A spate of tragic cases
involving the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in Massachusetts
recently led Governor Baker to call for “tilting the balance” from keeping
families intact to keeping children safe. But as Elizabeth Young-Breuhl argues
in her brilliant book Childism:Confronting Prejudice Against Children, published shortly after her
untimely death in 2011, a child protection model supporting this dichotomy was
misguided from the start.
Young-Bruehl
writes: “Since CPS (child protective services) was created as a rescue
service—a child saving service—not a family service supporting child
development generally and helping parents, greater efficiency in prosecuting
parents was achieved but not greater understanding of them, educating of them,
or working with them therapeutically to prevent child abuse.”
Young-Bruehl
describes the “discovery” of child abuse by pediatrician Henry Kempe in the
1960s. Kempe
coined the term “battered child syndrome” based on his observation of children
coming to the emergency room with unexplained injuries. Young-Bruehl observes that it
was, from the start, not a disease of the abuser but of the child. She writes,
“the name thus from the start took attention away from abusers and their motivations;
and it implied that children could be helped without their abusers being
helped.”
The
field of child protection grew out of this “discovery.” Young-Breuhl describes
in her book “Kempe had launched one of the swiftest transitions from
identification of a social problem to legislation in America’s history . . .. The
states all increased their vigilance by establishing or strengthening Child
Protective Services (CPS) departments.”
But
from the start, the system was not founded in an understanding of child
development.
A number of years ago I had the
opportunity to speak to a group of lawyers at a symposium entitled “Child
Protection in the 21st century.” The West Virginia Law School student who invited me wisely
observed that those in the legal profession are often in a position to decide
what is "in the best interest of the child" with little substantive
understanding of what exactly is in the best interest of the child. He
invited me to share my knowledge as an expert in early childhood mental health.
One of my co-presenters was a delightful judge from central
West Virginia who has been doing child protection work for over 20 years. He
openly admitted to his lack of knowledge on the subject of contemporary child
development research.
Young-Breuhl, in her use of the
word “motivations” ties her ideas in directly with explosion of research in the
field of early childhood mental health offering evidence that children develop in
a healthy way when people who care for them listen with curiosity for the
motivations and intentions of behavior. When we offer non-judgmental listening
to parents, when we are interested not in what they did wrong but in
understanding their motivations, we support their efforts to listen to
children, in turn supporting healthy development of families.
One solution lies in an innovative program
developed by the non-profit Zero to Three: Safe Babies Court Teams Project. Judges, child welfare staff, attorneys, service providers,
and other community leaders work together, enhancing their knowledge of child
development while aiming to transform the experiences of children in the child
welfare system.
Identifying the central role of
listening to parents, they articulate an aim to “recognize the
overwhelming odds confronting parents, [and] honor
the parents’ personal journey.”
Every year I have the privilege
of teaching the first class of Springfield College of Social Work Child and
Adolescent Program. The majority of students are social workers on the front
lines of the child protection system. I am struck by both the curiosity and
openness of the students, and the number of extraordinarily difficult
circumstances they find themselves in. They feel empowered and encouraged by
the idea that listening, being fully present with parents who themselves have
experienced significant trauma, can be a critical initial step in setting
families on a different path.
But it is impossible to expect
these overworked and underpaid DCF workers to listen in this way if they
themselves are not heard and supported. The image comes to mind of a set of
Russian dolls. When the legal system listens to the front-line professionals,
they in turn listen to the parents, who in turn listen to the children.
