The Star Tribune editorial supporting the Governor’s Task Force on the Protection of Children, “A start, but press on to prevent child deaths,” (April 2, 2015), should be met with a note of caution: Essentially, the 93 recommendations have substantially changed the emphasis of Child Protection from “well-being to “safety.”
In this directive, we have encouraged the removal of children from the parental household when circumstances are uncertain. This is a dangerous pathway. Here is a message from a noted expert:
Taking a child into care is like starting a war. It is easy to fire the first shot, but even easier to lose control over the process that has been started. [Dr. Paul Steinhauer, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Public Health Science, University of Toronto.]
For Child Protection workers, the primary task, when a child maltreatment report is received, is to search for evidence of a loving and caring parental relationship within the chaos and poverty that is often the environment that exists for these children.
A “well-being” principle provides the focus to encourage a family level of engaged parenting by providing resources for basic human needs: mental health services, substance abuse treatment, and the sense of living in a community and school district that assures access to caring adults outside the immediate family.
To leave a child without family connections is an incurable wound.
Preserving families when it is reasonable to do so should remain a prime obligation of a Child Protection system.
I agree, but the system is not set up for this. Liability drives practice–example visits–all people over 13 have to have background checks, can’t drive the child unless you took the car seat training, not enough resources for supervised visits and a host of other issues–not enough workers, lack of support, etc.
I couldn’t agree more! While ensuring physical safety is certainly paramount in protecting children, this notion should not be without great efforts to ensure that the child’s and family’s overall well-being is strengthened and sustained. Certainly the task of addressing concerns of child maltreatment is complex and not a simple task; hopefully, as the recommendations of the Governor’s Task Force for the Protection of Children move forward with being operationalized, child well-being efforts will not got lost in being overshadowed by the importance of providing immediate safety–the implications for children and families are too dire.
Spot on, Esther! This is why Anu Family Services is proud to have the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare as partners! We so agree that physical safety is not all there is. We must not sacrifice psychological safety and wellbeing at the altar of risk management and covering our liability at the cost of a child’s ability to connect, heal and thrive. Physical safety is critically important, but cannot be the only factor considered in these life-altering decisions!