Using this approach:
From 2002 to 2009, for the month of February, Guilford County’s rate of children in custody steadily decreased from 573 to 396, a 31 percent decline .
This approach would require a change in attitude by our state’s child welfare agency. To quote, again:
Kevin Kelley, section chief for the state’s child welfare services, attributes Guilford County’s decline to a change in perspective on child foster care. Rather than take a child from the home as a first response, caseworkers approach parents and family to get them involved in fixing the home first.
Examples of “fixing the home” given were parenting workshops, determined location of relative families to avoid ripping children away to stranger foster care, which often causes major regression, loss of milestones, reactive attachment disorder [RAD] and other mental health issues in children.
Another focus has been a strong fatherhood program, something that appears to be totally missing in Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, even statutes treat fatherhood as invisible See: http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws… G.L.c.119 Sec. 23B should speak of services for the parents of children born out of wedlock or in foster care – not mothers only as the current statute does.
The North Carolina fatherhood program actively involves fathers in parenting not just hunts them down for $$$; that would be a major change in our state. Yet all the research available indicates that all children do better when both their progenitors are involved. See, for example, the following links:
http://fcs.tamu.edu/families/p…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re… Not so coincidentally, the study profiled here is from North Carolina’s Chapel Hill University.
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/… [Rather a large but interesting book] Lots more is available, but the point is that our species evolved with input from both genders, and our child welfare system focuses on only one gender at peril to children.
We can do better – and save money at the same time. Hard times, if they lead to supporting family stabilization, kinship connections, and fatherhood will have improved the lives of children at risk.
Here is the whole article that started me thinking and led to this post:
http://www.news-record.com/con…
outlined here in the mass.gov?
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p>I’ve been watching DSS (now the Department of Children and Families) struggle for years with inadequate staff (including not enough lawyers)trying to get the legislature to fund services to help families stay together. I assume the current program is not perfect, and I imagine somebody in your work sees all the tragic failures and missed opportunities.
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p>Have you found someone in the Administration or the social workers union to share these good ideas?
Mind you, I have written to this Administration. I received a phone call – in November of 2008 – promising a written response which I have still not received.
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p>I contact the OCA [Office of the Child Advocate – and do receive e-mail responses] I also send articles like the one here, proposed legislation, and so forth to the Governor’s Office, and others.
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p>I have found legislators in the “Foster Care Caucus” the most willing to listen, and sponser legislation. The most responsive have been Rep. Garballey of Arlington, Rep. Donato of Medford, Senator Donnelly of Arlington, Sen Spilka [who appointed someone I suggested to a task force] and Sen. Candaras of Springfield. Rep. Garballey and Rep. Donato are predisposed to listen, because they were once in foster care, themselves.
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p>I have never received a written response, though, from the Department of Children and Families [in the old days, “the Department of Social Services} – ever nor from any of the governors I have written to [three so far!].
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p>The over sight board for the Office of the Child advocate does not include any child welfare attorneys.
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p>I have also had so many letters to the editor published in various papers on such topics that, frankly, I have lost count.
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p>You should be aware that the DCF budget contains more money, in this year’s budget AND last years budget for consultants then for family preservation services or social workers! I remember how surprised I was to hear that in the testimony given at the House Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect; I have verified this, and it is true.
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p>I can also tell you that each year I have spent representing children and parents there is less available to help them, in terms of daycare [so parents can get to work or therapy, etc., when in transtion], no drug screens any more when drug use needs monitoring, almost no money now for after school programs [for a child client in foster care or kinship care] – lots of supports that were customary in the 90s are gone.
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p>Some child welfare attorneys founded OneCanHelp foundation and fund raise for it to get “our kids” into camps and so forth in the summer – the ones we represent as DCF says they have no money; social workers even come to OneCanHelp bakesales, silent auctions, etc.]. See:Money given to OneCanHelp goes 100% into services – all work done [legal, accounting is volunteered at that foundation so there is zero overhead.
I would love to see a real, open, inclusive discussion of what child welfare should be/could be – and am quite serious when I talk about the “social agenda” which is on display in the so-called “Adoption and Safe Families Act” http://www.acf.hhs.gov/program… with its failure to fund or specify what families need for reunification.
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p>The reality that we celebrate “National Adoption Day” and do not celebrate “Family Renewal and Reunification Day” and that the attitude exposed so well by Professor Wexler in “Take the Children and Run” http://www.nccpr.org/reports/t… and the reality that this country is the least family friendly of any industrialized nation – and this state one of the least family friendly states is shameful.
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p>Newt Gingrich was up front about the idea that one way to eliminate the under class and force assimilation would be to take poor people’s kids and put them in orphanages: http://findarticles.com/p/arti… Mean-spirited is a charitable way to describe Newt’s attitude – but that attitude is shared by some in high places to this day.
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p>While there are many fine and caring social workers out there – they have to get on their knees and bet consultants [the so-called lead agencies] for the crumbs available for the families they serve.
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p>The system itself is woefully off course, at least in my opinion.
…I was in the field before lead agencies were imposed as an expensive, additional layer of beauracracy that receives more in funding than families services, including child services do. Harry Spence was in love with the whole idea of consultants, as far as I could tell, and the commitment [even the weak kneeded commitment] to reunification pretty well evaporated under Spence, and two toxic cases, Isaac and Jeremy. Those two cases led to nearly unfettered managerial discretion at the Department and eviscerated oversight.
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p>http://masscases.com/cases/sjc… The holding: udges cannot tell the Department where to put a child or make decisions in the best interests of children with regard to placement, but can only act in a severe situation to remedy abuse of discretion. There is no control over the day to day actions of the Department by courts.
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p>The best interests of vulnerable children were thus treated like lemon cars, or zoning thereafter and the Department [whether named as the Department of Social Services [DSS] or the Department of Children and Families [DCF] became less and less responsive to parents and children and more and more focused on class-based social engineering.
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