JUVENILE COURT JUDGE ON CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES: BAD SOCIAL WORK FOLLOWED BY MORE BAD SOCIAL WORK
The deeds and misdeeds of child welfare agencies are always big news. I write about them frequently, and I’ve often taken the stance that, for all their shortcomings – and they are many – we should take care in criticizing caseworkers. That’s because they have one of the most difficult and least rewarding jobs in the world. They don’t get paid very well and often their training is poor. We give them something like double the recommended case load, send them into the homes of strangers and tell them to decide whether to remove a child from its only home or place it in foster care.
I recognize the difficulties faced by overworked, underpaid SWs, however I have no empathy or justification for dishonesty, unwillingness to return children who may have been removed with good intentions, nor am I forgiving about punitive "protecting". Punitive protecting is when the SW or judge retains children of parents who speak up and question actions and rulings as if good parents stand idly by while strangers have their children via legal kidnapping. I'm sure there are well intentioned SWs and attorneys, etc, but they either sell out, get out or get pushed out. In order for the system to start doing more good than harm, there needs to be checks and balances, reduced secretivness, funding reform and an acknowledgement that erring on the side of safety is NOT foster care except in extreme cases where a reasonable person would feel a child is in danger. Additionally, the ridiculous screening out of family members who have no history indicating they have a history of abusing children, is causing the difference between a change and a traumatic damging change. It has got to stop being profitable taking and adopting out children. All excuses aside, social workers who will sell out a child to avoid losing their job, doesn't pass what I consider to be a moral minimum for the job.
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