You met Alison in yesterday's post. She is a mom and a fourth year student in child welfare and intending a career in child protection. In my blog post today I have Alison's permission to quote snatches from a submission she published on November 27th. She stumbled onto my blog while doing course research and she left a comment. You will appreciate the sincerity and thoughtfulness of this young woman as she entitles her piece The ethics of child protection? and after several paragraphs she wrote the following.
“I have also recently read everything I could find about MCFD since the 2006 Hughes Report, especially what was available about the changes Deputy Minister du Toit intends to make. She is scrapping Risk Assessment in favour of a new model, called "CAPP" which stands for Child and Family Support, Assessment, Planning and Practice, and which is mostly described in aspirational, visionary terms. Specific, measurable outcomes are not published, nor are details pertaining to what staff will actually be doing. Not very transparent, in my opinion, and thus, not very ethical.”“Two further reports I have recently read are Broken Promises (2008) and Hands Tied (2009), both researched and published by Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver. The first talks about how the system has consistently failed children and their families for generations in spite of legislative reform, internal reorganization and changing governments. The second talks about why BC child protection workers are leaving their jobs at an alarming rate: not enough staff, and too much political churn.”
“As well, I have been reading whatever I can find about MCFD in the public domain - media articles, blog posts, and comments on both. One specific blog I have been perusing is GPS, which is 'a personal weblog advocating for the Bayne family reunion and suggesting potential corrections to B.C. child welfare.' The comments on many of these blog posts have led me to conclude that British Columbians despise social workers.”
“I, however, would like to distinguish between social workers and child protection workers. Social Workers in BC are governed by the Social Workers Act, unless they are employed by a government or its agency, a school or a band (um, that's a LOT of exceptions!). Despite Judge Gove's recommendation that child protection social workers actually be social workers (pretty radical, I know!), child protection workers are not required to have a degree in social work, nor are they required to be registered. They can hold a degree in Child and Youth Care (or they can hold a Masters in Clinical Psychology or an M.Ed. in Counselling).”
“Regardless, as Pivot (2008) points out, "apprehensions are generally the result of a parent’s struggle with poverty, addiction, mental health issues or family violence. The government’s lack of commitment to providing publicly funded services has severely undermined the ability of [MCFD] to take a preventative approach to child protection issues."
I believe social work education, which is highly anti-oppressive, which requires continual deconstruction of the current and historical political ideologies which inform social policy, which insists that all knowledge is socially constructed to benefit a small minority of citizens, can effectively train workers to treat all clients with dignity and respect. It is a social worker's job to look for the structural, systemic causes of a parent's "bad behaviour" rather than blaming individual pathology. We consider the person in his/her environment. We stand with our clients, in solidarity. Our mandate is social change, social and economic justice for all citizens, not just for the "good" ones.”
“I just have to keep reminding myself of my mandate as a social worker (as described, above), not as a child protection worker (whose mandate is contradictory, to keep children safe from parental maltreatment while maintaining the family home as the ideal place for children). I have to keep reminding myself that I chose this profession out of my stand for social justice for all, especially the most marginalized; that I chose social work out of an ethical responsibility I feel to children. Otherwise, all those commenters who write that child protection workers are evil, could lead me to despair, lead me to think child protection is a pointless career, characterized by burnout, not appreciated by anyone. And we can't have that!”
Thank you Alison for your willingness to share your aspirations, ideals and opinions for the past two days.
