Best Practice in Dependency, Abuse & Neglect Matters
Posted by elusivejustice on January 3, 2009
I have written criticisms in here about practices by the Cabinet that I find unsettling and sometimes that I abhor. I have also written defenses for the Cabinet because of the monumental tasks they are required to accomplish with such limited resources. Both of these positions are open to being misconstrued and misapplied. Yes, there are some real concerns in the practices of many workers and supervisors in the Cabinet and which are fostered on up the chain of command. There are some significant systemic problems as well. However, if you find yourself in the unfortunate predicament of having the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Department of Community Based Services (what a mouthful of a title – I feel sorry for the folks who have to answer their phones) in your life, the single best approach is to keep a mindset of cooperation; avoid antagonism. I am writing this to correct any idea that I inadvertently promoted that being adversarial with the Cabinet is the way to win your case (I mean adversarial in the sense of ones attitude rather than in the sense that the court process is an adversarial process). Those criticisms are designed mainly for a global change in the system through political action; they are not meant to fuel a personal vendetta in an individual case.
Of course it is human to want to lash out in anger at this behemoth of an agency that does not seem to care or at workers who do not seem to understand. Of course it is a tragic and trying time when your child has been taken from you and young folks fresh out of college and are not yet fully raised themselves are telling you how to raise your children. Take all of those normal feelings, go in a closet, grab a thick pillow and scream every bit of outrage into that pillow where no one can hear. After that, whenever you are interacting with the Cabinet or with your children, you remind yourself that these folks are there doing what they believe is right for your child. That is actually the case about 9,999 times out of 1,000 or more (the key word is “believes”). In fact, the vast majority of the time they are at least hitting the paper that has the target printed on it even if they are missing the target itself, let alone the bullseye.
So, after screaming it out, you need to take a good, hard look at yourself regarding how the Cabinet says you screwed up. Do this for your child because if the Cabinet is close to right, then you owe it to your child to admit the shortcoming and fix it. Yes, they may have gone about things the wrong way, denied a Constitutional right or two, misrepresented what you said or sometimes flat out lied about you (they tend to justify the means by the end and the phrase “best interest of the child”). Those are NOT to be your focus unless you want to increase your chances at a termination of your parental rights down the road. Your focus is getting your child back in your home by becoming a better parent (we can all be better parents, so take the chip off of your shoulder when I say that). Don’t just play the game; honestly consider what they say and find how it fits. Believe me, they have enough work to do without needing to take your child for no reason at all or to just mess with you. Sure, they may have grossly overreacted, but that does not change that they picked up on a legitimate issue.
Now, I am not saying to admit to things that, after reflection, really are not true and this advise mainly applies to after an adjudication or stipulation has occurred (before that: be careful what your say, talk to a lawyer if you can, but still be kind). I am surely not telling you to say or do something your attorney has advised against. I am talking about a mindset and a cooperative approach that will increase the likelihood of the return of your children. Be kind and respectful in talking to your worker, avoid blaming them or others and never cuss or threaten them.
Why? you ask. Two reasons: 1) it is the right way to treat folks, even those who seem to be harming you; and 2) it is the pragmatic thing to do when faced with someone far more powerful than you. For a variety of reasons, Cabinet workers tend to take displays of anger towards them from parents as signs of denial and defiance. They equate denial and defiance as someone who is not going to take good care of their children and a likely sign of emotional instability. They want compliance, not consternation. I know, you are right, they are supposed to be trained professionals who understand the grief process and wildly swinging emotions that kick in when one’s family is ripped apart. Just forget about that. Being right is not going to get your children home. All you will achieve by pointing out the individual flaws of your worker is someone with a great deal of authority who believes you are a lost cause. Again, I am not saying to just parrot back to them everything they say, but if they say something that ticks you off, just say “You know, I really want to understand what you are saying there” or “I really want to spend some time thinking about what you just said” and then work it through later, somewhere else, with someone safe.
This is also not to say that you don’t fight for your rights. It is just a different way of fighting. Let your lawyer fight using the tools of the system in court. Fighting does not have to involve emotional attacks. I have represented many people in dependency, neglect and abuse actions. Those that get their children back home the quickest are the ones who take the approach I outlined above. Those that are determined to right the wrongs in their case usually take the longest to see their children return. Those that are adamant about beating the Cabinet are usually the ones who lose their children for good. Remember, the Cabinet has the overwhelming advantage because the statutes give them the upperhand, because they have far greater resources that you can imagine, and because the judges believe and trust them. You can stand shaking you fist and yelling about the injustice all you like, but that approach, in my experience, always makes justice more elusive.
As an aside: there is one supervisor with the Cabinet who is terribly fond of telling parents from whom she has removed children or terminated rights that “it isn’t personal”. I think of her as the Vulcan of the starfleet Cabinet. There is nothing more personal than having one’s children taken away. I think it is her way of constantly insulating herself from the inevitable pain that goes with her chosen profession. I also think she is trying to tell parents not to hold her personally accountable for the decision; that she is just a cog in the wheel. She’s wrong on both accounts. But, if you have this supervisor or another who uses “it’s not personal” as their catch-phrase, let it remind you that your personal feelings are not safe in their hands. Find someone for whom it is personal in the sense that they care, have compassion, but can still confront you when your are wrong rather than just commiserate to share those personal feelings with.
This entry was posted on January 3, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under Family Law, Life & Law, child protection. Tagged: Cabinet for Health and Family Services, child abuse, child protection, Department for Community Based Services, neglect, social work, social worker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
curious for more said
(quote): [T]he single best approach is to keep a mindset of cooperation; avoid antagonism.
(quote): I am surely not telling you to say or do something your attorney has advised against.
Question for additional discussion:
Seems that these two concepts sometimes conflict when situations get escalated. For example, say a parent has been counseled not to allow a social worker into their home without having a 3rd party there (even a neighbor perhaps). This “refusal of entry” seems to be considered by many social workers to be antagonistic (or, at the very least, suspicious). By wanting to have someone else present, it also can put the social worker on the defensive by creating the perception of distrust between the parent and the system. If you have a parent that has been involved in the system before (perhaps for something like habitual poverty) it is possible you have been advised of something like this by an attorney before the current incident. Even something like saying you want to contact an attorney can be antagonizing because it frustrates a social worker’s efforts (at the very least it means not closing the case that day).
Having a stranger stand at your door and accuse you of harming your child…especially when that stranger has the power to separate you and your child…creates such strong emotion, and even when not directed at a social worker personally, it is hard as the parent to be warm and friendly (my version of “cooperate”) without some of that emotion coming out in ways that are misunderstood.
When you add together any “resistance” (i.e. contacting a lawyer before having an interview) to the emotion a parent is feeling, the situation seems almost destined to create some level of hostility.
Any rubber meets the road tips on how to balance legal advice with the emotion without creating defensiveness? Contrasting scenarios perhaps on the “right” and “wrong” way to accomplish the same goals?
ContinuousGrowth said
I have read a lot of your posts and agree with most of what you say. It is fruitless to “right-fight” with a worker. But I have to add that it can be just as fruitless to walk the line of “change” for improved parenting skills.
I found in my case that many of the “counselors” I was assigned to were of not much help. For example: I had blurred boundaries, enmeshed relationships, and many dysfunctions in my family. On some subconscious level I was aware of these issues, only couldn’t put my finger on the cause or fix. The biggest point against us at case plan meeting after case plan meeting was a lack of cooperation with the case plan, though we did everything required, which wasn’t much. Our case plan consisted my husband and I to continue our counseling and get a mental health evaluation. We did both. My husband completed his sessions with his counselor to the point he was discharged with no further services recommended through the agency. I did the same. We completed the Mental Health evaluation which recommended Parenting classes and Anger Management for my husband, Parenting classes for myself and Marital Therapy for both of us. That is the counseling we both completed lacking the Marital part as DCBS required my filing an EPO against my husband and having him removed from the home, and they were never willing to allow us to attend therapy together. I repeatedly asked for those services so that our family could heal and be rebuilt and all I received was “there isn’t any programs available in this area”. Imagine that; No services available to help a family “reunite” or rebuild, it’s sub-parts. If I have learned anything, it is that we all worked as a system. It may not have been working right, but that was what needed attention. To effectively treat the system (the family) you have to treat the whole system, not just sub-parts. Isn’t this what they keep saying has to happen with the Cabinet?
Riding on the hinges of “services aren’t available” I went to desperate measures (which I won’t say here as no one would benefit from my actions) the result was losing my children forever. My children were removed immediately and no visitation allowed. Though my children were not harmed we were denied contact with them for nearly three years!! All hinging on the County Attorney continuously saying they were “investigating” allegations of abuse by my husband. No evidence ever presented of abuse. In that three years without seeing them we continued to search for the help we needed and were able to find it in another state and moved. It was the most painful thing aside from losing them, that I had ever done. But I also knew that we still needed the help and if we weren’t getting it there, we would surely have no chance of seeing them again.
We didn’t have our first permanency hearing until 15 months after removal, to which our case worker was the only one to testify. Did I mention the Judge signed the permanency hearing order before any testimony was heard? It was a month later that the worker testified at a “review hearing” and we never got to testify at our permanency hearing. Instead the cabinet filed for the Involuntary Termination and that took front seat to anything else. I didn’t even understand until after the fact that the Neglect, Dependency or Abuse Petition was a separate case from the Involuntary Termination Case.
Here is an interesting twist in the case. After making several motions over the three years for visitation, the Judge asks the Cabinet where the investigation sits because if they don’t file charges by the next review there was no choice but to start reunification services including visitation!! Low and behold within hours the worker is faxing counselors and talking to foster parents. I have the fax copies showing times and her testimonies outlines the timeline. By the next review I am granted supervised visits but my husband is denied as they were able to bring abuse charges. Three years and I finally get to see the kids. These visits go on for over a year while the case stands still and the date for the Termination trial is set. The kids testify that they were told what to say, by the foster parents! My attorney says I will get my chance, he knows I have recordings of the worker telling us we have done an excellent job turning this around. We spent thousands driving hundreds of miles for court dates, my flying back and forth monthly for visits and providing reports from a Family Systems Psychotherapist recommending immediate reunification.
We played by the rules, we were cordial and polite, and have hours of recorded case plan meetings to document this. Hours of video-taped visits. We had our trial and lost our kids. We were the only two to testify for our defense because of an attorney “mistake” of not answering a motion for Discovery until 5 days after the deadline, so our witnesses and evidence we were going to present were denied by a Motion In Limine granted by the Judge. The social worker lies and states that the children made statements of abuse on dates that all fall within 30 days of the date the Judge forced their hand (at the review hearing she gave them 30 days to bring charges) and no one testifies to best interests of the children. We appeal and lose. No tapes, no videotape, no proof given from our side because of a Motion In Limine!!
My point in all this is that they claim reasonable efforts to reunify were made. How can they claim this when we sought out services to address our issues when they said none were available in the area. We made the drives, walked the line, never missed a visit, case plan or court date after the removal. How does this happen? Because they hide behind their immunity. Families need more resources made available. Resources that are effective. Resources that aren’t so limited. ASFA does not provide equal protection as it doesn’t provide an avenue for redress. Reasonable efforts are losely defined to “services available”. If ASFA allowed for the same incentives applied to adoptions, to also be applied to reunification efforts, more resources could be made available. The scales are heavily tipped towards fast tracking an adoption not fast tracking the reunification efforts. Just look at how they perform social worker reviews. Social workers are given high results for adoption results, yet the evaluation doesn’t even include reunification efforts. Am I emotional now? You betcha I am emotional! I am outraged! Not because we lost our trial, but because we did the work to provide our children a safe and nurturing atmosphere, we did the work to educate ourselves and we did what was right for our children and they don’t even get to enjoy the fruits of our labor. I can promise you that the persons caring for them now do not understand the full gravity of their history, nor understand what they need as far as services. I say this because they are all being medicated to control their behavioral issues, instead of addressing the behaviors’ source.
We have high hopes for the future that maybe someday our children will seek us out and we will be given the opportunity to build a healthy relationship with them. This would not have been likely without all the therapy we have under-gone over the last few years, and yes, we still go as we have wounds that can’t even begin to heal until the bleeding stops. (The loss of our children) The grim outlook is that the trauma they have suffered from separation (because, despite our marital and family dysfunction, our children were part of a family they loved and whom loved them) and alienation from their foundation has likely caused a cycle of long-term issues that will not be known until they return, if they return.
I thank you for this forum as you are doing something to educate people.