In my letter to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, which I previously posted on this blog, I wrote, "Not only must caseworkers be able to flexibly use their acquired knowledge to understand what is in front of them but they also must maintain an ethical mind-set that assures that their recommendations are always based solely on what is best for the children and parents.  Not on what will happen to their jobs if something later goes wrong."  But why should something happen to their jobs if something goes wrong?

The something we're talking about is usually the kind of extreme situation we've become accustomed to seeing plastered in bold letters across the dailies' front page.  Starving children left alone in a filthy apartment and abuse or neglect leading to the death of a child do not happen often, but when they do internal investigations are soon to follow.  Repercussions for caseworkers and supervisors  are usually next, which can frequently include termination of employment.  With this in mind, caseworkers and their supervisors, more so during certain periods, as after a recent high profile child death, are prone to recommend foster care placement and oppose return home.   Juvenile Court judges' decisions  too, I think, are often rendered through a similar lens. 

Is the fear that child welfare workers allow to influence their decisions based on the possibility that they will be accused of maleficence or incompetence?  If they have acted appropriately how consequential can these fears be?  Can they have reason to believe that even when their actions have been carried out appropriately they still will suffer negative repercussions?  Even if a mistake was made should the response be job termination?  Is it possible to predict and prevent any and all scenarios?  Do physicians, for example,  lose their licenses when they are unable to prevent their patient's death or even when their errors lead to a similar fate?   Are the same processes at play in other professions?  If not, what is unique about child welfare work? 

What differentiates child welfare work from other professions in this regard are possibly four  factors: 1) The public's ideas about the lives of vulnerable children and their parents;  2) Child welfare, always city, county or state run, is directly tied to politicians, their positions, and their desire to satisfy their constituencies and their continued need to receive their votes;  3) The media's long established precedent to publish and  broadcast major stories, sometimes in series format over an extended period, about the most extreme child abuse and neglect situations, and, 4) The public perception and expectation that much of the work that has been and will be carried out by child welfare personnel has not been and will continue to not be competent.    

This political aspect is reminiscent of some public school systems' evaluation of the ability and competence of teachers based upon student performance, even though many other variables also contribute to these outcomes. 
 
Here too is an area of child welfare that must change.  And it is an area that is directly tied to the kind of change that I have been addressing in previous blog articles:  The need to elevate child welfare work in order to attract highly competent and knowledgeable workers, which will in turn, itself, lead to an eminent system.  Part of what is also needed is promotion and advocacy of what child welfare is really about. About the complex situations families present and the new, highly trained and knowledgeable caseworkers who are dedicated to working to help these parents and children have better lives.   This is what the media should be presenting to the public.  And this is what would be possible once such a system is in place.  These new, highly knowledgeable caseworkers who would be able to articulate the true nature of child welfare work to the media,  by doing so, will also instill confidence that these families are in good hands.  Politicians would then be reassured that the media would not go after them, even when tragedy occurs, with the subsequent result that caseworkers would not have reason to fear for their jobs.

What the current system, with its pattern of terminations, really shows, quite likely, is that it's no secret that so much of what has occurred in child welfare is misguided and plain incompetent.  That may be one of  the underlying thoughts behind these terminations, and the rationalization behind the political motivation.  Perhaps there have been administrators and government officials whose sleep has been disrupted by their seemingly hopeless and futile ruminations about how to finally change child welfare but have never been able to hit upon a workable solution.  Perhaps they have also not had the necessary background and knowledge to properly deal with this complicated issue.  

The possibility and fear of being terminated if and when something serious, even death, goes wrong, is counterproductive to competent and ethical child welfare casework.  But this is true only if highly competent and ethically thinking caseworkers populate the system.  If they don't, and the status quo continues, it is hardly something as severe as a child death that should probably warrant termination. 





 

   

 



       

The following is an edited version of a letter I sent to New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio.


January 12, 2014

The  Honorable Bill de Blasio
 Mayor of the  City of New York
 City  Hall
 New York, NY  10007

 Dear Mayor  de Blasio:

The horrific torture and death of 4-year-old Myls Dobson evokes not only a mix of extreme
sadness, bewilderment, and outrage but also the strong wish that this never happen again.  For the mayor of New York City this wish is clearly magnified by the cognizance that it is within his
power to take steps that can reduce the likelihood of future similar tragedies.  Coming at the beginning of your new administration, this tragedy and your determination “to do everything in our power to save every child” can potentially lead to one of two directions. 
 
An apprehensive and fear driven child welfare system, where caseworkers and
supervisors, worried about hypothetical what-ifs, favor foster care placement
rather than intense and compassionate in-home assistance, can harm many children
and their parents.  While child  deaths, such as Myls Dobson’s, tend to heighten one’s attention to this kind of possibility, they can not be allowed to drive child welfare policy, as they so
often have in the past.  As you are  aware, the torture and death of a child is an aberrant occurrence and is not representative of the nature of the majority of child welfare situations. 
 
Families who become involved with the child welfare system present an array of complexities
and life problems, which are often misunderstood by caseworkers and counselors.   Doing “everything in our power to save every child” should focus on the need for highly trained and knowledgeable caseworkers and supervisors who are dedicated to helping families forge better and satisfying lives. Not only must caseworkers be able to flexibly use their acquired knowledge to understand what is in front of them but they also must maintain an ethical mind-set that  assures that their recommendations are always based solely on what is best for
the children and parents. Not on what will happen to their jobs if something later goes wrong.

To say that real and substantial child welfare reform is long overdue goes way beyond being
merely an understatement.  What has until now passed for change and reform in child welfare has usually been nothing more than a kind of cosmetic musical chairs. The elevation of child welfare work into a profession that attracts highly trained people, schooled at university
psychology departments, seems to be the key to real change. 
 
Your dedication and commitment to progressive change holds the hope that at last all
New York City families can expect that if and when a child welfare caseworker comes knocking at the door, that knock will signal real help, compassion and  respect.
 
I want to wish you great success in carrying out your promise of bringing progressive change to New York City and sincerely hope that this will include genuine and substantial change in the City’s child welfare  system.

Sincerely,


Sidney Goldberg
  


 
   
 


 
 
 
 
 

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks New Yorkers have frequently, if not relentlessly, been coaxed and reminded, If You See Something, Say Something.  Other cities around the world have probably instituted similar public efforts.  The campaign to prevent future terrorist attacks shares several components with nationwide child abuse prevention campaigns.  Both are geared toward attracting the public's attention through the depiction of a sense of urgency.  The implication behind both campaigns is that each target group is very vulnerable to harm carried out by others.  Both target groups require public intervention to secure their safety.  Both groups' safety is threatened by people who are, or may be, intent on causing them harm or worse.  The public is warned in both scenarios that potential catastrophe is likely without their intervention.

Both campaigns are not merely a momentary call to arms but are also an effort to educate the public about its current and future responsibility.  They also, in effect, are influential in shaping the public's attitudes about the agents of both respective acts, terrorist attacks and child maltreatment.

The possibility exists that the pervasiveness of public campaigns such as the anti-terror effort and Most Wanted posters may, to some extent, color the manner in which people come to think about and understand the child abuse prevention effort and, in turn, child maltreatment itself.  This can influence many to view the parents as perpetrators of crimes whose rights as parents should be terminated. 

One may ask what difference it makes what attitude a potential reporter of child maltreatment holds, as long as the call is made.  A multifold response is required:   

First, reporting a family to a child abuse hotline is never to be taken lightly.  Even when substantiated maltreatment is found to be present, given the infamous and ongoing pattern of child welfare's history of not providing appropriate and helpful services to families, with much unnecessary disruption and misguided intervention, extreme caution had better be the guide.  A violation or crime can be viewed as something straight forward or black and white; a citizen's civic duty is to make a report, few would question.  But a mind-set that views child maltreatment, not as a crime, and not as an antisocial act, but as a family problem which calls for possible compassionate and competent assistance, should often give one reason to pause and consider more effective intervenient approaches before contacting a hotline.  

Second, whether or not public announcements include exhortations to parents themselves to call for assistance, the hotline, at least in theory, can be a possible source for parents.  They probably will be more likely to do so in response to a campaign that promises compassionate help.

Third, children, too, who may contemplate turning to a child abuse hotline for assistance will probably be less hesitant to do so in response to a campaign that does not appear harsh nor entails parental punishment.

Fourth, the child welfare system as a societal institution is in a position to educate and inform the public about its purpose and work.  This work should be accurately reflected in any public pronouncements.

Fifth, a citizenry correctly informed and knowledgeable about various aspects of child welfare work will be in a position to advocate and support long overdue real and substantial reform. 

Sixth, child welfare personnel themselves can likely be erroneously influenced by the nature of the campaign, as can politicians, whose hoped for familiarity with the complexities and subtleties of child welfare can have a significant impact on policy and procedure. 

Seventh, a citizenry that has developed a compassionate view of families who are burdened with various problems and hardship will be more likely to voluntarily offer neighborly help and assistance.

The very term child protection connotes something adversarial; it can seem to call for someone to step in and provide a barrier between the parent and child.  It implies that this barrier is needed to stop the onslaught of harm and danger coming from the parent(s).  It also implies that the parents' intent is to harm the child unless official protectors can successfully and, sometimes forcefully, stop them.  Who would even imagine harming a defenseless child, so this stream of thought goes, but an evil-intended defective, certainly not a normal human being; moreover, if that person also happens to be the child's parent, such wickedness is almost unimaginable.  This is very likely the picture conveyed by the concept child protection. Though perhaps not always articulated this way, it nonetheless, in a more abbreviated form, may dominate the thinking of many citizens who have been influenced by protective imagery.  

Rather than present parents as adversarial, child maltreatment prevention campaigns can and should describe a more accurate and compassionate picture, one that portrays some families as experiencing difficulties, and/or lacking adequate parenting knowledge.  And, that their family situation connects with the societal mandate to provide assistance to help them improve should be the context in which this is presented.  Rather than merely responding to another's call for action, the campaign should emphasize the ethical imperative that binds us all to help one another.     





       



 

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.  







 

Who would have imagined that a hole in the middle of a bed could have torn a hole so large that it nearly destroyed the last vestige of an American family.  But when a young father concerned about his toddler's welfare turned to the Illinois child welfare system for help that's exactly what happened.

The mother's drug use continued even after her participation in seven treatment programs and the father had been unsuccessful at convincing her to not take their two year old son along when she purchased drugs.  Leaving for work each morning, the father was apprehensive about the boy's well-being while in the sole care of the mother and after the mother burnt a hole in their bed while smoking, in 1991, the father called the Illinois Child Abuse Hotline requesting assistance for the mother.

When an investigator was dispatched to look into the matter, the father asked for assistance with child care, in an effort to alleviate the possibility of any harm to their son while he was at work.  Upon completion of the investigation a private agency caseworker was assigned the case. The father's continued requests that treatment be provided for the mother fell on deaf ears, according to the father.  Instead, the caseworker proceeded to remove the child from the parents' custody, citing their escalating arguments with each other.  When two months later the mother gave birth to a second boy, he too was immediately placed into a foster home.

I became involved with this family in 1993, when I worked in the new IDCFS targeted case management (TCM) unit.  The purpose of TCM was to monitor, advise and work with the private agencies in their handling of long-standing, obstinate foster placement cases with the goal of achieving a stable resolution.

During our first meeting, the parents said that the caseworkers had never tried to assist them, but instead were insistent in keeping their two children with their respective foster parents.  The father was incredulous that it was he who had called the department requesting help and had not been the subject of any abuse or neglect report; but as a result of his outreach had ended up losing his boys.  Moreover, though they had several relatives with whom the children could have been placed, each boy was placed separately in a nonrelative home, they said.  The department's official goal for the boys' future, spelled out in the family's service plan, was long-term placement, the precursor to adoption.  

The father was not alone in his incredulity.  As I examined the particulars of the case things just did not add up.  The children were on their way toward adoption.  But why?  The neglect allegations, brought to the department's attention by the father, involved only the mother.  The father, who had moved into another apartment without the mother, was adamant about wanting the boys returned to him and I saw no reason why that should not have happened.  The father, who was employed as a machinist, had a good and stable work history.  But even if there had been some issues precluding the immediate return of the children to the father's custody, there certainly was nothing in his background to warrant adoption.

The forum at which foster children's placement goal received the department's stamp of approval, which then determined the official route in which the case was to proceed during the next six months, was the administrative case review.  I believed that reversing the goal of long-term placement and changing it to return home was warranted and I therefore spoke with the state-wide case review administrator, after which a new case review was scheduled.

I also found a private attorney for the father, who would have more time to devote to his situation than would the routinely appointed public defender.

The state-wide administrator herself presided over the new case review, which was attended by family members, the caseworker who had led the case down the adoption road and the case reviewer who had authorized the original plan.  During the unusually long review, in which an in-depth examination of the facts took place, the father pounded the table saying that he wanted his kids back.  This was evidence that the father was prone to violence and could not be trusted with his children, said the caseworker and the original reviewer, in their attempt to justify their puzzling decision to steer the case toward adoption.  The year was 1993, and little did the father know that even after the placement goal was reversed at this review to return home, an increasing number of child welfare players were to hound him for the next seven years, in the absence of any evidence, of having violent tendencies.

By now the mother, the subject of the maltreatment report, had died.  The private agency and some others continued in their attempts to portray the father as a violent drunk, contrary to any evidence.  When a domestic violence assessment revealed no evidence of violence, the father was forced to undergo another such evaluation, which yielded the same results, and then yet again, another evaluation.  Still nothing.  The father was forced to submit to so many alcohol assessments, all indicating that he had no drinking problem, that he alone could have kept an evaluator in business. 

Throughout this ordeal the father was steadfast in his determination that his sons be returned to his custody.  And, it paid off--in part.  The older boy's foster parents did not fight to keep him and he was returned to the father.  But the father was up against a wholly different situation with the younger boy's foster parents.  They were a wealthy childless couple living in a large suburban home.  The child, who was born two months after the older brother's removal from the parents' custody, was placed with them immediately after his birth.  These foster parents fought with all their might and money to keep him.  To do so, they had to continue the pretense that the father was a violent alcoholic who was unfit to parent.  And that they did.

It became more difficult to continue to portray the father this way since he now was raising his older son and doing so quite well.  Three independent psychiatrists who reviewed the case said that the younger son was "bonded" to both the foster mother and to the (biological) father.  The former state-wide case review administrator, now the deputy director in charge of the department's clinical services division, testified during a Juvenile Court hearing that this was not a child welfare case because the father had never abused or neglected his children.  Further, she testified, "The father's behavior with the younger boy was exemplary."  This was a custody case, and, one of the worst at that, she said, and it was therefore her recommendation that joint custody be awarded to the father and foster parents.

Neither joint nor sole custody was awarded to the father.  In spring 2000, the court awarded guardianship of the younger son to the foster parents.  The father told me in 2004 that since that ruling there had been a two year period during which he saw the younger son only twice.  According to the father, after the younger son, then 13, demanded to see him and said that he wanted to live with the father and brother, they saw each other about once a month.  The father said that the 13 year old had serious behavioral problems at the foster home and at school which led to several psychiatric hospitalizations.  The older son, 15 at the time, who had been living with the father, was well adjusted and did well in school, the father told me. 

The particulars of what happened to this family offer some insight into what can and often does occur when competence and ethical standards are missing in child welfare work.  We will discuss this in more detail in the next blog article.





 



 

The great majority of parents who become involved with the child welfare system are from impoverished backgrounds.  They usually have not had opportunities to pursue interests which would have allowed them to build satisfying and rewarding lives. Their school experiences were the source of much puzzlement and  left them with lifelong bad memories.   Both vocationally and avocationally their lives seem bleak, certainly to themselves but also to outsiders.  Their experiences have not included the pursuit of distant goals which necessitate long-term planning and the postponement of more immediate activities and desires.  Some of these very characteristics and experiences are also important for good parenting.

Many of the habits they have become used to and the sources of satisfaction with which they have become familiar have  developed  within a limited range of access.  They are well aware of the inequality and the inequities between them and those whose success they see as being of an unattainable realm.  

Were someone to engage them in a discussion about their hopes and aspirations, for themselves and for their children, they would probably initially hesitate to wish for much, but would then shyly enumerate more or less the same things middle-class parents expect for their families.  But unlike middle-class parents, they would be describing what they consider to be an unattainable dream.

Then one day a child welfare caseworker comes knocking at their door.  Go to parent training classes; go to counseling sessions; go to drug evaluations; go to drug abuse treatment; and by the way, what have you stored away in the fridge, let's take a look.  On one hand, ya, this is bad, but so is so much else in life, so just go along with it all.  But on the other hand, what's the point of all this stuff, of learning about parenting; what good will it do anyway, we're not going any where; if I start doing some of this new parenting will my kids have a chance for a better life?  They're not getting out of this mess no matter what I do.  So just leave me alone; my kids aren't doing so bad anyhow.  And counseling... if I want to chit chat I got my friends to talk to, and they understand me better than that shaking head who barely remembers my name.  

But what if that knock at the door would offer some real help--some real hope--with making some of those shyly enumerated wishes a reality?  What if instead of counseling, genuine discussion would ensue about the parents' aspirations and then help would be provided in locating the resources to start making them a reality?  What would the parents' thoughts about better parenting skills be like were they themselves to begin experiencing more satisfying and productive lives?  What would their thoughts and hopes for their children's lives be like?  Would they then not look upon parenting classes and even appropriate and competent counseling as two additional things that can help turn their lives around?   

While exceptions no doubt exist, the usual approach to mandatory parent training and various kinds of treatment is misguided.  Rather than foisting these "services" on families without regard to their circumstances, in what amounts to a highly incongruous manner; rather than treating these families as if they were psychiatric patients in need of treatment, consider first the context within which the alleged maltreatment exists and work to change that.  Parents will then see a reason for better parenting, which will become one of the things they also aspire to achieve.

 

 
   

A child who has been removed from her parents' custody because of alleged maltreatment may bring with her something more than a change of clothing and perhaps a favorite toy.  But what that something is can differ widely.  We would be mistaken to assume that the recollection--conscious or unconscious--of every child living in foster care includes thoughts or images of severe distress resulting from past maltreatment.  And this is so not because of experience too painful to bear but rather because the formation of such thoughts may not have entered the child's conceptual apparatus to begin with.  Or, perhaps did at one point but then later changed.  There are several possible explanations for this:

1) The child may not have ever assigned distressful meaning to the maltreatment; 2) Some level of distressful meaning may have been assigned but not an extreme version; 3) Initial thoughts of distress may have been set aside as a result of a change in the child's understanding and view of what occurred; 4) The child may have believed that the parents' motivation was positive, contrary to the actual behavior, and that dominated her understanding of what occurred; 5) The child may have assumed a philosophical understanding of the parents' behavior and then placed it in a benign context.

The child may have developed seriously distressful thoughts about past maltreatment but here too it will be important to understand what exactly those thoughts are.  Our initial hunch may be surprisingly inaccurate, or perhaps partly so. 

Variables such as age, temperament, verbal ability, experience using complex ideas, the extent to which the maltreatment differed from the child's usual experience and other aspects of the parent-child relationship will factor into the formation and nature of distressful thought patterns. 

So, no specific thought pattern can be assumed to exist.  The fact that one is a foster child does not include the automatic premise that severe distress exists.  And it therefore can not imply that even more than distress, that trauma exists.  Yet, distress may be present  but still not trauma.  Since "trauma might be defined by the objective attributes of the stressor, by the subjective response of the victim, or by both," as psychologist Richard J. McNally has written, an established system-wide approach that uniformly matches the foster child with so-called trauma therapy is more than mistaken and likely hurtful to the child.  It also serves as a prime example of what drives and motivates child welfare policy and procedure.  The concept  trauma, which has become quite a buzzword in child welfare circles, has been providing regurgitated promises of healing offered up in big-dollar contracts, just as its many ancestors have done for decades now.    

Just as it has become common to hear cheerful talk of foster children's possible coming adoption, without any sensitive regard to the real troubling meaning of this for the child and her parents, so too has child welfare discussion about trauma come to embody similar cognitively dissonant chatter.  As if describing appetizing items on a dinner menu, a child welfare agency administrator might  rattle off the various services provided ending with and then we do the trauma.         

This dilettante approach presents the possibility of several additional problems for the child.  Such indiscriminate treatment can in fact lead to distress for the child who has been designated "traumatized," while in reality her set of circumstances are not so.  Misplaced focus on past events can also lead to overlooking the very real distress of being separated from one's parents and of living with strangers.  

And, as this or any other kind of typical treatment proceeds, most often the child's normal development--the kinds of things that are essential for building a satisfying life, now and in the future--are just not on the agenda.