A Revolution of Values

A Revolution of Values

I grew up in a small town in Northern New Jersey, one of two sons of Indian immigrants.  My parents spoiled me at every instance, pushed me to do well in school and supported me in every way imaginable.  My success in life was built on their unconditional support of my endeavors.

But of course, my childhood was not conflict-free.  Having a brother three years older than me, we occasionally (perhaps frequently) quarreled.  We fought while playing basketball, during epic games of Monopoly, and in the car on long road trips.  When this happened – as one can imagine – our parents were displeased.

One particular fight stands out in my mind.  It was a warm afternoon, when I was eight, and my mother was busy cooking in the kitchen, while my brother and I were playing.  Soon that playing transformed into a fight.  As our trivial argument escalated, I could sense that my mother’s level of frustration with us was increasing.  Then suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, I saw my mother storm towards us, and scream, “Fine, you want to fight.  Then fight the right way.”  She handed each of us a sharp knife, backed away, and glared at us to see our reaction.  Would bloodshed ensue?  Of course, the sight of our vegetarian, peace-loving, Indian mother handing us weapons completely freaked us out.  Our fighting immediately stopped.  In fact, the shock created by our mother’s novel approach caused us to forget why we were even fighting.  And my mother – without saying a word – resumed her cooking.  Our day continued without incident.  We never spoke of that incident again.

But what if, at that very moment, someone – a government official – had walked into our house?  What if someone saw my brother and I holding knives ready to attack one another, while my mother knowingly watched?  What if, after watching the incident, the official presumed that what he saw accurately conveyed the reality of our household – that my mother was a reckless, neglectful parent willing to allow her children to hurt one another under her watch?  And what if, after seeing this, that official refused to change his views of our family, regardless of evidence demonstrating the many strengths we had?

For many parents in the child welfare system, this is the reality they face. When professionals meet parents in the child protective system, they often see them at the worst moments of their lives.  Years of unresolved trauma may have transformed a problem into a crisis.  A police officer may have removed a child from the home.  Afterwards, the parent may not have been given the opportunity to know where her child was placed, or when she will see them again.

Next, we see the parents in court.  As a result of all that has happened, parents might understandably be frustrated, angry and depressed.  They might appear unwilling to cooperate with the very systems that removed their children from them.  In anger or fear, they might say things that we interpret to mean that they don’t really care for their children.  In this snapshot of the family’s life, the parent appears to be irredeemable.

So we build system and processes around an assumption that the snapshot we create reflects the broad reality of the family’s life.  Courts can make a decision on whether to remove a child from her home in ten minutes or less.  Lawyers can “adequately” represent parents by speaking to them in the courthouse hallway for a few minutes.  Systems proudly celebrate “reforms” that allow parents to visit their children for three hours a week.  Agencies can satisfy their obligation to reunify families by handing a parent an outdated list of services to call, some of which may no longer be operating or cost money.  Rulings to permanently sever the relationship between a parent and a child can be based on the testimony of a single witness, who – like the game “Telephone” – can simply recount hearsay statements of others.  In any world in which we valued the relationships between children and their parents, these processes would never be tolerated.  But in this world – the child welfare system – we accept this reality because the snapshot tells us everything we need to know about a family. 

Our adherence to the snapshot also undermines our attempts to change the system.  Every few years, leaders propose a new reform to transform the system.  For example, group decision-making processes such as Family Team Meetings or Team Decision-Making Meetings, intend to empower families – rather than professionals – to make decisions for their children.  So systems train their workers to utilize these innovations.  In fact, they insist that these meetings occur regularly throughout the case.  So, begrudgingly, workers schedule them at critical moments in a case – before a child is removed, or a court hearing is held, or a decision to terminate parental rights is made.

But the snapshot is persistent.  It pervades everything we do.  Thus in our effort to schedule these meetings, we disregard when a family might be available.  We hold them at places inconvenient to the family.  We proceed in a family’s absence.

And during the meeting, the professionals dominate the conversation.  They tell families that they have already made up their minds about how they are going to proceed.  They reveal that they are holding the meeting because they have to, not because they want the family to control the decision-making process.  As a result, families leave the meeting even more frustrated.  Workers exit thinking about the time they wasted.  Yet the system celebrates its new innovation and boasts about the number of these meetings held annually.  The victory flag is hoisted.  So long as we convene these meetings, the system can brag about them.  Yet because of our adherence to the snapshot, we didn’t actually ever intend to accomplish the true goals of the decision-making process.  Empowering “bad” parents never seemed like a good idea to begin with.

          Those working with families in the child welfare system can recount many examples like this – well-intentioned reforms that failed.  Without changing the underlying values that we bring to our work with families – in other words eliminating our belief in the snapshot – we will never effectuate lasting reform.  A reform will only succeed when we support it with a revolution of values.