Another look at DHS accountability

Since December there have been media reports about a group who organized a march from Ellsworth to Augusta to call attention to the “mistakes, missteps and dishonest practice and policies” of the Maine Department of Human Services. A press release said “Advocates for change at the DHS want to send an urgent message to state leaders: The time for reform is now.” Certainly I have supported and organized around scores of such messages – why not this one?

I have worked in almost every aspect of child protection services, and think I understand the complicated issues confronting anyone who works to assure the safety of children and their families. I listen with respect when parents tell their stories. I believe them to be telling the truth from their perspective. I cringe at the mistakes sometimes made by caseworkers, psychologists, and other professionals working with children and their families. I think about my own mistakes – what I would do differently if I had a second chance with some of the children I have served.

I believe, however, that responsible advocacy requires those who seek positive change to rise above individual stories and anecdotes and collect sound data and analysis that can lead to significant improvement. In order to do that, advocates and policy makers must use the information they get to promote changes that adhere to the fundamental principles of safety, stability and sound practice. We cannot advocate for change based on anecdotes alone – because we cannot assume those individual experiences tell the whole story.

I have seen many inadequate attempts to reunify children with their parents and insufficient support to parents struggling to care for their children. No one wants DHS accountability any more than I. However, to claim that DHS singlehandedly destroys families over-simplifies a very complicated problem. The fact is, this movement should not be directed at DHS – it should be directed at all of us.

Who are we? Child advocates who are not persistent enough in researching and pushing for sound reform; the media who sometimes sacrifice the complex truth for sound bites and catchy headlines; legislators who, after numerous commissions and investigations, fail to fund meaningful reform; and community members who watch the debate from the side lines and think it is not their problem.

Ironically, as some citizens take aim at DHS, there is significant, sound reform happening within their Bureau of Child and Family Services. I wonder how much effort the organizers of the March for Accountability have made to find out what DHS is doing to address many of their legitimate and important concerns. Here is a snapshot of some of the goals DHS has developed to create serious systemic changes right now:

1. Assert the leadership role of child welfare professionals by providing supports that enhance professionalism, skills and cultural competency that result in positive outcomes for children and families.

Perhaps the most exciting and comprehensive shift in values and thinking within DHS is the commitment to implement Family Team Meetings. Based on the principles of Respect for Families; Responsibility; and Understanding, the Family Team Meetings are becoming the focal point of all work done by DHS with families. Heavily supported by extensive training and supervision, all DHS workers will be expected to work together with families to assure safety and stability of children. Parents are asked whom they would like on their team, and what the desired outcomes will be. The team then helps the family develop a plan based on the family’s strengths.

2. Broadening family involvement from (the time of the) report to the best outcome for child and family. Outcomes in this area include: increasing reunifications of families; increasing safe and responsible placements with relatives; increasing the placement of sibling pairs together; and increasing cases where birth families participate in planning and decision-making.

3. Improving community connections and collaboration. Outcomes include: increasing the number of family foster homes in the home communities of children being placed; making sure all adolescents leaving care have the life skills and community supports they need; and increasing the number of children placed with their extended family members.

4. Improve the experience of children in care while achieving better and faster permanency outcomes. Outcomes include: reducing the average length of stay in foster care; placing fewer children in residential and group care; safely and responsibly reducing the overall number of children in care; and increasing the number of adoptive placements for children age nine and over.

These are only a few of the goals DHS has been working deliberately and consistently to achieve in the past three years. The fact is, most children in placement need to and will go home. But there is also the other side, which must be acknowledged and addressed, regardless of all the efforts toward reunification. Some children will continue to love and cherish their parents, and parents will love and cherish their children, but tragically, for many complicated reasons, reunification will not be possible.

At the end of the day, after the situation is given every possible chance, it is the staff of DHS who must make the hard decision, with the courts, that some children will not be safe and protected at home. It is an unpopular truth that we have to face and be willing to say out loud.

Lucky Hollander is the vice president of Advocacy & Prevention Services at Youth Alternatives, a child welfare agency in southern Maine that offers a continuum of services for children and families. She has worked been involved in child abuse and neglect and its prevention for 35 years.