What’s Wrong with Child Welfare?

Despite the theories on internet chat boards that we chose this profession because we hate children and families and want to spend our lives destroying them for shitty pay (albeit, I can understand from whence this speculation arises), I work for the agency because I care about kids. As a result, my decisions with regards to kids are child-welfare-driven (i.e. the welfare of the children takes precedence) rather than CYA-driven. This is not the typical “CYA” that is inspired by self-preservation and that we all do, though we shouldn’t be proud of it, to some extent. The type of CYA to which I refer is not borne of self-efficiency and diligence, rather this pervasive CYA is much more insidious.  That is cover your agency at all costs and the lives if children and families are but incidental considerations.

I have been in CW only 10 years, yet I have always been at odds with it. As vocations go, it’s a whole different animal. I have had the same argument with every supervisor(and most of my co-workers) in every division and in two different states. The irony is that I know I’m right and they know they’re right. The difference is that I base my opinion on the research of the experts. I am not arrogant enough to simply assume that I know what’s right for children and families. I consult the “experts.”

What is new, for me, is the realization “why?” Why have I always felt like a fish-out-of-water in Child Welfare? Why do I have friends that couldn’t remain in Child Welfare? Why am I in constant vocational turmoil and threat of termination when the average American and congressional subcommittees and child protection experts agree with me consistently and emphatically, It has, to my chagrin, finally become evident that the majority of the American public, those that agree vehemently with me (and Wayne Holder, etc.) cannot tolerate working in Child Welfare for any length of time.  So, the status-quo continues, and always will.  Children and families be damned.