unable to realize what they themselves were doing?  Can they have possibly believed that their actions were serving the interests of the child, if not also the mother?  What connection could they possibly have made between their nitpicking at so many unrelated aspects of Ms. Ismail's life with her ability to parent her son?   And if they were so able to persistently engage in this nitpicking, why was it apparently so very one-sided without ever extending to a broader perspective of Ms. Ismail's life?  Did any of them ever wonder about this?  Did their conscious ever nag at them?  

Was the primary motivating factor something as simple and unconscionable as the Orange County Social Services Agency's "choice to err 'on the side of overreaction, because the alternative could be devastating,'" as an Orange County official said, according to Ms. Aviv, because the wrong recommendation can "'be a career ender'" for social workers.  This amounts to the possibility of destroying other people's lives to save your own vocational life. 

It is partly this very type of social work behavior that I refer to in my spring 2013 Tikkun article.  It is behavior reminiscent of a social worker, who upon hearing that a bored young person who drew a small skeleton on her hand, interpreted this, without any additional evidence, to mean that the young woman was suicidal.  It is, sadly, behavior reminiscent of the witch hunts of yore.
 
Child welfare should not be about "getting someone."   But it must be about helping a family resolve the problem that led to its involvement with the system.  And that means that, sometimes, intensive and extensive work is called for to achieve this.  Most of the time, the current system is just not prepared to carry this out.  So here again I must say that the piecemeal and superficial kind of change we are accustomed to hearing about is very unlikely to ever lead to real and substantial positive change.  The child welfare system must attract people who value the attainment of knowledge through life-long learning, the ability to flexibly use that knowledge, and the importance of an ethical mind-set that is intimately connected to that store of knowledge.  One possible way for this to occur is through the elevation of child welfare into a prestigious profession, as I have previously written.   

We ask how and when such change will occur.  Indeed, how will it finally occur?



      

   

Let's take a look at what happened in the situation described in the previous blog article, The Near Destruction of an American Family, and see what can be learned.  While it is impossible now to know with certainty what thoughts motivated the various child welfare personnel as they interacted with the parents and put forth their recommendations, we can discuss possible ways of thinking and other factors based on the outcomes of their actions.   

What possible thoughts may have motivated the caseworker to recommend the removal of the son from the parents' custody?  Did she find evidence of abuse and or neglect on the part of both parents?  If so, what was that evidence?  Was it so severe that the son needed to be removed not only from the mother but also from the father's custody?   Did she consider the fact that the father had called asking for help a sign that even if the mother's behavior posed some risk, the father showed responsible behavior?  The father soon was living away from the mother which would have reduced or eliminated the possible risk she may have posed.  What was the caseworker's evidence to support removal from the father?  What was her attitude about the father's role as parent?  Did she and the father develop an antagonistic interaction which then biased her view of him but still did not reflect on his parenting ability?  Did she discuss this situation with her supervisor and if so what did she describe during their meetings?  What input did the supervisor have?  What evidence was presented to the court, which is the entity that sanctions the removal?  What questions were posed by the court?  Even if the caseworker and her supervisor believed that both parents posed a risk to the toddler, did they consider all sides of this scenario and then weigh the variables?  Did they consider the seriousness of removal and its consequences for the child?  For the parents?  Did they somehow present a picture of the parents as just being plain bad and used this as justification to marginalize them to the extreme?  If so, did the passage of time and their own previous behavior lead them to continue to justify what they had done by not changing course but rather digging in and strongly maintaining their viewpoint?  How did they manage to ignore the father's positive attributes?  How were they able to interpret the father's persistent and adamant demand that his sons be returned to him,  expressed with passion and perhaps even anger during a case review, as a sign of his violent tendencies?  How was such behavior instead seen as a sign of violence?  Why was the context ignored?  

Were underlying competency and/ or ethical issues factors in the caseworker's, supervisor's and original case reviewer's actions?  Did the various parties act out of a sense of fear that something would possibly go wrong were the child allowed to remain with the father which could then threaten their employment?   

How much influence did the younger son's foster parents exert in preventing the son's return to the father?  How about the private agency's administration?  If these were major factors in the trajectory of this situation,  under what circumstances was this allowed to develop?

At some point one or several bonding or attachment assessments took place involving the younger son, the father and the foster parents.  Was this an appropriate action for this kind of situation?  Was this a contest between the father and the foster parents where the better parent wins custody of the boy?   Or, did this situation entail a father who had lost custody of his son but whose behavior did not warrant the continuation of this custody order but rather the return of the son to his custody?  If so, why should any attachment evaluation have been undertaken?  And what possible implication would its results bear?     

Additionally,  what exactly can an attachment evaluation demonstrate, even if it had been an appropriate instrument for this kind of situation?  Does it yield what it purports to?  Can it yield what it purports to?  The answer to this is probably no.

Because bonding or attachment assessments rely on the  child's  interaction with the parent and foster parent those behaviors usually are open to a variety of interpretations.  Many variables can influence the nature of what the child does during the assessment.  Simplistic conclusions can be very misleading and plain wrong. 

Here, as in many other child welfare situations that do not include the most severe risk factors and where children nonetheless are removed from their parents' custody, we can wonder if the caseworker and the court have really grasped the magnitude of what they have put in place.  Have they engaged in the in-depth level of thought and introspection such situations require before acting.  We do need to wonder about this since it often seems that far more thought and deliberation goes into moving one's lawn furniture.