The kind of change we are accustomed to hearing about has usually involved procedural modifications, with their many merry-go-round variations, not much different than the fashion industry’s expected rollout each season of the latest hip style.
While we will discuss necessary changes to the current system—changes
that will really help families have better lives---we need to consider what can
be done so that the families who become the recipients of the child welfare
system do not get there in the first place. It would be a mistake to
complacently accept that the endurance of the child welfare system, certainly in
its over-reaching size and scope, is a mainstay without other alternatives.
Something I want to address in more detail later, but must briefly mention here, is that many, many parents who have become forcibly involved with the child welfare system have in reality not maltreated their children, something that a closer, more patient and insightful examination would usually confirm.
There are many reasons why these families, usually from impoverished backgrounds, become embroiled in this sad maze. But perhaps it is an element of hopelessness that so many of these families experience that not only contributes to behaviors that can easily be interpreted to constitute some form of maltreatment but can also leave them believing that they are powerless and without the means to oppose the system’s mandated intrusion. And to say that there are many such families would be an understatement. What would happen, though, if impoverishment as we know it affected but a small minority of the population? I think that we
would be on firm-ground to assume that there would be a concomitant decrease in the number of involved families in the child welfare system. Should we not therefore have as our ultimate goal, not an improved child welfare system, but rather a much decreased in size and
an improved child welfare system? Should we not strive in our efforts to achieve the kind of change that can lead, over time, to exactly that goal? Should there not be concerted attention
to changing and building the institutions through which all people can, from an
early age, build satisfying and purposeful lives?
Yes, if we really want to see change; if the true purpose of change is ultimately families where children can grow and develop well, then we must conclude that such change must come from outside the child welfare system, as we now know it.
The kind of change we are speaking about is not easy to achieve nor is it quick.
It can take many years as children start off in schools staffed by caring, hard-working and passionate teachers who engage students, yes, engage students in study that sometimes excites but surely evokes their thirst for learning. The almost factory-like
schools we have become accustomed to, the place most middle-class children
somehow manage to chisel out a life in and move forward reasonably well through,
perhaps despite the rigid and mostly boring educational model, has proven to
usually be disastrous for children from impoverished backgrounds.
So just imagine how children from all backgrounds will be able to develop
and build lives when from an early age they will be part of the kind of
educational system that brings them in and allows them to really want to learn
and allows them to believe there is good reason to attend school and to maximize
their potential.
This perhaps on the surface sounds simplistic. But think about it. How would these children fare; what kinds of goals would they set for themselves?
Would they not have confidence and hope to continue to engage throughout
their lives in work, family and endeavors that satisfy and then guide their own
children in a similar fashion?
Over time, the shamefully large impoverished population, now so much an accepted part of the American landscape, will cease to exist.
Great schools will not suffice initially. Many families will want and need real caring, sincere and down-to-earth support in a number of areas: School, vocational and avocational endeavors and parenting. Much of this will need to be on a one-to-one basis.
Parents should have a real and substantial chance to make changes and to pursue educational, vocational and avocational opportunities.
We will discuss some of these issues in more detail in the future.
While of course there is the immediate need to change much in the way the current child welfare system operates, it is also much more sensible and vital to work toward lessening the need for this system overall.
The conflation of many factors can explain how and why the child welfare system, despite the continuing pattern of inadequate results, chaotic intervention approaches, and immense pain to parents and children, continues, decade after decade. Reading Helen Epstein's recent article in The New York Review of Books (9/26/13) about Dr. Sara Josephine Baker, “who changed the way we think about public health” and whose innovative and preventive home-visiting program led to a great decrease in children’s mortality rates in early twentieth century New York, led me to think about the child welfare system. Let me quote:
Articles about Baker’s lifesaving campaigns appeared in the newspapers from Oklahoma to
Michigan to California. In the late 1910’s, she and other reformers drafted a bill to create a nationwide network of home-visiting programs and maternal and child health clinics modeled
on the programs in New York. But the American Medical Association (AMA)—backed by powerful Republicans averse to spending money on social welfare—claimed the program was tantamount to
Bolshevism. Baker was in Washington the day a young New England doctor explained the AMA’s position to a congressional committee:
We oppose this bill because, if you are going to save the lives of all these women and children at public
expense, what inducement will there be for young men to study medicine? Senator Sheppard, the chairman, stiffened and leaned forward: “Perhaps I didn’t understand you correctly,” he
said: “You surely don’t mean that you want women and children to die unnecessarily or live in constant danger of sickness so there will be something for young doctors to do?” “Why
not?” said the New England doctor, who did at least have the courage to admit
the issue: “That’s the will of God, isn’t it?”
While we will discuss necessary changes to the current system—changes
that will really help families have better lives---we need to consider what can
be done so that the families who become the recipients of the child welfare
system do not get there in the first place. It would be a mistake to
complacently accept that the endurance of the child welfare system, certainly in
its over-reaching size and scope, is a mainstay without other alternatives.
Something I want to address in more detail later, but must briefly mention here, is that many, many parents who have become forcibly involved with the child welfare system have in reality not maltreated their children, something that a closer, more patient and insightful examination would usually confirm.
There are many reasons why these families, usually from impoverished backgrounds, become embroiled in this sad maze. But perhaps it is an element of hopelessness that so many of these families experience that not only contributes to behaviors that can easily be interpreted to constitute some form of maltreatment but can also leave them believing that they are powerless and without the means to oppose the system’s mandated intrusion. And to say that there are many such families would be an understatement. What would happen, though, if impoverishment as we know it affected but a small minority of the population? I think that we
would be on firm-ground to assume that there would be a concomitant decrease in the number of involved families in the child welfare system. Should we not therefore have as our ultimate goal, not an improved child welfare system, but rather a much decreased in size and
an improved child welfare system? Should we not strive in our efforts to achieve the kind of change that can lead, over time, to exactly that goal? Should there not be concerted attention
to changing and building the institutions through which all people can, from an
early age, build satisfying and purposeful lives?
Yes, if we really want to see change; if the true purpose of change is ultimately families where children can grow and develop well, then we must conclude that such change must come from outside the child welfare system, as we now know it.
The kind of change we are speaking about is not easy to achieve nor is it quick.
It can take many years as children start off in schools staffed by caring, hard-working and passionate teachers who engage students, yes, engage students in study that sometimes excites but surely evokes their thirst for learning. The almost factory-like
schools we have become accustomed to, the place most middle-class children
somehow manage to chisel out a life in and move forward reasonably well through,
perhaps despite the rigid and mostly boring educational model, has proven to
usually be disastrous for children from impoverished backgrounds.
So just imagine how children from all backgrounds will be able to develop
and build lives when from an early age they will be part of the kind of
educational system that brings them in and allows them to really want to learn
and allows them to believe there is good reason to attend school and to maximize
their potential.
This perhaps on the surface sounds simplistic. But think about it. How would these children fare; what kinds of goals would they set for themselves?
Would they not have confidence and hope to continue to engage throughout
their lives in work, family and endeavors that satisfy and then guide their own
children in a similar fashion?
Over time, the shamefully large impoverished population, now so much an accepted part of the American landscape, will cease to exist.
Great schools will not suffice initially. Many families will want and need real caring, sincere and down-to-earth support in a number of areas: School, vocational and avocational endeavors and parenting. Much of this will need to be on a one-to-one basis.
Parents should have a real and substantial chance to make changes and to pursue educational, vocational and avocational opportunities.
We will discuss some of these issues in more detail in the future.
While of course there is the immediate need to change much in the way the current child welfare system operates, it is also much more sensible and vital to work toward lessening the need for this system overall.
The conflation of many factors can explain how and why the child welfare system, despite the continuing pattern of inadequate results, chaotic intervention approaches, and immense pain to parents and children, continues, decade after decade. Reading Helen Epstein's recent article in The New York Review of Books (9/26/13) about Dr. Sara Josephine Baker, “who changed the way we think about public health” and whose innovative and preventive home-visiting program led to a great decrease in children’s mortality rates in early twentieth century New York, led me to think about the child welfare system. Let me quote:
Articles about Baker’s lifesaving campaigns appeared in the newspapers from Oklahoma to
Michigan to California. In the late 1910’s, she and other reformers drafted a bill to create a nationwide network of home-visiting programs and maternal and child health clinics modeled
on the programs in New York. But the American Medical Association (AMA)—backed by powerful Republicans averse to spending money on social welfare—claimed the program was tantamount to
Bolshevism. Baker was in Washington the day a young New England doctor explained the AMA’s position to a congressional committee:
We oppose this bill because, if you are going to save the lives of all these women and children at public
expense, what inducement will there be for young men to study medicine? Senator Sheppard, the chairman, stiffened and leaned forward: “Perhaps I didn’t understand you correctly,” he
said: “You surely don’t mean that you want women and children to die unnecessarily or live in constant danger of sickness so there will be something for young doctors to do?” “Why
not?” said the New England doctor, who did at least have the courage to admit
the issue: “That’s the will of God, isn’t it?”