As hordes of parents can attest, parenting education has long been a staple of child welfare services.  It may very well be the most important one.  But as we have been discussing in previous blog articles, the manner and context in which it and all other child welfare services are presented to families greatly misses the mark and, therefore, even something as valuable as parenting classes usually fails in its putative mission.   Let us take a look at the idea of parenting education outside the child welfare system.

Rather than remedially teach parenting skills to those who have allegedly fallen short of the standard, why not avail all parents and even potential parents to this training.  It's certainly not because of the lack of agreement about the role of good parenting,  though this agreement might not translate into the need for proactive training.  When the issue is broached, few would argue that parenting is not important; but otherwise it's usually not something on the minds of policy makers---the way computer training is, for example.

Writing in the May-June 2014 issue of American Psychologist, Terry Stancin and Ellen C. Perrin point out that, "Despite a growing evidence base for the benefits of parenting education programs and other social-emotional interventions for parents of young children, these programs are rarely accessible, affordable, and offered in comfortable and nonstigmatizing settings." 

Parenting education  can be viewed from two perspectives.  First, as a series of complex tasks with significant ramifications, parenting benefits when guidance, ideas and study are part of learning how to educate and nurture children.  Like all other tasks, there's much to learn and know and there needs to be a way and a place in which to do so.  But, second, we can also consider parenting education as part of a more general approach to learning many additional all-important life-skills.  

Much of what parents need to learn about parent-child interactions is not unique to those kinds of situations but very often also apply to other interactions and relationships.  True, there are many specific parenting techniques to learn, but even those usually require more general skills.  And these are skills which pertain to our philosophical outlook about life-goals and expectations and ideas about human interaction.  Our ideas about patience are but one example of behavior and its underlying attitudes which pertain to parenting as well as many other scenarios.  In fact, good parenting includes helping children learn these very skills.

But a mere perusal of any daily will immediately make us wonder how and why we have failed to inculcate these sensible and cooperative ideas and skills into the mind-set of so many people.  While there can't be a simple answer, at the same time we would probably be correct to assume that in most cases this is an area of people's education that was lacking.  

So why not include in school curricula rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) training.  Not as therapy, but as education.  As a matter of course this will include many skills necessary for good parenting as well as many other important aspects of dealing well with day-to-day experiences.  REBT can be taught in an age appropriate manner throughout the elementary and high school years.  This will equip citizens with very relevant skills with broad ramifications, and will recognize that human interaction and parenting are no less important than knowing how to use a computer.

  

 

Change in child welfare practice can occur in more than one way.  So, let's continue our discussion from the previous blog article and look at some of those ways.   Individual caseworkers and supervisors need not wait for an official memo before initiating better and more effective ways of working with families.  We can not wait for nor should we accept an all or nothing solution to child welfare's inept manner of dealing with families.   In fact, caseworkers themselves are in a prime position to assure that parents and children receive the humane, compassionate and carefully thought through and effective help that can achieve  sought after goals.  They can do this by incorporating better practice modes into their already established work with families. 

 First and foremost though, child welfare personnel need exposure to the new ideas and improved practice modes discussed on this website.  In this article we propose some ways in which this can happen. These ideas need to be examined, refined and possibly expanded upon, and additional ideas need to be developed as well.  These proposals had best be seen as portals to numerous additional possibilities.

Funding for the stipends mentioned in the following proposals can be sought from foundations, private donors and, possibly, even government agencies.

1. Caseworkers and supervisors will be offered a stipend to attend a non-degree course of study to be held on weekends, covering the issues and ideas discussed on this website.  Participants who complete the first part of this course, believe that they can and wish to work with families in the manner advocated, and will commit to doing so,  may proceed to the next section, for which they will receive a second stipend.   They will take upon themselves to implement serious life building work with parents; to maintain a patient,  compassionate and persistent mind-set; to agree to never base any decision on self-interest, but rather solely on what they believe is best for the family;  to devote additional work hours beyond their salaried time when necessary; to courageously defend the nature of their work to their supervisors, if and when questioned; and to continue their independent studies and reading throughout the time they work in child welfare.  

2.  A child welfare track oriented toward the ideas advocated on this website can be established as part of a graduate psychology program.  Participating students will receive stipends at certain intervals.  Students will be asked to make the same commitments as above and also agree to at least five years of child welfare work.

3.   Under private or foundation sponsorship, a proposal can be publicized calling for child welfare personnel to review a paper outlining the problems with current child welfare practice and general suggestions for change, as discussed on this website.  Caseworkers, supervisors and managers will be asked to submit their ideas for ways to implement these new and progressive practice modes within the current and established system, as well as any and all ideas related to the development of  new ways of working with child welfare families.   Applicants whose submissions are chosen and who will also make a four-year commitment to working with families following these philosophical principles, will participate in a year-long dialectical seminar.  Stipends will be awarded at four points: 1. All submissions;  2. Chosen submissions; 4.  Seminar participation;  and 4.  Four-year commitment and actual work with families.  

4. Media announcements and mailings will seek to recruit caseworkers and other child welfare personnel to in turn rally and enlist their colleagues to participate in the above efforts.

5.  Independent of the child welfare system, advertisements and other efforts can recruit parents with current child welfare involvement who wish to work with highly trained personnel on what we have been referring to as life building.  The advertisements will clearly describe the process and possible outcomes. 

6.  A media campaign will seek caseworkers who wish to participate in a conference where they will discuss and voice their ideas about change in child welfare practice.  Participants will receive a stipend and will also be given the opportunity to enroll in a course of study that includes their ideas for better practice.

7. A media campaign will call for essays written by child welfare personnel outlining better practice modes, including life building.  Authors of chosen essays will not only receive stipends but also will participate in a course of study as organizers and leaders.

8. A media campaign will seek nominations from the general public and from child welfare staff of child welfare personnel who have demonstrated caring and effective work with families.  Chosen personnel will be afforded the opportunity to participate in a forum where their experiences and ideas will be discussed in cooperation with other child welfare workers.  All participants will receive stipends and the offer to enroll in a course of study that furthers the work begun at this forum.

9.  Parents and caseworkers will develop a three part program that they will present to small groups of child welfare personnel.   Part one will consist of a critique of current practice implications on parents and parents' ideas for better and more relevant intervention.  Part two will entail in-depth discussion among all parties to develop better practice and strategies for implementation.  In part three, participants will present new practice modes based on the previous two parts.   All participants will receive stipends and caseworkers who undertake to implement the better practice modes, with ongoing support, will receive additional allowances.

10.  Caseworkers  not yet familiar with ideas such as life building and other better practice modes will visit, together with others who already are well versed in these ideas, families who have had child welfare involvement .  Through these contacts and discussions caseworkers will thereby come to understand the nature and ramifications of living in impoverished conditions and the impact on parenting.

11.  A private child welfare agency will be chosen, through a bid process, to participate in a seminar followed by a yearlong course of study for its caseworkers, supervisors and managers, which will provide comprehensive training in better practice, including life building.  The agency and all participants will receive stipends.

To many, the child welfare system with its entrenched and bureaucratic ways seems impenetrable to change.  They are correct in that achieving change would be a difficult and extensive undertaking, but they are incorrect to think that this is an impossibility.  This mind-set should also not be an excuse to not pursue change in other ways.   Some of those ways are outlined above. Now, let's get started .

The ideas and proposals discussed on this website make sense, but, realistically, do you think a system as large and as intractable, as dug in as child welfare has long been, will ever implement any of them, I've been asked.  The state of child welfare in America does indeed seem pretty gloomy and there has been no indication of significant philosophical change in practice over the past fifty years.  But while we had better never stop hoping, rather than exclusively pursuing immediate full-blown change, the kind of change that appears in official policy manuals, individual managers, supervisors and caseworkers can and should be urged to begin incorporating these ideas into their daily work with families.  

Child welfare personnel can become familiar with the ideas we have been discussing, come to see their logic, importance and relevance, and then start incorporating them into their work with parents.  Managers and supervisors can lead discussions with their caseworkers around these ideas.  But to think that this will happen is in and of itself simplistic and naïve, some may counter. So, how will caseworkers and supervisors identify and grab onto that elusive inspiration which will ignite the spark and harness the desire, the insight, the commitment... and often the courage to undertake this kind of work?   

The first step requires that these ideas be presented to child welfare staff as serious and viable practice possibilities.  Some will want to hear from respected supervisors or respected co-workers that this is the case.  Others, after reading about these ideas, may begin to mull over their significance and start to strategize and develop plans to incorporate them into their work with families.   This website, Progressive Ideas in Child Welfare, can serve as that impetus. That, after all, is a primary purpose of this website.  There may likely be caseworkers who, as the result of their own child welfare work, have come to similar conclusions and have been struggling for a way to break loose from the sorry constraints imposed upon them.  Just the confirming knowledge that they are not alone, that others too are of a similar mind-set, can embolden them to independently act on their ideas.

Why is it naïve to believe that this is possible?   Is it inconceivable that within the child welfare system there are, at least, some caseworkers sufficiently perceptive, caring and resolute to undertake a new, better way of  helping families?  How can we know that around the country today there are not individual caseworkers who are bravely not adhering to official protocol when they believe another way is more appropriate? 

In July 1984, an attorney, Leslie A. Jones, then on the staff of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, wrote the following letter to a caseworker's supervisor:    
           
     I represent (name withheld) whose children were taken from her in late May, 1984.  ...  Although [the mother] is not an easy person to deal with, [the worker] showed, from the outset, unusual sensitivity and insight into her situation.  In particular, his idea that [ the mother] needed not the usual "psychological counseling" but instead help in managing her money, demonstrated [the worker's] refusal to settle for social science clichés and quick fixes.  Additionally, [ the worker] made several extra home visits, contacted me in the evening (for my convenience) to arrange  a court date, and appeared in court on relatively short notice.  Without his extra effort, [the mother] would not have gotten her children returned as quickly as she did.

The caseworker about whom this letter was written was employed by a very large state child welfare agency.  As this letter points out, in his efforts to help the mother the worker didn't choose the service most readily available but instead, after assessing what he thought would truly address the problem, followed that route and provided the appropriate help.  Because his supervisor was as insightful as she was supportive, the worker had a good partner in his work with families.  But even that can not always minimize the pressures and the constraints of the system.  Still, the worker was led by what the parent needed, not by any practice du  jour.  And I know that this was no isolated instance.  I know because I was that worker.  

In the 1980's, at least at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services where I worked, the average caseload was 80-100 families.    With today's drastically reduced caseloads, it should be easier for caseworkers to devote significant time to each of the families with whom they work and to better attend to particulars.   

Every parent, every family, who benefits from an enlightened caseworker's insightful ideas will be one less instance of typical child welfare mayhem.  Though not the ideal and hoped for large scale change, we should seriously and persistently strive for both.  

For the majority of child welfare personnel, who have been indoctrinated into the typical business as usual-cover your ass school of thought, the great impediment is never being exposed to these other ideas.  This remains our urgent task, albeit, not an easy task, but one certainly redolent with possibility. 



  

In the last blog article we discussed some practical life building ideas that parents and caseworkers can explore and use together.  Also important, and well worth addressing, is how this life building is conceptualized and understood by all parties, including the general public.  There sometimes has been a tendency to view life building in the child welfare context as emanating from what recently has come to be referred to as a strength-based approach.  I think that is mistaken on several counts.

On first blush, the very concept, life building, seems to resonate a non-problem based approach.  But the flaw with this line of thought is not the non-problem part of the equation but rather the other half, the approach concept.  And that's because it would be wrong and mistaken to conceptualize life building as an approach.  An approach implies a chosen strategy, one out of several possibilities, to deal with a certain problem.  This places the need for life building in the same realm of most other problems, poor parenting skills, substance abuse or a deficit in anger management, for example.  However, a person does not engage in life building tasks in response to a problem or problems, but does so, in accordance with societal norms, because of the desire to pursue and attain a satisfying and meaningful life.  Life circumstances that drastically prevent such participation do not alter the nature and meaning of this process.  Moreover, given the mighty weight of the combining forces of poverty and racism, as well as boring and inadequate schools, which have repeatedly failed to provide sensitive, stimulating and personalized educational efforts, all major factors in the longstanding development and perpetuation of an unpardonable and colossal epidemic, it would also be downright haughty to now thrust upon these very families a strength- or anything else-based approach. 

Enough with the approaches; it's high time that people  - all people - be treated as people - not clients - and be given substantial opportunities to forge satisfying lives and to receive the kinds of help that will allow them to do so.  While a deficit in empathy for the plight of those who have readily come to serve as clients for the child welfare system has contributed to our habit of perpetually attributing labels to them or, to the so-called techniques used to work with them, probably much more telling has been our pervasive blindness to the real nature of their impoverished situation.  We see them but, yet, we don't.  Have the impoverished among us not become anything but an accepted, and an even annoying, part of the American landscape?

How firmly ingrained is our belief that most families who live in neighborhoods, into which we try our darnedest not to tread, are perfectly satisfied with the few outlets for joy available to them?   Self-righteously referring to their usually bare-boned existence as their culture, we don't even imagine their yearning for the same kinds of cultural and educational attainment and opportunities for meaningful pursuits, which their more fortunate fellow citizens view as their birthright.

As we discussed in the very first blog article, the herculean work needed to achieve real change and better lives for America's impoverished population is not directly the task of the child welfare system.  But if child welfare expects to have any real impact in the lives of families living in various levels of poverty, it must finally conclude that its tired and , usually, unsuccessful attempts at getting parents to change specific behaviors while their lives remain in shambles will rarely work.

Were things different, and this situation was reversed across time, child welfare would very likely lose its traditional client base.  Parents who have opportunities to build satisfying and meaningful lives, like the rest of us, and believe that their own and their children's potential to achieve the kinds of lives other Americans take for granted will, for a combination of reasons, be determined to learn good parenting techniques. 

Though a variety of factors are usually involved in one's parenting style, knowledge and skills, three important factors are salient:  1. The desire and willingness to think about and provide good parenting;  2.  The acknowledgement of the reason for and importance of good parenting skills; and 3.  The actual day to day skills that constitute good parenting. 

What we have seen in decades of child welfare intervention is that parents living in desperate and impoverished circumstances have usually not been successful in these three domains.  But they can be.  Many of them, not feeling that they nor their children truly belong to and fit into a life that holds much hope for any rewarding, both material and existential, endeavors, have not seen the need for much attention to the idea of learning about good parenting.

It may help us to envision one's life mired in poverty and the lack of opportunity, often over generations, and then to try and grasp the resulting mind-set and its ramifications.

So, when child welfare engages in efforts to help parents finally work toward building better and satisfying lives it's because other entities, social services and otherwise, have failed to undertake this vital work.  For child welfare to do so is primary and necessary if we want to assist parents in changing their parenting.

Not only is it not correct and also haughty to refer to assistance with life building as an approach but it also probably cannot be considered an approach for an additional reason.  Even once a parent has successfully begun leading a satisfying and meaningful life, there remains much to learn about parenting and its related skills.  Like most any other parent, these things are learned by study, introspection and experience.  So there cannot be an approach that assists parents in  achieving a satisfying life and that automatically leads to good parenting knowledge.  Instead, a satisfying life is the framework which makes possible the implementation of good parenting skills.

To state the need for life building does not imply that people living under chronic impoverished conditions do not experience joy, happiness or satisfaction.  But, when they think about and assess each circumstance and occurrence, and then attribute the kind of significance that leads them to arrive at those beliefs and feelings, their overwhelmingly difficult and distraught daily struggles prevent them , in part, from viewing these circumstances as sufficiently important and worthy of providing meaning and direction to their lives.  Since they also are well aware that societal norms value college education, high-paying , vocationally-trained fields and attainment of recognized middle-class status, their ideas about their alienation from this sphere not only hinder their attitudes about isolated satisfying episodes, but likewise contribute to a broad hopeless mind-set.

Many different experiences and one's assessment of them are involved in what we have been referring to as life building.  Opportunities for various kinds of joy, happiness and satisfaction contribute to this process.  Nonetheless, it's usually the joy, happiness and satisfaction that result from the assessment and belief that one's life contains meaning and purpose that greatly influence many of our choices and endeavors, our very desire to pursue them and, finally, our feeling of having found a worthwhile place in this world.  This last kind of satisfaction constitutes the coming together of various pleasures but most significantly, the belief that one's life has direction, a direction within which one's familial, occupational and avocational pursuits fit well.

Over the decades Freudian ideology has influenced social service practice, not always directly, but sometimes indirectly, in ways that often do not noticeably embody psychoanalytic tenets.  This can be seen in the underlying rigidity in the day to day rules and procedures expected of various helpers.  And, usually, its only unspoken rationale has been its self-reinforced repetition over many years.  We  can pretty much guess that much of the focus on what to say, what not to say, when to say it or not say it, etc., has had, at least, somewhat of a Freudian genesis. 

Even in the age of so-called evidence based practice, have we really given careful thought to much of what has been accepted as practice gospel?  In the child welfare field, where decades of family intervention has overwhelmingly failed to produce enduring, improved behavioral change and better lives for parents and children, taking that step is long overdue.  Rather than  focus on specific rules and rigid techniques, we had better begin to think about the kinds of things caseworkers and parents should be doing together to alleviate child maltreatment and create more satisfying lives for child welfare involved families.   So let's continue the discussion we began in earlier blog articles as we try to stretch the imagination and consider some of the things that can produce real and substantial change. 

Suppose that one day during a home visit you, the caseworker, ask the parents what major life change or changes they would like to make, or perhaps one of the parents raises that issue.  Perhaps one of them expresses a wish to have had a certain career or to have pursued a particular course of college study.  Rather than  pursuing this issue through discussion alone, as would occur in traditional practice, the parents and caseworker should begin the exploratory journey that will help the parents work toward achieving their wish.    The following  examples only begin to address the innumerable  possibilities of what can be accomplished within a context where caseworker support, of various kinds, is usually of the utmost importance.

Ways by which parents will learn more about their educational and vocational interests and goals as well as what they and the caseworker will do to achieve those objectives include:

• visits to  various work sites
• discussions with friends, neighbors and others from inside and out of the community who work in certain fields or who are knowledgeable about them
• printed and internet material and DVD's about occupations 
• ongoing perusal of the Occupational Outlook Handbook
• volunteer, observation and internship opportunities
•  expanded research into related and other occupations
• keeping of a diary with notes on information gathered, on the progression and development of ideas related to this information and  on thoughts and feelings about the newly acquired knowledge 
• identification of college programs, GED courses, and occupational training schools  
• school and employment practice interviews with caseworker, family members and friends
• meetings with college, vocational school and GED personnel and advisors
• learning CBT/REBT techniques and philosophy that will help along the way
• ongoing support and concrete assistance as parents engage in their educational and occupational pursuits
• child care arrangements for times when parents are away
• identification of tutoring services
• discussions with caseworker and individual reading about good study skills  
• periodic discussions with caseworker and, sometimes, others to review progress
• visits to libraries
• establishment by parents of group whose members are other parents who meet to discuss vocational and educational issues
• ongoing brainstorming discussions with caseworker and others about ideas related to the parents' occupational and educational efforts
•  parents' and caseworker's discussion about the connection between general life-satisfaction and child maltreatment and the concurrent improvement in both 

The previous list does not seem, at first glance, to look like something that would concern the child welfare system.  But, oh, had it better.  As we have discussed in earlier blog articles, most parents whose lives have been dominated by hopelessness and feelings of despair and alienation from mainstream American ideals and opportunities, and who believe that the future holds no chance for improvement for themselves or for their children, will usually have difficulty working toward behavioral change.   And this is what decades of child welfare intervention has indeed shown.  This is a generalization and as such cannot address every possible scenario.  But while it's true that child welfare's intervention is allegation based, the road toward parents' real and substantial behavioral improvement must begin to usually take a broader approach. 

The fact that this approach may presently seem impractical or naïve to some does not negate its logic, nor the urgency for its implementation.  Just as there has been a dearth of thought into the rationale behind much of accepted social service practice, there too seems to continue to be a complete blindness about the various etiological aspects of the multitude of child maltreatment allegations within America's impoverished communities.  But it's just such an investigation that will almost certainly reveal how lives dominated, very often over generations, by the far-reaching stifling and suffocating consequences of poverty set the stage for both problematic parenting and, often, merely the mistaken appearance of such.

An empathic and in-depth understanding of the magnitude of what this kind of life can wrought must inevitably lead us to the realization that the very scourge that has so stubbornly touched and influenced so many aspects of one's existence will very likely continue to do so even in the wake of superficial child welfare intervention.  On the other hand, substantial intervention that gets to the source of the problem, and that does so in a kind, persistent and humane manner, has every chance of succeeding.



   

    
 



   

 

What would have motivated the group home social worker in Chicago  to take the boy to the ice cream store?  What was it like for the young group home resident to be treated to an ice cream cone by his social worker?  Does a kid's walk to the ice cream store become something more than just that because he was accompanied by his social worker? 

A recent article about the NYPD's highest ranking female chief, Joanne Jaffe, and her close personal involvement with the sole survivor of a murdered family brought to mind what this social worker's wife told me many years ago.   Francine Derrick, another social worker formerly of Chicago and now a resident of McHenry, Illinois, suggested that I write about this incident and about helpers whose assistance sometimes extends beyond the traditional dictates of the job. In doing so I will discuss its relationship to child welfare work.

In April, 2014, on the 30th anniversary of what many refer to as the Palm Sunday Massarcre, The New York Times front page story, The Toddler Who Survived, And a Cop Who Became Mom, described how after the mass murder of ten people, including the toddler's mother and two half brothers, Officer Jaffe began a relationship with the 13 month old that years later led to Chief Jaffe adopting the young woman.   Officer Jaffe, one of the first officers on the scene, "was assigned to the toddler through the night, taking her to the hospital and then watching over her at a police station in East New York.  The officer became the girl's benefactor, then a surrogate parent.  At age 14, Christina moved in with the officer and her new husband.  And then last year, the officer adopted Christina, now 31."

The Times article reminded me of the wife's aforementioned account of her husband's ordeal at the Chicago group home.  The husband,  a social worker at this group home, took one of the male residents to get an ice cream cone.  The social worker was summarily fired because of this.  While my only knowledge of this incident comes from the wife's telling, I was, however, familiar with this agency and recall other examples of their unreasonable and Freudian influenced ways of thinking and modes of operation.  They excelled in their attempts at attributing behavioral pathology to both youngsters and parents, usually contrary to all available evidence. 

Now what exactly could have been the problem with the group home social worker taking a boy for an ice cream cone?  How would that have influenced the boy's so-called treatment at the group home?  How would a trip to the ice cream store have influenced the boy's thinking and attitude toward the social worker?  Toward the group home?  Could the boy have been hurt by this?  Could he have been helped?  Could the boy have been neither hurt nor helped but could he rather have just experienced a normal everyday pleasure that kids everywhere do?  And, in his isolated and dreary group home existence, the boy would have most probably appreciated this opportunity so much more.   What rules did the social worker transgress by taking the kid for ice cream?   Did he overstep the accepted boundaries between a social worker and client?  Did this constitute a multiple relationship?

Again, I do not have first-hand knowledge of what occurred at the group home but did hear about this from the social worker's wife, herself a child welfare social worker.  And as I said, what she described fit with my experience with this agency.  I therefore am quite confident about what occurred and about the group home's reaction.

It is also important to stress that the boy was a resident of this group home because he was removed from his parents' custody.  The parents' behavior had allegedly led to the boy's removal from their home.  That was the reason for his placement there.  He had not been placed there because he needed to avail himself to psychotherapy.  So when we begin to speak about the ethical issues of boundaries and multiple relationships, it is imperative that this be kept in mind.  

Freudian mythology, that has caused much harm to multitudes of people over the decades, was basically the rationalization for the group home's reaction to the social worker's ice cream episode.  But would even some hard-core Freudians not agree that this scenario was not the same as a  therapy situation?  But the administration of this agency rigidly and persistently dealt with their clients, in and out of their group home, from what they believed was a Freudian perspective.  Did they do this out of a mistaken conviction in Freudian ideology or did this approach make it easier for them to not attend to the developmental needs and basics that people need to grow?  

Even though "psychoanalysis, as a mode of treatment, has been experiencing a long institutional decline is no longer in serious dispute," as Frederick Crews has said, remnants of Freudian ideology pop up quite often when people are called "clients" and other people are called "helpers" of various sorts.  In light of this, it is worthy to continue Crews' quote at length:

"Freud's doctrine has been faring no better, in scientifically serious quarters, as a cluster of propositions about the mind.  Without significant experimental or epidemiological support for any of its notions, psychoanalysis has simply been left behind by mainstream psychological research.  No one has been able to mount a successful defense against the charge, most fully developed in Adolf Grunbaum's meticulous Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984), that 'clinical validation' of Freudian hypotheses is an epistemic sieve; as a means of gaining knowledge, psychoanalysis is fatally contaminated by the inclusion, among its working assumptions and in its dialogue with patients, of the very ideas that supposedly get corroborated by clinical experience.  And Grunbaum further showed that even if Freud's means of gathering evidence had been sound, that evidence couldn't have reliably yielded the usual constructions that he placed on it.  We cannot be surprised, then by Malcolm Macmillan's exhaustive demonstration (1997) that Freud's theories of personality and neurosis---derived as they were from misleading precedents, vacuous pseudophysical metaphors, and a long concatenation of mistaken inferences that couldn't be subjected to empirical review---amount to castles in the air." 

The work of police officers and social workers differs as do the guidelines they usually are expected to follow.  But cops too are probably subject to rules and standards and some of them probably address issues similar to the boundaries and multiple relationship guidelines for social workers and psychologists.  Did Officer Jaffe overstep her role and violate some rule or did she act in a humane and kind manner in her relationship with the girl?  

At this point it is important to differentiate between Freudian and Freudian induced reasons for certain restrictions upon helpers' behavior and the more sensible and, ostensibly, protective guidelines, such as those delineated by the American Psychological Association. 

The APA Ethical Principles for Psychologists and Code of Conduct states that, "A multiple relationship occurs when a psychologist is in a professional role with a person and (1) at the same time is in another role with the same person...A psychologist refrains from entering into a multiple relationship if the multiple relationship could reasonably be expected to impair the psychologist's objectivity, competence, or effectiveness in performing his or her functions as a psychologist, or otherwise risks exploitation or harm to the person with whom the professional relationship exists.  Multiple relationships that would not reasonably be expected to cause impairment or risk exploitation or harm are not unethical." 

The American Counseling Association Code of Ethics reads, "Counselors must make every effort to avoid dual relationships with clients that could impair their professional judgment or increase the risk of harm to clients.  When a dual relationship cannot be avoided, counselors must take appropriate steps to ensure that judgment is not impaired and that no exploitation occurs."

These kinds of guidelines seem to rule out the idea of misconduct on the part of the group home social worker.   The police officer's role with the girl would not have extended much beyond those first few days had Officer Jaffe not decided to remain involved and therefore no ethical issue was in question.  But the social worker's and police officer's jobs were also different because while the officer's involvement constituted multiple relations the social worker's really did not.  Taking the boy for an ice cream cone was not "another role" for the social worker but was in fact part and parcel of just the kind of thing a group home social worker should be doing. And this is an important point that is often misunderstood, in great part, because of the Freudian influence.  And this influence is one of the reasons why children living in foster care and group homes usually are subjected to lives almost devoid of any of the normal developmental stimulation and opportunities they need to grow and build satisfying lives.  Sometimes, it is merely used as an excuse not to provide these things.

Social worker Francine Derrick wrote in an e-mail that, "When I was doing my internship at [IDCFS] I had a 16 year old girl who had been in a lot of different foster homes and was doing so so in her current one and thrived on the individual attention I was able to give her. We got together weekly and talked a lot about everything and she was assigned a different caseworker in my unit when my internship was up, but all agreed she needed to keep in touch with me for a while so I gave her my home number and she called when she felt the need, frequently at first but less as she acclimated to the new worker and was doing better in home and school.  I knew that wasn't normal policy and I was glad [that my supervisor] could see beyond that to doing what was best for the girl who had very few positive relationships in her life.  We kept in touch for a couple of years."

Francine continues, "On the opposite end of that scale I recall an incident  at the mental health center where I was doing my other placement where a supervisor was very Freudian oriented as was the MSW student, and one of her clients, a troubled young man, brought her a small Christmas present.  Not only did she refuse to accept it at her supervisor's insistence, but she insisted that they explore what was behind him bringing it to her.  Oy vey, it was a damn Christmas present which his mother had suggested he get!  Needless to say the young man stopped coming in.  That's the kind of great work our MSW's are being trained to do.  That being said, I have another MSW friend who adopted a kid in her caseload 20 years ago when he was five years old, and they're still doing great so I guess we shouldn't lump all MSW's together."

The nature of effective and competent child welfare work very often necessitates a broader and more involved commitment from the worker.  As long as the worker's ethical mind-set is appropriate this is hardly a multiple relationship, but rather one based on what is needed and on a humane, logical and kind approach.  We will continue to discuss this in future blog articles.  


  







 





  





   

 

    

Parents' affirmative ideas about the nature of the working relationship with the caseworker constitute a large part of their trusting thoughts.  Parents' belief that a purpose exists in the work in which the caseworker has engaged them and that they and their children will, as a result, be enabled to substantially improve one or more aspects of their lives, is a fundamental building block of this trust.  This, combined with the parents' belief that the caseworker possesses kindness, integrity, and compassion as well as intellectual ability and a helpful skill-set, amount to what we consider trust in child welfare casework.

A caseworker whom the parents view as congenial and nice and whose visits are anticipated with pleasure but does little more than engage in chit chat can provide anticipated pleasurable times, but in terms of a developing trustful relationship, can leave the parents wondering about its purpose.  A caseworker, though, may need to determine if the situation does call for an initial period of congenial give and take without more substantive work.

Many paths can generate discussion about parenting problems/maltreatment and its connection to larger existential issues, but once the worker and parent touch upon this topic, the caseworker should offer assurance  through their discussion that clarifies the rationale behind this broad approach. 

Setting forth narrative such as I have done can give the erroneous impression that typical work with parents who have open child welfare cases is mostly obstacle-free.  And some situations may even, at first blush, seem intractable.  But even seemingly very difficult scenarios can usually, with time, yield to significant improvement, when the approach makes sense.      

Approaching child welfare work from a broader perspective,  as I have been advocating, raises the question of possible intrusion into family life beyond the scope of child welfare.  To side with this perspective, however, would fail to grasp not only the frequent connection between  maltreatment and a family's degree of general life satisfaction but also to blatantly ignore child welfare's long history of gross failure to help parents obtain long-term behavioral change.  So there needs to be a major change in the approach taken.    

The discrete details of any interaction between caseworker and parent must emanate from the nature of that interplay; we therefore can not lay out beforehand exactly what to do and when to do it.  Exactly how and when this would transpire would depend on the particulars of each unique situation, but at or toward the beginning of the interaction, the parents should be given, not only an explanation of the work in which they will be engaged, but also a taste of it.   

A few simple questions by the caseworker may elicit from the parents an elaborate narrative of wished-for life changes and aspirations for themselves and for their children.   If not, it may take more time and discussion to arrive there.  But at some point, to get that taste, a combination of discussion, use of literature and DVDs, participation by friends and neighbors who can share their own experiences, and visits by the parents and the caseworker to a variety of venues, such as educational institutions, museums and work venues should be undertaken.  

Some parents may believe that the magnitude of obstacles facing them, regardless of their sincere desire to work toward major change, precludes any realistic significant life altering improvements.  Helping them identify educational, occupational and cultural goals they wish to attain and then assisting with actual enrollment in the respective programs together with ongoing support and encouragement is a vital and integral part of this work.  Also necessary will be the caseworker's skill in helping parents learn to use CBT/REBT strategies  along the way.  The term support is used frequently but is often not well formulated or explained.  As a starting point, discussions with parents can shed light on just what they deem important in the caseworker's forthcoming support.  But, it should be a given that the caseworker will need to be an almost steady presence, a phone call away at times, and have the commitment and perseverance to help and support the parents as they work to overcome potential drawbacks.

The caseworker may be called upon to recruit additional sources of help, such as tutors (for children and parents), child care, transportation, nutritional, and legal, to mention just a few.  

Child welfare's traditional stance that parents with drug or alcohol addictions must first engage in substance abuse treatment before embarking on educational or occupational pursuits has already shown itself to be wrong, misguided and ineffective.  We must differentiate between very long-standing, chronic addictions together with multiple psychiatric problems and those addictions with less serious histories.  The very treatment for these addictions would quite likely be the kind of life changes we are advocating here.   

Yes, this is not the picture of a child welfare caseworker and the nature of child welfare interaction we've become used to.   But it is the picture of what is needed to help parents and their children have better and maltreatment free lives.       



   

   

Can a caseworker, who recognizes that the usual child welfare approach to working with families is ineffective, misses the point and also has little regard for parents' life situations, still provide the kind of assistance that will lead to long-term behavioral change?  Should this caseworker follow accepted practice, all the while blaming the system for its ineptitudes?  Should she just wait till system-wide change occurs?  Or, should she bravely  and independently proceed in the direction that she understands will likely lead to better parenting and to a better life for the families with whom she works?  Can an increasing number of  independent, competent and caring caseworkers not only do better by their clients but also eventually effect large-scale  change?  Since the caseworker's choices are self-evident, though at times fraught with difficulties, let's proceed to discuss ideas that she will find helpful. 

A caseworker wishing to locate a manual or a set of how to instructional books will seek in vain.  If only things were that simple.  The confluence of many variables, unpredictable occurrences, and variance in relational and expressive styles necessitate that a caseworker come with a vast knowledge base and the creative thinking ability to insightfully recognize how best to proceed.

The caseworker and parents first must establish a congenial and trusting relationship.  Because the concept trust has become overused and very often nebulous in its implications, to the point of often being very much a cliché, it is useful to discuss what is meant by trust and when it is and  is not a significant factor in  certain working relationships. The proliferation of silly exercises often used in group settings and mistakenly meant to build trust amongst the participants has only contributed to a less serious view of actual trust and its merits.

Trust, it would seem, pertains to just about every human interaction.  When we go to the grocery we expect that the produce will be fresh.  Students expect a certain level of competence from their instructors.  We expect that the bus driver knows the correct route and will get us to our destination within a reasonable time.  We even come to trust the companion animals with whom we live.  When we first meet someone and begin a relationship the nature of that relationship, as we want it to be, will determine our expectations for trust.  Trust is very much, in part, in the eye of the beholder, and sometimes, also influenced by the context in which the beholder finds herself.

The concept trust, as it relates to the counseling process, can entail two related components,1) trust that the counselor can provide competent help, and 2) trust that can develop between the counselor and client that will allow the expression of private and confidential details within a compassionate and empathic working relationship.      

A person who seeks out and arranges appointments with a counselor may or may not place value on the working relationship itself.  Her expectations may involve only that she and the counselor identify the problem and then work on techniques that will help her manage these difficulties in the future.  Another person, though, may also place importance on the actual working relationship itself.  They both however expect that the counselor can be trusted to provide competent service.  A particular counselor's reputation and prestige can enhance this trust.  Theoreticians differ in their opinions as to the role of trust and of the relationship itself in the counseling process. 

I doubt however that these theoreticians would disagree on the importance of the establishment of a trusting relationship in most child welfare scenarios.  That's because the child welfare client probably did not request the service and not only is it being forced on her, but this intrusion also brings with it the possibility of additional threats.  It is also likely that this client has a negative preconceived idea about caseworkers' interactivity with parents.  

The caseworker's genuine empathic and compassionate mind-set and approach, which seeks to patiently  understand the parent's life situation and the interplay of possible maltreatment, will slowly enable the development of a trusting relationship.   The importance of trust between the parent and caseworker can not be overly stressed.

The parents and caseworker must arrive at an agreement about what issues will be dealt with and to what purpose.  This relationship can not be forced nor false; sincerity on the caseworker's part can be expected to be met with similar genuineness by the parents, though perhaps not from the outset.  This often can be expected to take time to develop.  A time-table, script or list of techniques can not be helpful here.  Every scenario will require somewhat different ways of proceeding.  The varying nature of the maltreatment allegations will possibly necessitate establishment of both short and long-term goals. It will at times be a challenge to deal with the alleged abuse or neglect while simultaneously forging a congenial relationship.  This is in fact something that the caseworker should probably discuss directly with the parents.  Doing so, not only contributes to honest rapport, and an empathic give and take,  but also assures that the parent is fully aware of every aspect of the process, including its difficulties.  Certainly, a flexible mind-set is vital.

Time. A lot of time.  A lot of time may be necessary for this to transpire.  

There can be no presumption that mental health issues have been a factor in the maltreatment.  In fact, there probably should also be no presumption that any maltreatment actually occurred, investigative conclusions notwithstanding.  This may not apply 100% of the time but usually where firm evidence is lacking, the caseworker herself will need to determine the veracity of any allegations.  As the caseworker gets to know the parents she will slowly begin to understand what has transpired and the nature of any possible abuse or neglect.  When maltreatment indeed has occurred, unless there is evidence of seriously disturbed thought patterns connected to the abuse or neglect, no attribution of mental illness should be assumed. 

Sometimes it can be difficult to determine if abuse or neglect, as officially defined, has occurred.  Usually, a pattern, rather than a one-time occurrence, can begin to clarify the nature of the allegations. 

Parents can not be expected to initially welcome into their home representatives of a system that is seen as all powerful and with the potential to remove one's children and to forcibly demand adherence to unfamiliar and seemingly threatening expectations.  But a caseworker with a compassionate mind-set who persistently works on developing an ongoing congenial, respectful and constructive relationship with the parents will usually find that this threat will recede as time goes on.  Constructive relationship refers to the parents' belief and understanding that a purpose exists in this relationship and that they and their children will benefit from it. 

Some parents may not only readily welcome the child welfare caseworker into their home but may also anxiously and enthusiastically wish to work toward positive behavioral change.

Through patient and continuous discussion between parents and caseworker the parents' thoughts and ideas about the maltreatment, about its place in their family life and about its antecedents will begin to emerge.

In future blog articles we will discuss some specific issues regarding assisting parents with their aspirations for a more satisfying life and ideas about helpful parent education.    
 
 



     

 
 


      

The innovative comedic genius, Sid Caesar, died last Wednesday.  The following day, Ralph Waite, the stage actor who became widely known for his role as the family patriarch on the 1970's TV series, "The Waltons," died.  Their respective New York Times obituaries brought to mind  one of the major aspects of child welfare practice that is in dire need of change, as I have been writing in these blog articles.

Waite did not begin his career as an actor.  Starting, after college, as a social worker in Westchester County but "tiring of the county bureaucracy" he next attended Yale Divinity School and then became an ordained Presbyterian minister.  When he became "upset with what he saw as hypocrisy in the church" he moved on to editing religious books at Harper & Row.  His interest in editing soon waned and at a friend's suggestion he tried acting. '"I was in my 30's and I had never acted before," he told The Boston Globe in 1974.  "But I figured I had nothing to lose, so I went with him.  The first time I just listened.  The second time I played a scene.  The third time I took the bit in my teeth, and I loved it.  I felt alive for the first time since I can't remember when."'

Sid Caesar's pioneering, 1950's Your Show of Shows ran simultaneously with his alcohol and pill addiction.  Caesar "was distraught and filled with self-hate, tormented by guilt because he did not think he deserved the acclaim he was receiving."  He experienced some ups and downs after he went off the air in the late fifties; but in 1978 "he had hit bottom."  "Incapacitated by his addictions and neuroses, barely able to get out of bed, he underwent intensive psychotherapy and medical treatment.  He found salvation and sanity, he later said, in a form of Jungian self-therapy: recording improvised dialogues each day between himself as Sid, a wise father, and Sidney, his wayward son, whom the father teaches to become a restrained, confident adult.  In the 1980's Mr. Caesar acquired a new addiction: healthful living.  He developed a lean, youthful physique by avoiding fat, salt and sugar and by strenuously working out at least one hour each morning." '"Now, instead of knocking life down, tearing it apart, I graciously accept life, he said."'

Ralph Waite tried various kinds of work until finally finding the field that gave him immense satisfaction, so much so that he described this discovery as affecting the very essence of his life.  His vocational pursuit exemplifies, more or less, the expectations of most middle-class Americans in their efforts to build a satisfying life.  

Though plagued by serious addictions and neuroses over a period of many years, Sid Caesar was ultimately successful in turning his life around.  Whatever therapeutic techniques he had used to do so were no doubt effective because he had previously found satisfaction in his work and also continued to acquire new areas of significant interest.  Were his life overwhelmingly a series of negative experiences, with little or no chance to engage in the educational, cultural and vocational pursuits of the majority of citizens, with the resulting hopelessness experienced by the multitudes of America's impoverished population, his therapeutic efforts probably would have been devoid of any anchorage.  

And that's just how things are for the majority of families who become involved with the child welfare system. Their lives are usually dominated by hopelessness.  Attempts, and certainly mandated and coercive ones, at isolated behavioral change will usually be unsuccessful.  Life can already be a tremendous burden for many of these families and the forced and intrusive demands of child welfare caseworkers will usually be met not only with opposition and often anger, but also with a sense of great dismay.  How will the various child welfare mandated therapeutic interventions help them turn their lives, and their children's lives, around, they say to themselves.  Go to parent education classes, for what, they may think to themselves as they continue to see no better future life for their children then the sad and hopeless existence they have long been used to.

A new and different approach to working with families that patiently helps parents explore and identify ways for them to engage in educational, cultural and vocational pursuits in order to build satisfying lives will likely see a much improved rate of better parenting.  Parents will then see the purpose in better parenting and will be motivated in that direction.

In her book, Fighting For Life,  Sara Josephine Baker, MD,  the first director of New York City's Bureau of Child Hygiene and whose pioneering work with poor mothers and children in the first part of the twentieth century was responsible for saving tens of thousands of lives, wrote, "The chief point of leverage is always the fact that, although the average mother will go a long way with you, she does so only when she is convinced in her own mind that whatever is proposed will be good for her child."  Parents engaged with the child welfare system and who are helped to find real  opportunities for change will likely see why better parenting is "good for [their] child."

As in most situations there are exceptions and there may be parents who will respond to  current child welfare interventions.  But in the majority of situations that will not be the case, as decades of child welfare practice can attest.
     

   



 







 
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