ISSUE 002
WINTER 2023
FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL
THE NEED FOR BELONGING
Strengthening Families & Communities, Advancing Relational Health CareSource is a proud sponsor of both the Institute for Relational Health and The Family Justice Journal
CONTENTS
FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL WINTER 2023
Introduction 006 The Need for Belonging
Jerry Milner & David Kelly Directors of the Family Justice Group
Features 018 More Runway, Less Tightrope | Moving
Away from Insecurity & Isolation in Child Protection Kelley Fong Assistant Professor at University of California, Irvine
Foreword 010
Roxanna Asgarian Journalist & Author
024 The Need for Belonging | Relational Permanency in Child Welfare Sixto Cancel
CEO & Founder, Think of Us
A Better Way
030 Race, Culture, Belonging & Well-being
What is belonging & what does it take to establish a true sense of belonging?
014 Interview with Misty Flowers
Samantha Mellerson Co-Executive Director of the Haywood Burns Institute
for a Better Way
Misty Flowers Executive Director of the Nebraska Indian Child Welfare Coalition
034 The Indian Child Welfare Act (Icwa)
as a Model of Support for Belonging Bree Bussey, MSW, LGSW Director of the Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare Studies at University of Minnesota-Duluth
Poetry 013 Promises Made
Amelia Franck Meyer, EdD, LISW
Lottie Cruce
023 The Monster Inside Chloe Williams
Founder and CEO of Alia
040 LGBTQ+ Children & Youth in the Foster Care System
Gerald P. Mallon, DSW Julia Lathrop Professor of Child Welfare Silberman School of Social Work, City Univeristy of New Yorkof Social Work
Briefly 042 The Intersections of Belonging Jessica Pryce, PhD, MSW Professor at Florida State University
048
Paul DiLorenzo National Child Welfare consultant Senior Fellow Child Welfare League of America
Reflection 054
Honorable Ernestine S. Gray Retired Judge of the Orleans Parish Juvenile Court in Louisiana
Perspective 050
Weston Charles-Gallo Business Development Manager, Wound Care Plus Lived Experience Leader FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL, WINTER 2023
003
BOARD MEMBERS Advisory Board Members Christopher Baker -Scott Executive Director & Founder SUN Scholars, Inc.
Angelique Day, Ph.D., MSW
University of Washington Seattle Associate Professor Faculty Affiliate of the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute Director of federal policy for Partners for Our Children
April Lee
Director of Client Voice Community Legal Services of Philadelphia
Dr. Melissa T. Merrick
President and CEO Prevent Child Abuse America
Lexie Gruber Peréz
Cover Artwork - “Starchild” Akil Roper
Akil Roper creates with acrylic paint and ink, graphite and watercolor pencils, art inspired by his family, Black culture, social justice, and nature. “Art is an opportunity to entertain, inspire and educate.” A social justice lawyer by day, and an artist by night, Akil Roper believes that art is a powerful form of communication, one that can create bonds and stimulate social change. These beliefs are infused in his colorful, powerful representational works. During the pandemic, he was selected as one of several winners of a juried weekly art contest by the Newark Museum of Art. His latest showings include Black History Month solo exhibition at the New Jersey Law Center; Akwaaba Gallery’s “Ancestral Call” group show; StudioMontclar’s “Viewpoints2021”, Newark’s La Cocina Gallery; Jersey City’s Arthouse; Newark’s Akwaaba Gallery;Morristown’s Art in the Atrium; South Orange’s Temple Sharey TefiloIsrael(TSTI); Jersey City Theatre Company; Newark Arts Festival; Newark’s PorchFest and City Hall, Jersey City. He has presented solo shows at Jersey City’s Gia Gelato and Café for his “Portrait of a People” and “Black and Brown” shows and curated a mixed photography and painting show “Jersey City.” He lives in Bayonne, New Jersey with his wife and two daughters. website: akilroperart.com instagram: akilroperart
Service Design Masters Candidate Royal College of Art in London Former Senior Advisor on Child Welfare in the Biden Administration
Jey Rajaraman
Associate Director, Center on Children and the Law, American Bar Association Former Chief Counsel, Legal Services of New Jersey
Vivek Sankaran
Clinical Professor of Law, University of Michigan, Michigan Law
Shrounda Selivanoff
Social Services Manager Washington State Office of Public Defense Parents Representation Program
Victor E. Sims, MBA, CDP
Senior Associate Family Well-Being Strategy Group The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Paul Vincent, MSW
Former Alabama Child Welfare Director Consultant and Court Monitor
Editorial Board Members Justin Abbasi
Mark Testa, Ph.D.
Laura W. Boyd, Ph.D.
Elizabeth Wendel, MSW, LSW
Co-Founder, Harbor Scholars: A Dwight Hall Program at Yale
Owner and CEO, Policy & Performance Consultants, Inc.
Angela Olivia Burton, Esq.
Co-Convenor, Repeal CAPTA Workgroup
Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Co-Founder, Pale Blue International Consultant, Family Well-Being and Mental Health Systems
Shereen White, J.D.
Director of Advocacy & Policy, Children’s Rights
Melissa D. Carter, J.D.
Clinical Professor of Law, Emory Law
Cheri Williams, MS
Founder and Chief Co-Creator at CO-3
Kimberly A. Cluff, J.D.
MPA Candidate 2022, Goldman School of Public Policy
Kathleen Creamer, J.D.
Managing Attorney, Family Advocacy Unit Community Legal Services of Philadelphia
Angelique Day, Ph.D., MSW
Associate Professor, Faculty Affiliate of the Indigenous Wellness Research Center Director of Federal Policy for Partners for Our Children School of Social Work, University of Washington Seattle Adjunct Faculty, Evans School of Public Policy and Governance
Yven Destin, Ph.D.
Educator and Independent Researcher of Race and Ethnic Relations
Paul Dilorenzo, ACSW, MLSP National Child Welfare Consultant
J. Bart Klika, MSW, Ph.D.
Chief Research Officer, Prevent Child Abuse America
Heidi Mcintosh
Chief Operating Officer, National Association of Social Workers
Kimberly M. Offutt, Th.D.
National Director of Family Support and Engagement Bethany Christian Services
Jessica Pryce, Ph.D.
Director, Florida Institute for Child Welfare Florida State University
Sponsorship The Family Justice Group is grateful for the financial sponsorship of this issue of the Family Justice Journal by the Institute for Relational Health (IRH) at CareSource. We are happy to advance the work of the IRH in promoting relational health for families, children, youth and communities, particularly those impacted by our child welfare, juvenile justice and mental health systems and individuals with disabilities. We believe that discussing and bringing to light the harms of disconnection are necessary acknowledgements of the critical importance of relational health in all our lives.
INTRODUCTION
The Need for Belonging Jerry Milner & David Kelly Editor - in - Chief Jerry Milner
Co-Director of the Family Justice Group
Editor - in - Chief David Kelly
Co-Director of the Family Justice Group
Design Director Ann T. Dinh
Design Consultant
If we cared about the harm of separating children from their parents, we’d be far less likely to do it. If we were serious about ending racial disparity, we would see it decline sharply. The reality is there has been little meaningful action to do what’s needed to address either, despite platitudes offered and words in common use. Our behaviors as a field remain largely the same as they have always been, as do the laws that govern us. Neither have caught up with what we know is right. The data and facts speak for themselves: a deeply entrenched commitment to mandatory reporting; millions of unnecessary calls to child abuse hotlines; traumatic investigations; a shallow allotting for family preservation; stagnant child removal rates; constant pushes for more foster homes; unnecessary and prolonged separation of children from their parents; reasonable and active efforts seldom made; and intractable racial disproportionality—even in places heralded for reducing the number of kids in care. Standards have become so low that we celebrate reductions in children sleeping in office buildings or in hotels (recently coined as hoteling) as progress, brushing aside the fact that we created these situations and the suffering they cause. Developing processes that move a child to yet another stranger’s house, instead of an office or hotel, is not an innovation or the solution to a problem, it will never get to root causes. That hoteling exists at all reflects a deep moral failure, a mirror of our values and what we truly think about low-income parents, people of color and children in pain. An affront to faith, justice, and decency. To demonstrate that we are and can be different from what the evidence shows, we need to take a radically different approach. It will require immediate practice and policy reorientation and broad structural change that align to different values that are mutually reinforcing. Doing so can lead us to true family support approaches that keep children safe, and families together as opposed to a tangled patchwork that does neither. There is abundant opportunity now to keep families intact. We can choose to proceed in ways that
prevent families from ever knowing the child welfare system. And, we can also dramatically improve the experience of any family that must experience state intervention. We can push for statutory changes that remove the most harmful parts of existing laws while simultaneously seeking deep structural change. It takes all three levels of effort to pave the way for the creation and sustenance of something new. Mitigating harm while working to abolish the sources of it should not be mutually exclusive. Mindfulness will always be necessary to keep us focused on what to build and support in place of what we have. Promoting connection and belonging must be the center of our efforts, making it the purpose and measure of how we spend our days and make our investments. It’s time to see relationships between parents, children, and their communities as vital to health of all types and well-being---forces far more powerful than any service and the best, most proven source of healing. Centering relational health and support will help us break free of deeply entrenched fix it, fix them and savior mentalities. New questions will be necessary. Rather than what does this parent need to do (compliance approaches), as we most often do, we should ask: What will keep or deepen a parent’s connection with their child or community and how can we support it? What will enhance a parent’s sense of belonging and worth? What will enhance a child’s or young person’s sense of belonging and worth? What do parents and youth tell us makes them feel connected and that they belong? If our first thought is a service, we’re thinking too narrowly.
ability to carry on with their lives. We often mis-label parents’ overwhelming grief, loss, and despair following the loss of their children as lack of motivation or failure to comply. Again, our language reflects our confusion when we – social workers, lawyers, judges, providers express that a parent has “made no effort or progress” or has “chosen substances over their child.” Many parents may be unable to complete a gauntlet of requirements (many of which are unreasonable) at the worst moment of their life. Anytime a parent shows up for time with their child it should be recognized as a positive effort--even when they may not be able to bring “appropriate snacks” as is often noted as a concern in caseworker reports. We should instead recognize that a parent in crisis may be food insecure, not have stable housing, a living wage or transportation, and seek to find helpful resources and be a source of encouragement and support. If a parent acts consistently with their pain in interactions with us, we can choose not to hold that against them and see it instead as a sign of their love and loss. Belonging shapes who we are and how we show up in the world. In the words of Desmond Tutu, “a person is a person through other persons . . . we need other human beings in order to be human . . . a person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of those communities is the family.” Belonging encompasses our sense of self, our roles as parents, friends, and community members. It can be rooted in or enhanced through our culture, customs, sexual orientation, gender identity, and faith traditions. It is a source of nourishment that propels us and cannot be replicated or replaced. Yet, sadly, our approach to child welfare rarely acknowledges and often works against this fundamental need.
If our solution is a process, we are similarly confined. If the answer is taking deliberate actions to maintain or increase connection and belonging in everything we do, we have a fighting chance of doing better by parents and children. Opportunities to practice new ways are before us daily and do not require policy change or new funding. We can check ourselves on our attitudes and compassion. As an illustrative example, consider how we talk about and present the behaviors of young people who are disconnected and feel hurt or alone, e.g., they have “disrupted their placement,” they “have to take responsibility for their own behavior” or “grow up.” We can seek to connect, understand and be with kids that are acting consistently with their pain and what has happened to them rather than labeling, blaming, and packing them off. We can do the same for parents. We fail to acknowledge how deeply separation impacts parents’ sense of who they are, their need for belonging, well-being, and
Belonging is not born of saving children from parents experiencing hardship or disease. It does not come from forced assimilation, conversion, or conformity. It is not the same as tolerance or inclusion which are often offered begrudgingly---or in acquiescence. It is not developed by removing children from their parents and all that they know and love. Belonging is diminished by getting tough on parents experiencing adversity. It is weakened by taking infants from their mothers in hospital beds. It cannot be achieved through another planned permanency arrangement or planning concurrently to end a parent’s rights to their children while ostensibly working to reunite them. And, importantly, we cannot purchase belonging from a clearinghouse. We can start prioritizing relational health by empowering families and communities to identify and design the ways in which we meet their needs and support their wishes. We can de-emphasize compliance and investments in reparative approaches and begin investing in resources and opportunities that will FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL, WINTER 2023
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help families remain strong and together. While many practice and behavior changes can start today, we must also coalesce around structural change with clear and persistent urgency---not expansion of what we’ve got in the hope that doing essentially the same thing will lead to a different result. The future of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) presents such an opportunity. The focus on reporting and investigating families, rather than supporting them, is unlikely to prevent the circumstances that place children and parents in danger. Mandatory reporting requirements lead to millions of unnecessary and inappropriate calls to hotlines that divert critical resources, sap budgets, unnecessarily subject families to trauma and dehumanizing intrusion, and consequently leave children who do need protection in danger. CAPTA should not be reauthorized in its current form. Instead, funding and policy should be shifted away from investigation and prosecution to community-based supports, like those funded through the Community Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP) program within CAPTA. Funding CBCAP and its communitydriven supports at levels comparable to current overall CAPTA funding or higher could pave the way for alternatives to hotline reporting when families simply need help, and reserve hotline reporting for the most serious threats to the health and well-being of children. It could promote the development of community solutions as opposed to state intervention in the lives of families. Directly funding community-based groups, rather than government agencies, would also re-focus prevention and family support work where it can be the most effective, in the communities where families live. Title IV-B of the Social Security Act is also up for reauthorization. It is the most flexible pot of federal funding to support and preserve families and should be streamlined and focused as part of a new, coordinated approach to keeping families intact. Provisions within the Adoption Assistance and Safe Families Act (ASFA) present another opportunity to replace the most harmful aspects of our structures. The termination of parental rights (TPR) provisions of ASFA project a limited conception of parents---one that focuses on deficits alone, ignoring the difference between hardship and harm or that unattended trauma is the root cause of most substance misuse and addiction. Its draconian provisions to terminate children’s rights to their parents after an artificiallydetermined length of time send the clear message that adherence to process and procedure are more important than the well-being of families. The hollowness of its reasonable efforts requirements makes clear that words in a court order matter more than true efforts to strengthen and preserve family integrity. Even the
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premises of the Act – permanency, safety, and wellbeing – ignore that relational permanency is superior to legal permanency, that safety is emotional and psychological in addition to physical, and that wellbeing is not possible without belonging and connection to family. The TPR time frames should be repealed and replaced with permanency options that honor relational health and permanency between a child and the family including customary adoption for American Indian and Native Alaskan families. The reasonable efforts requirements should be replaced with something more akin to ICWA’s active efforts, with the requirement that federal monitoring and the courts determine the presence of such efforts based on their substance, adequacy, and responsiveness to families’ needs, rather than on the use of specific terminology to satisfy the requirement. The 21st Century Children and Families Act ( H.R. 5856), which was introduced in 2021, and the Strengthening Tribal Families Act (H.R. 3403) introduced in 2023, are key opportunities to show strong bi-partisan support for parents and children. Both should be swiftly passed in the new Congress to demonstrate commitment to families. Each are examples of course corrections that chip away at harm in very meaningful ways and demonstrate the Congress’s commitment to doing right by children and their parents. Still, neither goes far enough. For example, the 21st Century Act extends, but does not eliminate the time frame for terminating parental rights and the Strengthening Tribal Families Act requires an assurance to comply with ICWA but provides no penalty for non-compliance. In making these and other important policy and practice changes, we can prevent unnecessary parent child separation and get kids back home where they belong. We call upon federal, state, county, and tribal child welfare leaders to go all in on community-based resources, opportunities and supports for families; ensure that legal protections for families are in place (including knowing their rights and having highquality representation pre- and post-petition and in civil issues); and investing in supports that protect the relational health of parents and children. We call upon the philanthropic community to demonstrate that a sustained focus on these priorities can lead to substantive change as opposed to scattershot initiatives and glittery distractions. We call upon all relevant federal agencies to use their authorities boldly for good, provide technical assistance to lawmakers, and issue clear and coordinated guidance to the field and in budget proposals that place family integrity and well-being above mere compliance. In doing so, we can demonstrate we are guided by reverence for families, respect, and care.
Foreword Roxanna Asgarian Journalist & Author
Roxanna is a Texas-based journalist who writes about courts and the law. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Magazine, and Texas Monthly, among other publications. She’s the author of We Were Once a Family: Love, Death, and Child Removal in America.
In April 2018, I got an assignment that would change my life. I’m a freelance investigative reporter, then based in Houston where I would often get calls from national news outlets when big news broke on the gulf coast of Texas. This assignment came from Portland’s daily newspaper, The Oregonian. A couple of weeks before, a family was found at the bottom of a 100-foot cliff off the California coast. The Hart family was well known in the Portland area—two white women, who were married, and their six Black adopted children, who were often seen at social justice protests downtown. One of their children, Devonte, was the subject of a viral photograph, tearfully hugging a white cop at a Black Lives Matter protest. The Oregonian had gotten a tip from a lawyer that the birth family of three of the children lived in Houston, and found the single public document related to the kids’ case, a denied appeal by their aunt, Priscilla Celestine, to adopt them. My assignment was to knock on Celestine’s door and try to hear more about what happened. The first thing I noticed when I met the family of Devonte, Jeremiah, and Ciera was the pain: it was palpable. I spent the next two days in the homes of the children’s family members—first Priscilla, and then their father figure, Nathaniel, and finally the children’s birth mother, Sherry. They were desperately struggling to take the information in: that their children were dead, that they’d been murdered by the people that were supposed to protect them, and that the children’s lives had not been safe or happy since they’d been taken away from them. That assignment would spiral into five years of work, culminating in the book We Were Once A Family: Love, Death, and Child Removal in America. Several months after I first met the family, I met the three kids’ older brother, Dontay, who was split from his siblings when they were removed from home. Dontay was 10 years old when he and his siblings were taken from their aunt Priscilla—old enough to understand that the state was removing them from their family, and to understand that this time it might be permanent. He acted out, fighting with other kids. So while the three youngest were listed as a group on the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange website, which advertises available children to those looking to adopt, Dontay was left off. The kids were removed from their aunt just before Christmas. The presents were already wrapped under the tree; Dontay was expecting a video game that he’d placed on top of his Christmas list. Instead, he was sent to one foster home and his siblings were sent to another. Without his family for the holidays, Dontay’s depression worsened.
After a phone call with his mom, where she urged him to remain calm, he decided he wasn’t going to get his family back. Just days before Christmas, he attempted suicide. The extreme pain Dontay was experiencing was understandable; after all, he was a fifth grader losing access to his entire family in the days leading up to Christmas. But in the thousands of pages of Dontay’s foster care file, there’s no inkling of his caseworkers grappling with what an upset like that might do to a child’s psyche. Instead, the case file is hyper-focused on Dontay’s behavior. There are dozens of notes about Dontay’s outbursts, however small—in one instance, a worker at the residential treatment center where Dontay was placed recounted an episode where Dontay used a curse word because he didn’t want to watch what was on the TV. After they were split up, Dontay went seven months without seeing his siblings, and during that time his behavior steadily worsened. He was raised to the highest designation of care, for the most troubled children. Throughout those months, he asked after his siblings. Could he have a home visit with them? Could they maybe go on an outing, all together? Could he call them on the phone? Ultimately, they’d have several supervised visits together in a CPS office before Dontay’s three youngest siblings were adopted out of state. But even then, no one told Dontay until months later what had happened to his siblings. What was supposed to be the final goodbye visit between them never happened—Dontay showed up and waited, but no one brought Devonte, Jeremiah, and Ciera to the office. He didn’t even realize he’d already seen them for the last time. When I first met Dontay in October 2018, he had just been released from prison. He had his guard up—against me, and against the world. Exiting prison is a difficult endeavor in the best of circumstances, but Dontay had no high school diploma, no work history, and a felony conviction on his record at the age of 22. He also had a profound distrust of any system which claimed to want to help him. As I slowly earned Dontay’s trust in person, I was reading his entire 4,000-page case file, and I began to understand just how deeply he was affected by his time in foster care. The many Christmases Dontay spent institutionalized, where none of his family were able to contact him, let alone bring him presents or spend time; the abuse he experienced at the hands of a staff member at the treatment center that left his shoulder dislocated; and the litany of psychotropic medications he was made to take for years—all of that combined into a wall so thick
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it was hard for even the closest family members to break through.
level of independence that some would say more closely resembled neglect.
But still, his family tried. When Dontay was 16, he reunited with his father figure, Nathaniel, who had grieved the loss of his children for years. Nathaniel sought and secured custody of Dontay, and when he was returned to him, Nathaniel realized just how damaging his time in state care had been. One time, when Nathaniel heard noises in the middle of the night, he discovered Dontay in the kitchen, eating a raw pork chop. Dontay told him he’d gotten used to sneaking food when he was hungry at night. “What did they do to him in there?” Nathaniel asked himself, over and over again.
But I am white, and I lived in a middle-class suburb, and no one would ever have thought to call CPS on my family. Instead of state intervention, what I experienced was a community of people coming around me, lightly buoying me with their love. My best friends gave me emotional support, and a couple of my teachers who knew what my life was like at home made sure I was coming to school and keeping up my grades. My boyfriend’s parents had me at their dinner table nearly every night, and sometimes for breakfast, too. I didn’t receive shame from them, about my missed assignments or my sleeping over there too much, or for the unhealthy ways I was coping. Instead, I received love.
Several months before the book came out, Dontay went back to prison. Shortly after that, Nathaniel died. Dontay’s only lasting trusted bond was extinguished, and he was locked in a cell near Dallas while the funeral took place back home in Houston. Again, Dontay was unable to say goodbye. I was drawn to this story, to Dontay and his family, because I’d been through a lot as a child, too. I could relate to Dontay’s feelings of being abandoned, of going through things far beyond your developmental capabilities, and of finding your own way when you still badly need guidance. But I had it much easier than Dontay, in large part because, although I was left to my own devices at too young an age, I was left alone by the state systems that repeatedly intervened in Dontay’s young life. When Dontay was removed from his aunt, he was removed from his Fourth Ward neighborhood, where his cousins lived and where his mom grew up. He was removed from the school he went to, his friends there, and the sense of familiarity he had with people and places in his life. While his closest bonds were severed, he was also left without any life raft to hold onto. A 10-year-old attempting suicide should be a loud and clear sign that a child is in danger, and that the adults around him are failing him. For Dontay, it fell on deaf ears. The year my parents’ unhappy marriage ended, I was 12. My sister moved to college and my grandmother, who lived with us, died. My older brother and I were thrown into a state of flux; my parents’ relationship became volatile and then completely fractured, and we were largely left to figure it out alone. I experienced sexual abuse that year, too. I think a lot about that year these days, about how much pain I was in and how many scars I still live with because of the trauma I endured. But I also think about how it was that I got out. Like Dontay, I also became depressed. I felt abandoned by my family, and I had a
As a result, I was able to get out of my hometown, start a new life, and ultimately, achieve the safety I needed to begin to heal from what happened to me in childhood. And still, to this day I struggle with the impact childhood trauma has had on my brain, my body, and my life. We ultimately can’t protect children from every bad thing that might happen. Even the most stable childhoods can be marred by unexpected trauma and violence. What we can do, though, for our own kids and for the many children in our lives, is give them a sense of continuity, of support. We can pack that kid in our son’s class an extra lunch. We can let them sleep over, we can cook for them, we can pick them up when they’re in a jam. We can lightly buoy them with our love, so that they may be able to survive this now, and so that they may be able to get to a place of safety, and of joy.
POETRY
Promises Made Separation of siblings stuck together like glue imagine getting told you can have visitation then that gets taken away too. Promises made telling me I was going to be back with my brothers, Promises made telling me they weren’t going further. But soon twenty miles turned into fifty fifty turned into a hundred. Each time when I think we’re close it’s another county, Each time I cry, I cry, scared i’m going to lose them. Everyone around me got their loved ones. Everybody I see, Everything I see I get reminded each and every day that both of you are gone. Separation of siblings stuck together like glue. I imagine and hope to see you both soon.
Lottie Cruce Lottie is 16 years old and a Junior in high school. She loves animals and will be a vet when she gets older. Lottie spent time in foster care. . . but it does not define her.
A Better Way
Interview with Misty Flowers for a Better Way MISTY FLOWERS
Executive Director of the Nebraska Indian Child Welfare Coalition
Misty (Thomas) Flowers is a member of the Santee Sioux Nation and a descendant of the Tlingit of Alaska. She is currently the Executive Director of the Nebraska Indian Child Welfare Coalition (NICWC). Prior to that she was the Director of the Dakota Tiwahe Service Unit, the Social Services Department for her tribe for 12 years. Misty has a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resources and Family Sciences and Master’s Degree in Sociology from UNL. David and Jerry sat down with Misty recently to discuss how Native perspectives on the need for belonging can lead to a better way for all of us in child welfare.
What does belonging mean to you as a Native woman, tribal member, and advocate? One of the most important things for all of us is developing our identity, which includes our cultural identity. Tribal membership is one of belonging, but it is also family for our members. When kids enter care, they often lose that very important connection with their tiwahe and tiospaye, immediate and extended family. Inawaye, my mother, was a social worker back in the 80’s and she would always talk about how, no matter what, kids will want to find their way home, meaning that they would go to their tribe and their biological family. I believe that it is an innate human need to be amongst your biological family and your tribe. In our tradition, “family” is not only the nuclear family; it goes much wider than that. It is our very basis of being. We are very relational as a people, and we have roles and responsibilities according to those relationships.
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For example, our mothers’ sisters, our mamana, are also our mothers. Our fathers’ brothers, our Ishida, are also our fathers. My sister’s children are also my children, and I have nieces and nephews with grandchildren who are also my grandchildren. We have strong interrelationships with each other, and these relationships are major parts of our culture. Historically, our mamana and Ishida, as well as aunts and uncles, took on the roles of disciplinarians for our children, allowing the parents to be the loving caretakers. Some of the modern perceptions about roles and responsibilities of family members, about men and women, have been affected by harmful times in our history, including boarding schools, acculturation, genocide, and efforts to “save the man, kill the Indian.” There are efforts within Native culture to rekindle the concept of “gentle parenting,” allowing parents to be the nurturing caregivers, and allowing relatives to discipline.
How have tribes been able to hold onto traditional practices in spite of these harmful Western influences? These practices and beliefs are built into our values and traditions. Everyone still comes together to support each other in times of difficulty. For example, losing a family member brings our community together to share the difficulty and grief and not just for the funeral. We also value ceremonies as opportunities to bind people together and maintain strong relationships. Long ago, when our people were subjected to persecution, genocide, and forced acculturation, some people continued to speak the language and practice our traditions and culture, specifically our spiritual ways. Essentially our ceremonies had to “go underground” and were hidden and practiced in secret. In 1978, it was no longer illegal to be “Indian” and so nowadays we no longer have to hide our ceremonies. Our children can learn and be a part of our ceremonies and learn our language. Dr. Joseph Gone (to War) talks about four eras of Native American mental health, including PreColonial (how we were prior to colonization), Colonial (colonization), Post-Colonial (the effects of colonization), and now the Healing, or the cultural resurgence. During this healing time, our people are able to be Indigenous, speak our language, conduct our ceremonies, and heal ourselves and our families.
How does our nation’s child welfare system affect belonging for Native families and children? Sometimes, children must be protected, and an intervention is necessary. Often, however, the issues we deal with in child welfare are the results of historical trauma. Issues such as alcoholism, mental health, health disparities, domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, a loss of identity and culture from the effects of the boarding schools and the Indian Adoption Project, all these combine to affect the well-being of our families today. Historical trauma creates more trauma, and we are treating those symptoms in the child welfare system, as well as in other systems. Our culture is the best way for us to deal with this. Culture is our protective and promotive factor,
including honoring and respecting women and children. In order for us to deal fully with these issues, we need more resources for prevention. We also need more culturally-based programming. We need more prevention services, and services to help families heal and grow in a healthy way.
Clearly, there is a need for healing from so many historical destructive forces. What is the Native perspective on healing? Again, culture is healing. We are in a time of re-learning our traditions, our culture and our languages. Learning the language of our people can be healing within itself. Our children can function better in Western society if they are stronger culturally and have a stronger cultural identity and are aware of who they are and where they come from. Our tribes had built-in protective factors in our teachings and how to treat each other.
With so many pressures on Native families, how are the Tribes helping to keep them together? Our Tribes know their families and know what their families need. They work hard to keep kids connected to their families, to make sure they know who their family is and who they have connections with. We emphasize family relationships, and when children need to be cared for by someone other than their parents, we go to relatives and kin. The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was designed to strengthen those relationships and keep Native children with their families. FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL, WINTER 2023
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In your opinion, what could the West learn from Tribes? Tribes do better than States in keeping children with related caregivers and in keeping them connected to their families. Tribes are also resourceful, out of necessity, and can make many good things happen with few resources. We locate our services to families in the same departments/locations, while the states often contract out for services among different providers. Tribal caseworkers are better able to help families incorporate culture into their case plan and to help support families with the resources needed so that the family can help and heal themselves. Our tribal caseworkers know and are familiar with the families on and off our reservations. Some Tribes also have cultural specialists whose job is to provide additional support to families if they are disconnected. This is an amazing resource for the caseworkers, as well as for the families. The cultural specialists can help support the caseworkers and others that are doing the difficult work of working with both the families and the trauma.
If you were to draw up a list of things that States or the federal government should stop doing and start doing to promote belonging, what would that list include? We should stop terminating parents’ rights. One of our judges (Judge Thorne) has said that it doesn’t matter how much education or status you have, no one can terminate that connection between mother and child – only the Creator can do that.
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Families are often railroaded into termination of parental rights when they don’t really have a chance. They can feel defeated and give up if they don’t believe they have a chance. Federal laws on terminating parents’ rights should be changed. Like my mother said, “no matter what, kids always find their way home.” They can be raised with the best that the wasicu world has to offer but, ultimately, they want to be home. There is an innate human need to be connected to their families. If they were raised in non-Native homes, they may not know how to begin reconnecting. We should start doing more customary adoptions. Some States, such as Nebraska, recognize customary adoptions but adoption subsidies are not available to those families because parental rights are not terminated. We should also start doing a better job of helping youth who are leaving foster care so that they have the resources and skills they need. We need to do a better job of supporting youth that are in Independent Living and programs like the Bridge to Independence (B2i) with cultural and tribal connections. Also, our tribal programs need more funding and resources to help meet the needs of children and families. Our ICWA departments need more funding and resources so that they can meet the needs of ICWA families. Some ICWA departments are overwhelmed with the number of ICWA cases they have under only one or two staff members. Our tribal systems need more funding and resources to build up their prevention and intervention systems to adequately meet the needs of children and families. Some of those needs could also be met with access to services that other state wards and families have access to. Our tribes need the funding and resources to be able to develop our own services and support for families. Also, our tribal courts need the funding and resources needed to adequately serve our children and families. Our tribal courts often do not have GALs, some may not have enough parents’ attorneys, or enough CASAs. Finally, we should recognize that ICWA is the gold standard for how child welfare should operate for all children, not just Native children. It allows us to make sure relative placements are a priority, that active efforts are made to prevent removals and reunify families, and that we provide preventative and supportive services before removals.
FEATURE
More Runway, Less Tightrope
Moving Away from Insecurity & Isolation in Child Protection KELLEY FONG
Assistant Professor at University of California, Irvine
Kelley Fong is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, studying families and the state systems and policies that affect them. Her research and teaching interests include poverty, inequality, social policy, children and youth, education, and family life. Her first book, Investigating Families: Motherhood in the Shadow of Child Protective Services, is being published by Princeton University Press in 2023.
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Belonging means “a sense of ease with oneself and one’s surroundings,” as defined by sociologist Vanessa May.1 It’s the recognition that one is an important and valued part of something larger: a family, a community, a society. What might this sense of ease look like? Keyna Franklin of the advocacy group Rise describes a community center where her children loved playing basketball, dancing on a team, and participating in fashion shows. Keyna volunteered to walk down the fashion show runway once, sporting an outfit matching her daughters, as other parents cheered and clapped. Years later, her children continue to spend time at the community center, a place where they could simply “be kids.”2 A mother I met doing research in Rhode Island, Kim, shared that she had “always loved” her local Head Start, which had encouraged her to volunteer, then become a teacher’s assistant when her children were young. (All research participant names in this article are pseudonyms.) At first, she wasn’t sure what she would do. But staff told her she could do anything she wanted: “You can help the kids, you can play with them, you can clean the tables.” Kim quickly took to this new role, reading to the children and joining the policy council to brainstorm ideas. Now, she said, when she meets other parents, she invites them to join in as well, saying, “Hey, you should come. This is good stuff.”
1 Vanessa May, “Self, Belonging, and Social Change,” Sociology 45, no. 3 (2011): 368. 2 Keyna Franklin, “We Need a Childhood Protection Service,” Rise, 2020, https:// www.risemagazine. org/2020/09/ we-need-childhoodprotection/. 3 For more information on research methods, see Kelley Fong, Investigating Families: Motherhood in the Shadow of Child Protective Services (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2023).
All people and organizations committed to child and family well-being should be seeking to cultivate this feeling of ease, this sense of belonging. Too often, however, our current approach to child protection does just the opposite. It tugs at the threads of community, either unraveling or threatening to unravel them. It exacerbates families’ sense of disruption, displacement, and overall unease. I saw this in my research on Child Protective Services (CPS), in which I interviewed 110 mothers in Rhode Island and Connecticut over the course of more than four years; most of these mothers had experienced a run-in with CPS.3 For hundreds of hours, I sat at kitchen tables and on front porches, listening to mothers share their experiences. In Connecticut, I interviewed mothers shortly after CPS initiated its investigation, typically within days of CPS’ first visit. Almost to a person, they articulated a profound sense of apprehension and unease at CPS’ arrival. Lizette, for instance, called her investigation “scary,” even as her investigator arrived with a cheery disposition and gave no indication that she was considering taking Lizette’s eight- and threeyear-old sons. A neighbor had called the police after
Lizette’s three-year-old, playing outside, ended up by the neighbor’s house; the police alerted CPS. During the investigation, Lizette held her breath. “I was anxious a lot because I didn’t know if I was being watched,” she said. She didn’t want to let her kids play outside alone, not even in the yard area of her apartment. “I just felt really anxious and worried that I was gonna make one more little mistake and, God forbid, she would take them.” Jazmine, a 23-year-old Black and Puerto Rican mother, found herself at the mercy of CPS as well, after her housing case manager reported that Jazmine had physically disciplined her toddler son by smacking him on his hand. Jazmine’s stomach dropped when she received a call from the CPS investigator. Walking back to her apartment to meet him, she recalled, “every bad thought just was popping up as we got closer and closer.” She knew firsthand what could happen when CPS got involved, as she’d been in the system herself and felt it had done little to help her. When she met her investigator, she appreciated his calm demeanor and respectful attitude; he told Jazmine that he wanted to help reduce her stress, and yet, his visit amplified her sense of anxiety and vulnerability. “Everything now is on the line,” she told me two days later. “I feel like I’m walking on a tightrope right now. That’s where I’m at.” She compared being under investigation by CPS to being on probation: “You do one wrong thing and your freedom is gone.” Jazmine traced this wariness, this unease, in part to the disconnect she recognized between herself and social services. CPS, she observed, meant “a preppy person who has it all, compared to what we have, judging us.” By activating CPS, her housing case manager wasn’t conveying belonging, but exclusion. Imelda, a 29-year-old mother of four, came to Connecticut from Puerto Rico shortly after Hurricane Maria. She and her children were living with a friend, Erica, also displaced by the hurricane. Erica was watching Imelda’s children one day when Imelda’s toddler let herself out of the apartment. As in Lizette’s case, a neighbor notified the police, who in turn called CPS. Imelda described the experience as “horrible, horrible.” She paused, like she was trying to find the words, then lowered her voice as she described the feeling: “I was blank at the moment. I couldn’t sleep or anything, thinking about what was going to happen.” (Imelda’s comments are translated from Spanish.) Imelda added that since that day, Erica had felt anxious every time she heard the doorbell ring, because of the “bad memories”: “She thinks it’s the police
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or someone coming to take the children away. She doesn’t feel comfortable.” Lizette, Jazmine, and Imelda are three of the millions of parents investigated by CPS each year. In addition to an individual sense of unease in the investigation, their reflections illuminate how state systems – including but not limited to CPS – foster a broader unease, an unease regarding their connections to others.
These mothers’ experiences show how present systems of “child protection” are disorienting, untethering families from communities. For Lizette, the racism she recognized in the immediate marshaling of punitive authorities conveyed her exclusion. She had recently moved to her small-town apartment complex from the city, where she didn’t allow her sons to play outside. But in this new area, with “a lot of wide open space,” Lizette had allowed herself, she acknowledged, to “get a little comfortable,” explaining that “it’s enclosed, and you feel safer.” The swift arrival of the police and CPS, however, undermined this emerging sense of belonging. Lizette learned to be wary, as neighbors might notify punitive authorities. As a Latina mother raising children with medium-brown skin in a town whose residents were 90% non-Hispanic White, she added, “I almost question, is it a race thing? … I see a lot of things go on here that are very similar to what I let happen.” Lizette’s neighbors allowed their children to play outside unsupervised: “They don’t check up on them for an hour or more – I see it.” She wondered if her neighbors would have the same experience with the police and CPS. “Was it a thing of, a young minority parent, is she capable?
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Versus, if it was a White family.” Lizette added that “they don’t see people of my color often,” so “unfortunately, I get it” – but she still questioned the double standard. The message was clear: she couldn’t parent like other (White) parents in her area could. She didn’t belong. When families are embedded in local networks and resources, meanwhile, social services are too often ill-equipped to support them in place. We see this, for instance, in housing and school choice policies that require people to leave their community networks to access the resources they want.4 The housing assistance agency working with Jazmine, likewise, encouraged her to uproot herself. Jazmine had made a life for herself and her son in New Haven. She had cultivated mentors and social service connections in the city. Her boyfriend and his mother, who could watch Jazmine’s toddler while Jazmine worked, lived just up the street, three blocks away. But after Jazmine’s apartment failed its inspection three times due to lead poisoning, she had to find a new place. Her housing case manager had focused their housing search on other cities, where rent was more affordable. This was a source of stress for Jazmine. “Now I have to worry about moving all the way back over there,” she told her investigator. Moving would take her away from her support network; she didn’t have a car. “All the somewhat resources I have over here won’t be available to me over there… That’s a stress factor right there.” Jazmine’s CPS investigator identified his top priority as alleviating Jazmine’s stress. When parents are stressed, he explained to her, they may unintentionally do things that put their children in danger. His job, he said, was “to figure out, how do we put you in the best position you can be to lower the risk of that.” For Jazmine – who emphasized her impending move, likely to a strange place, as a primary source of stress – providing resources to stay close to her support network could have made a difference. Instead, however, social services treated Jazmine as an individual who could just be picked up and easily placed somewhere else. Imelda’s experience also underscores how state systems construct people as isolated units, rather than as woven into family and community networks. Arriving in Connecticut shortly after the
4 See, for instance, Melody L. Boyd, “The Role of Social Networks in Making Housing Choices: The Experience of the Gautreaux Two Residential Mobility Program,” Cityscape 10, no. 1 (2008): 41– 63; Susan ClampetLundquist, “‘Everyone Had Your Back’: Social Ties, Perceived Safety, and Public Housing Relocation,” City & Community 9, no. 1 (2010): 87–108; Simone Ispa-Landa, “Gender, Race, and Justifications for Group Exclusion: Urban Black Students Bussed to Affluent Suburban Schools,” Sociology of Education 86, no. 3 (2013): 218–33.
hurricane and speaking little English, Imelda and Erica worked together to make ends meet for their families. One of them could watch the children, for instance, while the other went out to look for jobs or visit social service agencies, as Imelda was doing when her daughter got out of the apartment. For Imelda, Erica was “like a sister.” Yet police and CPS intervention threatened to disrupt this arrangement. The police took Erica to jail, charging her with risk of injury to a child, and CPS instructed Imelda not to allow Erica to babysit anymore. Imelda was distraught, saying, “It broke my heart to see [Erica] in that condition. She has always looked after my children, since Puerto Rico.” Erica was facing over 10 years in prison, leaving Imelda wracked with guilt. Had she been imprisoned, Imelda said, “I was never going to overcome that.” She scrambled to amass Erica’s $1500 bail, calling relatives in Puerto Rico and selling her laptop. State authorities were purportedly acting to protect Imelda’s toddler. But in jailing and fining one of the child’s caregivers after an honest mistake, these authorities disrupted the social and material supports so critical to child protection. State systems like police and CPS did not just misrecognize Imelda’s interdependence; they actively dismantled it.
children and look what happened.” She felt she had “achieved nothing” since leaving Puerto Rico: “I left my work and everything I had to come here to the United States in search of something good and I didn’t make it.” Erica planned to return to Puerto Rico because of this “bad experience,” Imelda shared. As she was staying with Erica, this would leave her homeless; she was contemplating returning to Puerto Rico herself.Six months later, a new CPS report came in after one of Imelda’s children had too many absences from school. The investigator could not contact Imelda and learned that she had left the state, most likely to return to Puerto Rico.
Moreover, this experience fundamentally altered Imelda’s sense of belonging in her new state. Rather than welcoming and incorporating her, CPS and police intervention made her feel she didn’t fit into this new place. “It was my first experience in the United States,” Imelda reflected. “I have always said I would never travel, and I traveled once and look what I’m going through... I came here looking for something good for myself and my FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL, WINTER 2023
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These responses to Lizette’s, Jazmine’s, and Imelda’s families did not promote child well-being. Instead, the responses exacerbated these parents’ sense of anxiety, unease, and disorientation. Each of these families could have benefitted from support, yet instead each one was subjected to an investigation that questioned their fitness as a parent. These investigations – purportedly focused on child protection – undermined the very thing that helps children feel protected and safe: their belonging to their families.
Women of color in particular are threatened by current child welfare approaches to investigating families. Rather than shunning or “othering” families, even families facing adversity, we can prioritize belonging and focus on bringing them into the fold. Former tribal court judge William Thorne writes about a consortium of seven tribes in southern California that offers another model: “They didn’t just offer ‘services’ to families ‘at risk.’ Instead, they offered events, services, and engagement to the
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entire community and then took special efforts to make sure that the at-risk families were a part of, not separate from, the community. They approached the families as they would their own.”5 In fifteen years, the number of children in foster care dropped from 487 to just 14. Writing about the community center, Keyna Franklin concludes, “If more of our community was like this, there would be fewer investigations and less surveillance in the Black and brown community and less involvement with child welfare systems.” The center brought families in to have fun with each other and work together, engaging with sports teams and events like the fashion show. In short, the center cultivated a sense of belonging. That belonging became the foundation to ensure families had what they needed: Because families enjoyed spending time there, the community center could become a hub for families to access food, clothing, and holiday gifts. Yet the community center’s significance should not be reduced to its role in distributing material goods. Importantly, the belonging – having “a place to feel joy and togetherness,” in Franklin’s words – was itself a vital resource, one often in short supply from social service systems but essential for families to thrive. The shared experiences of these women and children – these families – point to a need for fundamental change in how we work to protect children. Policies and practices should narrow the scope of what gets reported to child welfare in the first place and what is accepted for investigation. Definitions of child safety and family welfare should begin, first and foremost, with preserving the relationships that make children and their caregivers feel supported and safe. The investigation process should never trump attention to preserving critical connections and relationships within families and their communities. Finally, we must shift from the tightrope walk of investigations to the runway walk Keyna Franklin and her daughters enjoyed. Investing in community institutions, such as the community center that Ms. Franklin writes about and the broad community supports that Judge Thorne describes, is essential to provide families with what they need.
5 William Thorne, “After Years of Doing It Wrong as a Judge I Know We Can Do Better!” Children’s Bureau Express 21, no. 6 (2020).
POETRY
The Monster Inside Chloe Williams
Chloe Williams is an author, grassroots organizer, and advocate from Sacramento, California. Chloe’s writing is vivid and vulnerable, as she pulls inspiration from her lived experience. In her writing, Williams explores themes of self discovery and transformation as she aspires to rewrite her story from one of adverse childhood experiences, navigating marginalization and oppressive systems, and recovery from drug and alcohol abuse to a story of triumph, self improvement and communal healing. Chloe’s debut book, Opus, is available in kindle and paperback edition on Amazon, and her open mic poetry event, Opus Open Mic begins January 2024 of which she is the coordinator and host. Keep up with Chloe’s work by following her LinkTree: https:// linktr.ee/chloesvision
The monster inside is insidious she is jealous greedy and mean she is a jezebel she is hideous with gnashing teeth and eyes green
The monster inside doesn’t believe in love my beliefs are something she decides when I am faced with love she demands I run and hide The monster inside was created with potency imagined and manifested by child who had learned young that not every loved one is someone you can trust A reminder that sometimes the only difference between safety and survival is a moment alone with someone you thought you could trust A reminder that love lies and on its own, it can never, ever be enough The monster inside knows the secrets of man no one wants to gossip about she tells me to hide from them with the door locked and the curtains drawn The monster inside, she loves me reminds me to keep my body and mind strong The monster inside is a protector my defender it’s just— sometimes she destroys the things I love
FEATURE
The Need for Belonging
Relational Permanency in Child Welfare SIXTO CANCEL
CEO & Founder, Think of Us
to understand that I was a foster kid and would increasingly come to identify with both that label and the constant relational disruption it implied. Throughout the many changes that followed, one thing remained constant: I never felt that I belonged. Living with lighter-skinned Puerto Ricans led to questions that I couldn’t escape: “Why do you look like that?” In large and small ways, I was constantly reminded that I was a foster child, my world divided into two parts: a “real” family, and a rotating roster of “foster” families, never truly belonging to either of them. Living in a poor neighborhood reinforced this feeling; I was an outsider among outsiders. This shaped my default perspective as the “other” in every scenario.
My childhood in Bridgeport, Connecticut was a succession of disruptions and ruptures. I was just 11 months old when social workers first placed me in foster care due to my mother’s untreated drug addiction. In those early years, I didn’t realize my upbringing was different from that of other children. That changed when, at six, I went back to live with my biological mother. Within a year, I was right back in the foster care system, placed with yet another family, separated once again from my siblings and everyone I knew. Gradually, I came
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At the age of nine, a life-changing moment arrived unexpectedly in a courtroom when the judge surprised me by addressing me directly. He asked if I wanted to be adopted. In front of a room full of lawyers, family, child welfare workers, and court staff, I wrestled with feelings no nineyear-old is prepared to untangle. I knew I didn’t want to be adopted. I was a foster kid. The idea of adoption seemed like a puzzle I couldn’t solve. All I understood was that it might mean the social worker would no longer visit. However, as I stared at the black-and-white peppered table, under the pressure of the judge’s gaze, despite wanting to say no, I said yes. Four years later, at the age of 13, a knock on the door of my adoptive home heralded the arrival
of a social worker for yet another child protective services investigation. Faced with their questions, I found myself bending the truth, downplaying negative aspects of my treatment. I had been taught that what happened within those walls stayed within them. However, the social worker’s inquiries made me realize that some aspects of my life weren’t normal. I had unquestioningly accepted restrictions on playing outside, visiting friends’ houses, and even interacting with certain people. I thought I had skillfully concealed the truth, but my adoptive mother was furious with me. This marked the beginning of two years during which I wouldn’t be allowed in the house unless I was needed to babysit one of the foster babies. I had to rely on my dance and acting friends for meals. One day, after a back-and-forth with my adopted mother, she said words that became a turning point in my life: “You can leave.” This was an epiphany. I packed my bags and left. However, after calling a hotline for help, I was forced to return to her house. I didn’t succeed in escaping that day, but that momentary feeling of freedom ignited my voice. This newfound strength reminded me of a moment in the Harry Potter books that I often escaped into – a scene where an enslaved elf is accidentally freed when its master is tricked into giving it a gift, breaking its bondage. Similarly, my adopted mother had unintentionally given me permission to advocate for myself. After watching Law & Order and realizing I needed to gather evidence, I taped a recorder to my chest, capturing the verbal abuse that occurred whenever I was let in the house. Despite this, it required two years of determined self-advocacy before, at 15, I finally convinced a judge to let me move in with a woman I knew who was an usher at my church. She eventually became my official foster parent. Hers was one of the best foster homes I ever experienced, but she hoped for a son and that was a role I could never fulfill. I struggled to break through emotional walls I’d built to survive, that made it difficult to respond to her affection with hugs and “I love yous.” The hurt of past betrayals lingered in my body and mind, making it challenging to fully embrace the warmth she offered and difficult to communicate my appreciation. Eventually, her doors closed to me, leaving me with a deep ache that reinforced all my previous feelings of betrayal. I found out about this during a school trip. The social worker called me and told me that my foster mother had packed all my belongings and dropped them off at the Department of Children and
Families. Because I was now a teenager and finding foster placements for teens can be challenging, the plan was for me to go to a group home. However, having seen the negative impact that institutional placement had on my brother, and using my newfound voice, I advocated vehemently for another foster placement. After this, I was placed into a succession of foster homes until I “aged out” of the system at age 23, with no permanent family connections. Several years ago, more than six years after I aged out of care, my biological sister invited me to a family reunion in New York City. I didn’t know about this branch of my father’s family and they didn’t know about me. I raced over to Harlem, and walked through the park impatiently as I looked at every family, wondering which one was mine. I don’t have words to describe the moment when we found each other. It was magical. My family was accepting, kind, and curious about me. I felt wanted and connected. In a new and profound way, I felt a sense of belonging. However, about 90 minutes into the event, I discovered something that cast a shadow over these feelings and my entire life to that point: I had four aunts and uncles who had been foster and adoptive parents longer than I had been alive, including an aunt that had adopted my father and several of my half siblings. I was so overwhelmed with grief, I became numb; all I could do was pull out my phone and search the distance to where I’d grown up: 58 miles. My entire life, throughout a childhood of constant displacement and disconnection, I’d been just a few questions and a short drive away from family. Shortly after I left the foster care system, I founded a nonprofit, Think of Us, to harness the hard-won expertise gained through lived experiences like mine in order to improve the foster care system. Since then, I’ve met thousands of families and young people with stories similar to mine. Think of Us specializes in conducting qualitative, participatory research that breathes life into official statistics and case file data, and in directly engaging both the youth and the families impacted by the system by identifying opportunities to improve it, and then designing and implementing those solutions. I’ll share some of their quotes and stories below, as well as those of the front-line workers who serve this population, gathered from different research studies Think of Us has conducted over the years. During the past decade, I’ve learned that my own experience is not the exception; it is all too common among the youth and families in foster care.
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“Without the right to health, the other rights matter very little.” – Court appointed special advocate
“The only constant in the child welfare system is change.” – Program Staff
“We need a systematic approach to helping our youth deal with grief, loss, and separation . . . We do not know what to say. We do not have language. At a funeral you say “I’m sorry for your loss.” How do we say “I’m sorry you got separated from your family.”? We do not have a vocabulary. We do not have a way to talk about it.” – Program Staff
I’ve shared my personal story in some detail because it highlights the many moments of relational disruption that are built into the child welfare system, occurring almost by default: investigation, intake, removal, initial placement, sibling separation, uncertain or difficult visitations with family, and then subsequent placement changes accompanied by further disruptions. My story also highlights the lack of effort to find and place youth with extended family; the lack of supportive services that can help youth, parents, and caregivers to cope with the effects of repeated relational disruption; the overuse of institutional placements for teens; and the downplaying or overlooking of harms inflicted by foster parents or other system actors. Foster care not only removes a child from their parents, but very often from their siblings, extended families, schools, mentors, friends, communities, and cultures. It may do this many times over before a child achieves either reunification or adoption. These changes frequently happen with little notice. A social worker arrives, you throw a few of your things quickly into a garbage bag, and a stranger drives you to a strange home. The child rarely gets clear reasons for why this is happening. Few services are offered to help children cope. The system does little to account for these many relational ruptures, focusing myopically on those relationships defined by legal custody and the harms inflicted on youth by their legal guardians.
“The experience of being in foster care is demoralizing, it is traumatic. It is really a drag.” – Service Provider
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From the very beginning, as investigations are launched and intake processes begin, uncertainty and instability about a child’s most formative relationships set in. These moments of trauma become built-in defaults within the system, leading to removal from homes and placements that are intended to be permanent but most often turn out to be temporary. Youth in the system find it difficult to trust what they are told about their situations, as the lack of cohesive information from various system actors creates confusion and erodes their sense of security. These experiences create a tangled web of mistrust, uncertainty, and emotional upheaval that deeply affects the wiring of the child and adolescent brain. The repeated instances of broken promises, unpredictability, and lack of control can hinder the development of healthy attachment styles, emotional regulation, and a positive self-concept. As a result, the child welfare system inadvertently contributes to perpetuating cycles of trauma that have far-reaching consequences. Decades of research on the developing brain make clear the many harms that early traumas have over one’s lifespan, connecting these early traumas to the decreased likelihood of nearly every conceivable aspect of human flourishing.1 This enormous literature articulates the child’s need for a network of healthy, reciprocal, loving relationships in order for healthy development to occur.2 It has become commonplace to summarize some of these findings by saying that the brain is a social organ. More recent research highlights the enormous potential for healthy relationships to build resilience against or help to heal traumas, mitigating the many lifelong negative outcomes.3,4
1 Hughes, K., Bellis, M., Hardcastle. K., et. al. (2017) The effect of multiple adverse childhood experiences on health: a systematic review and metaanalysis. The Lancet, Public Health. Vol 2, Issue 8, E356-E366, Aug 2017. https:// www.thelancet.com/ journals/lanpub/ article/PIIS24682667(17)30118-4/ fulltext
² Lally, R & Mangione, P. (May 2017) Caring Relationships: The Heart of Early Brain Development. Young Children, Vol 72, No. 2. https://www.naeyc. org/resources/ pubs/yc/may2017/ caring-relationshipsheart-early-braindevelopment 3 Crandall, A, Miller, J, Cheung, A., et. al. (October 2019) ACEs and counter-ACEs: How positive and negative childhood experiences influence adult health. Child Abuse & Neglect. Vol 96. https://www. sciencedirect. com/science/ article/abs/pii/ S0145213419302662 4 Whitaker, R., Dearth-Wesley, T., & Herman, A. (Nov. 2021) Childhood Family Connection and Adult Flourishing: Associations Across Levels of Childhood Adversity. Academic Pediatrics. 21(8). https://www. academicpedsjnl. net/article/S18762859(21)00138-8/ fulltext
5 https://cls.unc.edu/ wp-content/uploads/ sites/3019/2016/08/ From-ACESTOOHIGHACES-and-Resiliencequestions.pdf
6 It is worth noting that this tool has significant limitations, for instance, it does not include removal from one’s caregivers as a traumatic event, and so is not capable of capturing significant traumas experienced by foster youth. However, it is backed by an influential body of research, so we reference it here to illustrate the point.
7 Liming, K., Akin, B., & Brook, J. (Dec 2021) Adverse Childhood Experiences and Foster Care Placement Stability. Pediatrics. 148(6). https:// publications.aap. org/pediatrics/ article/148/6/ 8 Turney, K. & Wildeman, C. (Feb 2017) Adverse childhood experiences among children placed in and adopted from foster care: Evidence from a nationally representative survey. Child Abuse & Neglect. Vol 64. P 117-129. https://www. sciencedirect. com/science/ article/abs/pii/ S0145213416303180 9 Bethell, C., Jones, J., Gombojav, N., et. al. (Sept 2019) Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels. JAMA Pediatrics. https://jamanetwork. com/journals/ jamapediatrics/ fullarticle/2749336
“Every year I still get a little weird around the time they sent me away. That memory is fresh as day. It never gets fuzzy. I’m never going to forget it.” – Former foster youth
“They said I was in that [group home] facility because I was deemed to be a danger to myself or others... But yet I was the one being abused and locked in rooms. I still carry that feeling of blame with me today. What we do to children in the system now, lives on with them tomorrow and in the years to come.”
“When I was a child, there were relatives in my family who made me feel better if I was sad or worried.” “When I was a child, neighbors or my friends’ parents seemed to like me.” “When I was a child, teachers, coaches, youth leaders or ministers were there to help me.” “Someone in my family cared about how I was doing in school.”
– Former foster youth
The most common tool we use to measure childhood trauma and resilience is the ACE score. The ACE score is said to function like a cholesterol score for childhood toxic stress. “As your ACE score increases, so does the risk of disease, social, and emotional problems. With an ACE score of 4 or more, things start getting serious. The likelihood of chronic pulmonary lung disease increases 390 percent; hepatitis, 240 percent; depression, 460 percent; suicide, 1,220 percent.”5,6 Research shows that rates of ACEs this high are extremely common among youth in foster care.7,8 This tool is now commonly accompanied by the “resilience score” questionnaire developed by Bethell, Jones, et al in 2019. Their work found that certain positive childhood experiences could dramatically mitigate the effect of ACEs and that, absent such positive experiences, a relatively small number of ACEs can lead to negative outcomes generally associated with higher ACEs scores.9 The questions included in the questionnaire are illustrative of the deep developmental value of the many non-custodial relationships typically overlooked by child welfare and family courts.
“When I felt really bad, I could almost always find someone I trusted to talk to.” Our current child welfare system, in focusing narrowly on freeing children from the occurrence of traumas resulting from the actions or circumstances of the custodial parent, both ignores the inevitable trauma of relational disruption caused by system intervention, and also severs children from the very relationships that could help them to cope and heal. A stable caregiver, a supportive mentor, a compassionate teacher—any individual who offers consistent care and affection may play a pivotal role in a young person's ability to cope with and overcome the traumas they experience.
“I wish people understood brain science… my relationship with my foster mom would still be here.” – Former Foster Youth
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The power of these relationships lies in their capacity to provide a sense of safety, belonging, and trust—essential elements for mitigating the impact of trauma on the brain. The supportive presence of a caring individual fosters a healing environment that counteracts the feelings of isolation, fear, and uncertainty that often accompany complex traumas. By offering stability and emotional support, these relationships create a foundation upon which an adolescent can rebuild and rewire their neural pathways in healthier and more adaptive ways. No clinical service or court-ordered life skills course can take the place of a loving and compassionate sibling, friend, uncle, cousin, grandparent, family friend, coach, minister, neighbor, or teacher. By largely ignoring the deep importance of such relationships and focusing only on the custodial parents, the child welfare system squanders resources it has no ability to replace, at great cost to the health and life trajectories of the youth it serves.
“It is triggering to have the suicide hotline as the first suggested hotline number when you just want to talk to somebody.” – Former Foster Youth
“I wish the system tapped into finding me long-term healthy relationships… Not being a pill-pushing system, but teaching me yoga, meditation.” – Former Foster Youth Former foster youth who exit the system with a robust support network are more likely to pursue higher education, secure employment, and find housing compared to their peers without such a network.10 It is important to note that the vast majority of foster youth do indeed possess relationships with supportive adults in their lives. We discovered this most notably in conducting our Aged Out study on a random sample of youth who left the foster care system with no legal family. Despite a common belief that these youth have no
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significant kinship relationships, this was not the case for every child we interviewed.11 However, child welfare staff are often unaware of these relationships. An anecdote shared by a caseworker with our research team underscores this point. She recounted an occasion where a foster youth in her caseload had died. Her perception was that this youth lacked any substantial support network. She worried that she might be the only person at the funeral. However, to her astonishment, the service was very well-attended, including by many adult members of the youth's extended family. This led her to question how she could possibly have been unaware of a single one of these many caring adult relationships in her client’s life. She wondered at the effect their absence must have had during the youth's time in foster care. It dawned on her that perhaps the youth had intentionally hidden these relationships from her and her colleagues. Despite the overwhelming majority of youth in foster care having supportive figures in their lives, foster youth are often protective of these relationships. Frequently, when our research teams ask youth to tell them about supportive adults in their lives, they will refuse to do so, as they have become wary of any perceived “system” actor or unknown adult who offers to help.
“You’re just another stranger in my life. I do not know who you are, I do not know what your intentions are.” – Program Staff and Former Foster Youth
10 Rosenberg, R. & Kim, Y. (Jan 2017) Aging Out of Foster Care: Homelessness, PostSecondary Education, and Employment. Journal of Public Child Welfare. 12(1). https://www. tandfonline.com/doi/ abs/10.1080/155487 32.2017.1347551
Cancel, S., Fathallah, S., Nitze, M., et. al. (May 2022) Aged Out. Think of Us. https://assets-global. website-files.com/ 60a6942819ce 8053cefd0947/ 62bf491fa9a621536 ea81bd9_Aged%20 Out%20Report%20 2022%206-30.pdf
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This reluctance to involve supportive individuals suggests foster youths’ high regard for their personal relationships, along with deep distrust of the child welfare system. They understand, rightly, that the system will not value these relationships, and they worry that they will open their loved ones to scrutiny or burden them with bureaucratic red tape. They understand, rightly, that the system will not value many of the interpersonal and community resources that might be available to them. My organization has been in contact with tens of thousands of impacted individuals and works with
hundreds of organizations across the country to build a system that honors the deep need we all have for connection and belonging, accounts for the harm caused by its actions, and truly supports youth and family well-being. To achieve this, we must redesign many facets of the current system.
12 https://www. regulations.gov/ comment/ACF-20230001-0073 13 Winokur M, Holtan A, & Batchelder KE. (Jan 2014) Kinship care for the safety, permanency, and well-being of children removed from the home for maltreatment. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. https://pubmed. ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/24488572/
Torgerson, C., Love, H., & Vennum, A. (May 2018) The buffering effect of belonging on the negative association of childhood trauma with adult mental health and risky alcohol use. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. 88(p.44-50) https://www. sciencedirect.com/ science/article/pii/ S0740547217304063
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Away from Home. https://assets. website-files.com/ 60a6942819 ce8053cefd0947/ 60f6b1eba4743 62514093f96_ Away%20From%20 Home%20-%20Report. pdf
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16 For more on SOUL Family, see: https://www.aecf. org/blog/soul-familypermanency-optionfor-older-youth-infoster-care
We need to build upstream supports to aid families in crisis, changing the paradigm of initial family interventions from investigations to needs assessments, and only considering family separation as a last resort. Currently, the primary focus of investigations and the primary tool of family courts is removal, or the threat of removal. However, 67% of removals into foster care are due to neglect, and many of these are linked to conditions of poverty. When wealthy or middle-class families face mental health challenges, addiction, job loss, or similar adverse circumstances, it rarely results in a child protective services investigation. My mother wasn’t first and foremost in need of ultimatums and surveillance. If she was to succeed in parenting my siblings and me, she needed healthcare, resources to meet basic needs, and other social services. This same array of services can also help foster placements to be more stable. Currently the national rate of kinship placement – placement with extended family or a known and trusted adult – is 35%. The success of states like Illinois12 prove kinship can be the norm and that we may be able to exceed rates upwards of 70%. Not surprisingly, youth in kinship care fare better by nearly any metric researchers examine. One meta-analysis found that youth in kinship care were significantly less likely to experience behavior problems, placement disruptions, and institutional abuse, and were twice as likely to report positive behavioral health. These outcomes occur in spite of the fact that few states provide the same financial or programmatic support to kinship placements that they provide to foster homes. By making it easier to approve kinship placements, and by supporting kin families with the same services that foster families receive, we can increase outcomes for youth and decrease the burden on traditional foster care. Furthermore, keeping youth connected to extended family and loved ones is more likely to keep children connected to their communities and cultures, and foster the relationships and sense of belonging that contribute to healthy development. We must seek, in every instance, to keep siblings together and keep foster youth in their schools, communities, and cultures. To do this, we will have
to recruit foster parents prepared and positioned to succeed at these specific challenges. By increasing kinship care, we can free up existing resources and re-deploy them toward practices designed to recruit foster parents that are fitted to the specific demographic makeup of youth entering the system, then get those foster parents the resources they need to succeed. Solving these two challenges will enable us to reduce the use of institutional placements, which sever children nearly entirely from family and community. Our Away from Home study shed light on the perspectives, attitudes, and experiences of young people with recent histories in institutional placements. It revealed shocking patterns of abuse, isolation, neglect, overmedication, and traumatization in environments that were unloving, punitive, and prison-like. Older youth were often placed in institutional care before other options had been exhausted. We’re currently partnering with three states to end institutional placements for foster youth. We hope these states can serve as an example to others of what is possible. We must also develop legal and practical means for preserving the many healthy relationships that exist in the lives of youth. One example of this is the SOUL Family permanency option, which we contributed to, developed by the Annie E Casey Foundation.16 SOUL Family would establish primary legal relationships between a young person and one or more adults that would carry the status of a familial relationship and continue throughout the young person’s lifetime. This would not require the termination of the legal relationship with a young person’s biological family and would be supported with the same funding and services attached to other permanency options. SOUL Family includes a youth and family-centered permanency planning process that significantly expands and honors the roles that youth, families, and communities play. We are currently partnering with the Kansas Department for Children and Families and the Annie E. Casey Foundation to create a demonstration site for this new permanency option. Through efforts like these, we can build a system that continues to protect children, while also improving their well-being and supporting their sense of connection and belonging. By honoring the full range of nurturing relationships that youth have in their lives, and accounting for the inherent harm of relational disruption, we can ensure that all youth and families experience the chance to grow, heal, and thrive. FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL, WINTER 2023
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FEATURE
Race, Culture, Belonging & Well-being What is belonging & what does it take to establish a true sense of belonging? SAMANTHA MELLERSON
Co-Executive Director of the Haywood Burns Institute
Samantha Mellerson is a Co-Executive Director of the Haywood Burns Institute (BI), a black-led national non-profit that challenges racial hierarchy and the social control of communities of color by public systems. BI employs strategies and tactics to establish community-centered structural well-being.
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To answer that question, I have to go back to a trip halfway across the world when my husband, son and I ventured off the traditional tourist path to dive deep into towns and villages or as my Uncle Pete refers to as the “heart” of a place. While traveling, I always balance being slightly guarded and trying to immerse myself in the local culture. As we entered a remote island village, people began coming out of their homes to the news that we were there. My eyes raced around capturing the bright pink flowers that splashed across and between the houses. As the people got closer, we could see their bright smiles and open arms. My guarded skepticism quickly subsided in the embrace of their warmth and generosity, love and acceptance— things I never take for granted nor expect to receive from people I do not know. I was experiencing something I had never felt before. In that village, I felt as if a warm breeze was wrapping itself around me. I felt the heavy burden of insecurity, anger and shame lift, and childhood wounds heal. I saw a beam of sunlight breaking through the clouds kissing my forehead, as if my ancestors reached down to hold my hands for that very moment. I felt as if I could float away if not for becoming so aware of the soil beneath my feet and suddenly feeling so connected and rooted into the earth. I knew at this moment what it was to belong. Belonging feels like absolute freedom. To be who you are, knowing it is who you are supposed to be, giving you everything you need to stand tall and walk in your purpose. Every step taken with ownership and intention, confidence and trust in yourself, your purpose and your journey. Once you experience the innate joy that comes with this personal liberation, you should want it for everyone. It took me a long time and a faraway land to experience belonging, and I imagine some of us are still unaware that this is a possibility. Sadly, some may live their entire lives without ever feeling a true sense of belonging. This is true in my line of work, where I travel across the country to assist human service sector and community stakeholders interested in transforming local humanservice institutions. Although transformation is the ultimate goal, most places remain deeply entrenched in just trying to reduce the amount of harm their current system inflicts on children, families and communities, with little awareness of the historical context of who and what shaped these systems and how they have overwhelmingly excluded and harmed people of color.
Historically, people in these decision-making rooms have been unified by race and class privileges based on white supremacist ideologies, people who cannot imagine what it would be like not to belong. Because they lack the understanding of the harms created from feelings of unbelonging, harms they knowingly or unknowingly perpetuate, they cannot, on their own, reimagine institutions, systems and practices that are centered in and designed to produce a sense of belonging. It is those who understand the depth and dehumanization of what it is to be disconnected from a sense of civic belonging—namely those who have been purposely excluded: people of color, who must take the lead. This understanding must exist in the minds of those who will demonstrate the radical commitment necessary to restore our humanity and ultimately lead to human liberation. Transformational change is only possible through this leadership.
In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity, become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both. This then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. – Paulo Freire describes in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed
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The current construct of the child welfare system is merely one of the several human service sector pillars anchored in white supremacist ideation and racialized social control. The cognitive dissonance associated with saving a child while destroying a family, or loving a child while hating their parents is reminiscent of historical notions such as “kill the Indian, save the man.” Systems constructed by people who possess these mental models, rooted in white supremacist ideation, are designed to prevent a sense of belonging and, in the case of child welfare, serve to fracture and fragment the parts of a child deemed worthy of saving from those deemed unworthy. This type of spiritual dismemberment not only harms children in their current state of development, but also strips them of any sense of belonging and selfagency required to be their full selves and lead their fullest life. Under institutions of systemic oppression and racialized social control, people of color experience incessant pain that threatens their well-being. How do we begin to examine the impact that navigating systems of overarching oppression and racialized social control has on our everyday growth and development, as children and throughout our lives? For me, it has been helpful to think of this through a person-role-system framework that recognizes the interplay between an individual’s perspectives, how these perspectives manifest in their personal and professional roles, and the overall impact of their actions on a particular system. While often used as a tool for leaders trying to make change and demonstrate their impact, this framework is also useful when applying a racial justice lens to better understand how these systems of structural oppression impact our perception of self, selfworth and our own ideation. As individuals, we all develop a set of beliefs and ideas about how the world works based on our own personal experiences. These beliefs become the mental models that, consciously or unconsciously, guide our thoughts and behaviors and help us understand life. Quite simply, they shape our life trajectory. To realize fully the impact these systems have on our everyday growth and development, we must also explore the mental models that are encouraged to develop under these macro systems of oppression. A young person entangled within these systems is immediately bombarded with conflicting messages about themselves and their loved ones. This seeds feelings of disconnection and otherness and when coupled with the racialized use of child
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welfare interventions, results in a breeding ground for internalized oppression, guilt and shame. A system devised to facilitate the legal separation of children from their families is a system designed to perpetuate harm. The tactical use of othering bridges historical generational traumas with timeless precision, negating some people’s humanity, leaving them feeling less worthy of dignity and respect. Those who perpetuate othering, too, suffer a loss of empathy and ascribe characteristics to others that form and reinforce harmful prejudices. Young people of color directly impacted by these systems will carry this self-fragmentation into their respective roles, personally and professionally. As a survival tactic, they will compartmentalize their feelings from conflicting thoughts and actions while trying to navigate the white supremacy culture that is embedded within these systems. Compartmentalizing, however, will only exacerbate their self-doubt, feed their inner critic, and enforce compliance. Within this construct, we are all fragmented. We have the parts of us that others have deemed worthy of saving, and the bits and pieces we picked up along the way. We see these fractions of us, because we have been taught to see them, and we therefore never quite add up to be the full sum of our parts. We are always less than. Fractured. Disconnected. This is the desired result of oppressive practice and racialized social control. So, just as we work to dismantle structural racism, we must dismantle and re-engineer our mental models. We must ensure that our mental models are aligned with our values and support who we are, and who we need to be in our many roles, as we work together to change these harmful systems in which we operate. We have the power to disrupt our preconstructed paths and set ourselves on a trajectory toward our own well-being anchored in belonging and rooted in our re-centered humanity. We can successfully transform our current culture to one that truly centers our humanity. For us to do so, the current constructs can no longer exist. We must shut down the current child welfare system and focus on transition planning designed for responsible closure. There is no reforming it. This work will require great intention, planning, care, communication and leadership. And while one group oversees the transition to closure, another must begin to reimagine and build something entirely new. Remember, it is those who understand the depth and dehumanization of what it is to be intentionally excluded, who possess
the radical commitment necessary to reimagine and redesign our human services to restore our humanity. When we center our humanity, we oppose othering, directed toward us or anyone else. A true sense of self, derived from a sense of belonging and self-love, opens our hearts and minds to naturally accept others. In other words, the freedom to be fully yourself allows you to see yourself in others and establish a deep appreciation for our distinctions, knowing we are centered in our shared humanity. As we navigate our many roles, we can also reject the need to compartmentalize because we have the self-agency to stand tall and walk in our purpose, trusting every step we take. On this path, we only accept roles that align with our values, and we create the spaces and opportunities that we know help us to fulfill our purpose. We understand and accept our ability to create any path forward that we deem necessary to build a better tomorrow for all children and families. Within this reclaimed paradigm, we are whole. We no longer accept fractions of ourselves determined by others, and instead embrace the multiplicity of our identity, ancestry and multigenerational power. In our fullness, we are beyond the sum of our parts. We center and restore humanity by creating spaces of belonging and acceptance. Here, we are free. Free to feel absolute joy. We have within each of us the power to reshape how we see the world, so that we can live our fullest life. And this is the only power we need to radically reimagine our human service sector. It is not a complicated jump from individual well-being to systemic change. We have just been told that it is. Getting there, however, requires a deeper introspective examination of the cognitive dissonance we have allowed to evolve and strengthen over time. We simply cannot talk about transformational change if we expect it to exist within the current structures. It cannot. No current construct could withstand the transformation needed to foster a child’s sense of belonging, self-agency and self-love. To transform, we must change its form. We must push beyond intellectual curiosity and sit at the intersection of experience and radical imagination, to find the answers we seek.
While the experience of my travels brought me to know belonging, it was my imagination that allowed me to hold it so tightly that I will never put it down. And it is because of my radical commitment to our well-being, that I have now shared it with you as I wish you the joy of freedom.
FEATURE
The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) as a Model of Support for Belonging BREE BUSSEY, MSW, LGSW
Director of the Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare Studies at University of Minnesota-Duluth
AMELIA FRANCK MEYER, EdD, LISW Founder and CEO of Alia
Photo courtesy of Charisse Abbie
Introduction “ The most traumatic of all disasters involve the shattering of human connections.” – Dr. Bruce Perry It is critical to our overall health and well-being to know where we belong, and to know who we belong to. This is universally true and expands across all peoples and cultures. Many of us who work in child welfare know that the child welfare system does not provide a foundation to foster belonging; this is especially true for American Indian and Alaska Native (hereafter American Indian) children and families. In the United States, there is a long and brutal history of governmental policies and practices that were intended to eradicate American Indian Tribes, culture, families, and land, causing trauma, loss, and disconnection with ramifications that continue to be felt today. The passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was intended to remedy destructive child welfare policies that were furthering the already immeasurable loss of Tribal nations. In this article, we briefly explore the connection between implementing ICWA and addressing the critical need for belonging in all aspects of child welfare practice. As practitioners across all systems, we must remain acutely aware that we (all of us) wither when we are disconnected, especially our most vulnerable children and families. Safety is directly connected to feeling a sense of belonging; we must work together to build a better response to families that centers and prioritizes their connection with each other, their family, extended family, community, and Tribe. It is indeed time for a reckoning to take place. It is a time for truth telling and a deep examination of practice and policies that not only do not work, but that actually harm families. If we are not clear or do not fully understand what has happened in the past, we are doomed to repeat it. Ultimately, it is the children and families we are here to serve who will suffer if we fail to acknowledge, understand, or accept accountability for this historical context.
The Human Need for Belonging “A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong.” – Tecumseh Humans are the most vulnerably born mammals. When other mammals are born, they can crawl to the food source, climb up on their mama’s backs and be carried and tended to, or even stand up and walk away on their own. Not human babies.
Human babies are incredibly vulnerable, and they know it from the moment they are born. If another human does not come to attend to a baby’s needs, it dies, and if that human caregiver is not the same person, or does not attend in reliable ways, a baby may sense that their survival is at risk and can fail to thrive. A consistent nurturing caregiver is needed for a child to thrive, and although we have known this across cultures for centuries, our child welfare system is not set up to support this. When we have consistent caregiving, then we have a sense of belonging, and belonging is protective for humans. Children cannot defend themselves alone, and they know this, immediately and innately. Humans are born for connection, and we find protection in that connection. We feel vulnerable when we are not sure that we belong and are not certain that we can rely on others to come to our aid when we need protection. Life is full of ups and downs, and humans know we can weather any disaster, as long as we are not alone. This need for belonging and connection is ancient, instinctive, and deeply rooted in our survival. The protection that human connections and belonging offer is why the worst thing that can happen to a child is the loss of a parent, and the second worst thing is to be separated from a parent—not a “good” parent, or a “perfect” parent; just a parent, even a parent who sometimes also causes harm. Our brains know that some protection is better than no protection. If we have food and shelter, even if we are being harmed, at least we can survive. Children in the child welfare system are often separated from their parents, siblings, and extended family repeatedly. With each separation comes a diminished capacity to connect, as their brains begin to tell them that it is not safe to connect because connection results in pain. A child begins to believe that they are the only person they can really trust. This diminished capacity to connect reduces a child’s ability to freely give and receive love and to experience belonging, which is not only critical to human survival, but also to our ability to experience love and joy. It is our connection to culture, family, and community that is at the heart of what it means to be human and in how we find our purpose for living. American Indian people have known this truth for centuries, which is why Tribal connection is critical to a child’s thriving and surviving and is the essence of the Indian Child Welfare Act.
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Historical Context for ICWA “ The strength of a forest is in its seedlings.” – John Red Horse The Indian Child Welfare Act was signed into law in 1978 in response to a devastatingly high number of American Indian and Alaska Native children being methodically removed from their homes and families by state child welfare and private adoption agencies. In the mid 1970’s, between 25%-35% of American Indian children were being forcibly removed, with 85% of those children being placed outside of their families, communities, and Tribes (Udall, 1978). According to Udall (1978), Congress found that these removals were often unwarranted and that agencies often “failed to recognize the essential tribal relations of Indian people and the cultural and social standards prevailing in Indian communities and families,” also finding that “there is no resource that is more vital to the continued existence and integrity of Indian tribes than their children.” In passing the Act, Congress affirmed the unique political status of tribes as sovereign nations within the United States. As nations, Tribes have citizens and ICWA is based on citizenship. The law is not based on race, and it is critically important for practitioners to understand this distinction. Congress also declared that the purpose of the Act was to protect the best interests of American Indian children and to promote the security and stability of Indian Tribes and families. This purpose would be accomplished by establishing minimum federal standards that child welfare workers must consider when working with a child who is a member of, or eligible for membership in, an Indian Tribe. These standards include providing active efforts to prevent out of home placement and the breakup of the family, identifying a placement that follows ICWA’s placement preferences, notifying the Tribe of the custody proceedings, and not removing the child without using a culturally qualified expert witness, most ideally identified by the Tribe involved. Because of its cultural framework that includes keeping children safely with family and community whenever possible, ICWA is often described as the “Gold Standard” in child welfare practice and is a model for best practice with all children and families. As part of this, practitioners must engage in a process of deep learning and unlearning what has occurred historically, the harm that has been done, and ways to effectively remedy that harm that include the voices of Tribal families and commit to working together to build a better way. It is also important to note that at the time
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of this writing, 16 states have enacted their own, and often stronger, responses to ICWA. At least 8 of those laws go beyond the federal standard, for example, by requiring notice to Tribes in voluntary proceedings, such as private adoptions (Udall, 1978). As the child welfare landscape begins and continues to shift towards a more culturally aware, familycentered lens, actively supporting the relationships and connections between children, their culture, families, and communities will lead to better outcomes for all families involved in the child welfare system.
Current Child Welfare Practice Harms Belonging “For years, mental health professionals taught people that they could be healthy without social support, that ‘Unless you love yourself, no one else will love you.’ The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation.” – Dr. Bruce Perry This shift to a new way of work—one that focuses on healing, connection and belonging, rather than on treatment, separation, and placement—is critical for the health and wellbeing of our children, of our families, communities, and Tribes. Because we have clear evidence that our current child welfare practice does life-long predictive harm to children, the need for this shift is urgent. We have outgrown our belief that if a child is with a family, it does not matter which family as long as they are “safe.” We now know—and Indigenous cultures have known for centuries—that a child’s identity, health, and sense of safety is dependent on their connection to their family, culture, and community. Removing a child from their family, then disrupting connections and moving them again and again to different caregivers, diminishes their ability to trust, love, and connect with others. To feel safe, we need to know with certainty that we belong. Children must not only be safe, but they must also feel safe, and safety is directly connected to knowing that they belong. When a person hardens their heart because it is too painful to connect, they become the most dangerous versions of themselves—if I cannot feel pain, I can do anything to you because I cannot feel that either and you cannot hurt me. This hardened state is tragic because the
ability to trust and connect with other humans is required to parent, partner, have a job, maintain friendships, and do most of the things that bring joy and meaning to our lives. This is why the disruption of caregiver relationships—through death or separation—is the worst thing that can happen to a child. Connection and belonging build protection; without it, we are incredibly vulnerable and living in a state of fear or numbness. Our familial and cultural ways of healing and resilience are tied into our history, culture, and sense of belonging; without them, the intergenerational pain is passed forward without our cultural ways of healing also being passed forward. The ramifications of this are far reaching and leave an indelible mark on children, their families, their communities—and on all of us.
We Must Shift to Protect Belonging “ The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” – African Proverb The shift that must occur in child welfare practice to protect belonging is a fundamental transformation because what children need more than anything else is for their parents to be “okay” so that they may experience an uninterrupted sense of belonging. Once a parent-child separation occurs and that primal wound is created, it leaves an impact that has lifelong consequences (Courtney, et al., 2007; Sugrue & Alia, 2019). The goal of the system needs to shift from keeping children safely from their families to keeping children safely with their families. This does not occur with system improvements alone. We cannot simply make our current processes “better” or faster. Instead, we must do something entirely different and that is to move from rescuing and removing children to supporting their parents to safely parent.
Recommendations for Practice “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelou Practitioners are advised to deepen their understanding of the intent of ICWA in preserving connection to culture, family, extended family, and community, and directly apply that in their practice. It is critically important to cease terminating a child’s rights to their parents and community, to involve the community and Tribe in an active role to define and determine wellbeing for their children, and that this is supported throughout all systems that intersect in child welfare (child and family services, courts, GAL/CASA, etc.) To those ends, the following are best practices in cultivating and maintaining connection: • • • •
• • • • • • •
This is a shift from defining a child’s “best interest” as someone who can give them “a better life” to redirecting our resources into the understanding that it is only their family who can give them what they need most. Often, child welfare involved families have histories of harm and are carrying the consequences of decades and centuries of systemic injustices, inequities, under-investments, and racism, and they consequently need support to give children what they need most—an uninterrupted sense of belonging. We must commit to ending the need to separate children from their families and instead invest in keeping children and families safely together.
Early and continual engagement with the Tribe(s) throughout the life of the case Workers invest in ongoing relationship building with Tribes in their area, building relationships of trust over time Practitioners are committed to engaging in their own process of learning, growing, and working cross-culturally Practitioners are aware of community and tribally-based resources and protective factors, and actively work on building those connections to better serve families Prioritize placement with relatives or bringing supportive relatives into the home rather than removing children Prioritize keeping children safely at home whenever possible Prioritize connection to Tribal culture as a protective factor for children Keep siblings together Cease termination of parental rights Use all available resources for family finding at the front end of the case, not at permanency Family Group Decision Making and safety planning includes the family, extended family, claimed family (fictive kin) and Tribe(s), if the child is American Indian
The following are harmful practices and should be avoided: • Replacing parents and family, rather than supporting them • Engaging in frequent and multiple placement moves—every placement move reaffirms a child’s sense of being unloved; children blame themselves, and this is the hallmark of a trauma response • Punishing normal, natural responses to FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL, WINTER 2023
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•
•
trauma and disconnection – both with parents and children Creating case plans without parental and tribal input (cookie cutter) and setting impossible expectations; when parents cannot “comply,” they are punished Seeing poverty as neglect and as a basis for removal and/or conflating poverty for neglect
This shift to a mindset of family preservation would mean that our laws (AFSA and others) would shift to support rather than punish parents, and our funding sources would be fully accessible to supporting families far earlier. This support would be delivered by people with no authority to separate families and/or community-led responses, but with access to the concrete supports and resources needed for parents to safely parent their children. We are learning a great deal about the effectiveness of concrete supports to families (Citrin, et al., 2022), and it is our cultural mindset of the need to punish parents who are not “worthy” of support that we must overcome to employ the tools we know support a child’s undeniable right to a sense of belonging to their family, their culture, and their community.
References Citrin, A., Martin, M., & Anderson, C. (2022). Investing in Families through Economic Supports: An Anti-racist Approach to Supporting Families and Reducing Child Welfare Involvement. Child Welfare, 100(1). Courtney, M. E., Dworsky, A. L., Cusick, G. R., Havlicek, J., Perez, A., & Keller, T. E. (2007). Midwest evaluation of the adult functioning of former foster youth: Outcomes at age 21. Sugrue, E. & Alia. (July 2019). Evidence base for avoiding family separation in child welfare practice: An analysis of current research. Udall (1978, July 24). Establishing standards for the placement of Indian children in foster care or adoptive homes, to prevent the breakup of Indian families, and for other purposes. Https://Narf. org/. Retrieved September 8, 2023, from https:// www.narf.org/nill/documents/icwa/federal/lh/ hr1386.pdf
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FEATURE
LGBTQ+ Children & Youth in the Foster Care System GERALD P. MALLON, DSW
Julia Lathrop Professor of Child Welfare, Silberman School of Social Work, City University of New York
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Historically, the needs of LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare systems have mostly not been addressed or, worse, have been invisible to those charged with caring for them. Caregivers who have provided LGBTQ+-affirming living environments have often been deemed to be enabling of this “deviance,” and children have been removed from their homes as a result. Firsthand accounts have underpinned the historical understanding of the issues and the experiences faced by LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare systems (DeCrescenzo & Mallon, 2002; Fish et al, 2019; Mallon & DeCrescenzo, 2006; Mallon, 1992, 2021; Mallon et a; 2021; Mallon et al 2022; Paul, 2018; 2020; Russell et al, 2019). These historical accounts provide insight into social workers’ discriminatory attitudes and beliefs in seeing LGBTQ+ youth as “deviant” or sinful. These stigmatizing beliefs and the subsequent administrative actions punished caregivers for being open about their identities and beliefs. Such practices led to the marginalization of this population based on exclusionary placement practices (Mallon, 1992, 1998). The result is that LGBTQ+ youth often remain hidden and invisible in residential systems because they have determined that many of the out-ofhome systems where they live are not safe places. If they do come out, they often are not provided with the same quality of out-of-home care that is extended to their heterosexual/cisgender counterparts (Cossar et al, 2017; González Álvarez et al, 2021; Paulsen, et al. 2020; Mallon, 2021, Paul, 2018). The data on LGBTQ+ youth, particularly youth of color, present a grim and disturbing picture about their experiences and related outcomes (Groom, 2020; Robinson 2018). Research identifies the importance of allowing LGBTQ+ youth to identify and choose the people in their lives that help them feel supported, affirmed, connected, and foster a sense of belonging. This is consistent with the increasingly recognized idea that we can choose or create our family when a family of origin is unable or unwilling to provide that support. Chosen and created families by African American LGBTQ+ youth identified by Hailey, Burton, and Arscott (2020) are viewed by the authors as protective factors against racialized trauma and anti-LGBTQ+ oppression and as sustaining factors to assuage the pain of trauma and hurt; this could be used as a model for child welfare professionals interested in addressing the debilitating effects of racism and oppression.
professionals to recognize their existence for three reasons: (1) many of these youth remain invisible to untrained workers; (2) for safety reasons, LGBTQ+ youth are socialized to hide; and (3) many child welfare professionals are contemptuous of an LGBTQ+ orientation (Mallon, 2021; Paul, 2018). In addition, most professionals entirely lack knowledge about normative LGBTQ+ adolescent development (Mallon, 2019, 2021). Additionally, some administrators of child welfare service agencies are fearful that acknowledging a selfidentified LGBTQ+ young person in their program might be seen as “encouraging” or “promoting” an LGBTQ+ identity. LGBTQ+ youth, whose circumstances and needs are particularly misunderstood, often suffer inferior treatment in child welfare systems. They are regularly targeted for harassment and assault, denied necessary medical treatment that aligns with their gender identity, given sex-segregated rooming assignments inconsistent with their gender identities, denied being called by their affirmed names and gender pronouns, and forced to dress in ways that allow no room for their gender expression (Mallon, 2021). LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare systems interviewed by López López et al’s, (2021; 2023b) publications reported both positive and negative responses to their gender identity and expression, though the negative stories outnumber the positive. Several themes emerge from the data collected from narratives provided by other LGBTQ+ youth in various studies in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Norway (Cossar et al, 2017; González Álvarez, et al, 2021; López et al., 2021; Paulsen, et al. 2020; Mallon, 1998, 2021; Paul, 2018). The aggregated narratives from these data provide themes that are discussed below help understand the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in residential settings.
Invisibility and Hiding LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare systems are frequently an invisible population. This allows administrators and staff to convince themselves that there are no LGBTQ+ youth in their systems. The majority of LGBTQ+ youth are silent and hidden witnesses to the negative attitudes of staff, administrators, and peers toward those whom workers believe to be LGBTQ+ identified. Most LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare systems receive— from multiple sources—the message: “Stay in the closet! We do not want to deal with this!”
There have always been LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare systems, but it has often been difficult for FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL, WINTER 2023
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Stress and Isolation As so many LGBTQ+ youth in foster care are forced to do, living in silence is the source of a high level of stress and isolation in their lives.
Multiple Placements Moving from one’s family to a child welfare setting is, in and of itself, a stressful and traumatic experience. Subsequent moves from one placement to another have been identified as a significant difficulty for youth in residential settings (Paul, 2018, 2020). The constant challenge of adapting to a new environment is unsettling, provokes anxiety, and undermines one’s sense of permanence. Unlike other heterosexual/cisgender youth in residential settings who move from setting to setting because of individual behavioral problems, LGBTQ+ youth report that their sexual orientation or gender identity/expression itself—not their behavior— leads to multiple and unstable placements. (Lopez et al, 2021; Paul, 2018; Mallon, 1998). LGBTQ+ youth report experiencing unstable placements for four reasons: (1) they are not accepted because the staff has difficulties dealing with their sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression; (2) they felt unsafe due to their gender identity/expression and either went “AWOL” (ran away) from the placement for their safety, or requested new placements; (3) they were perceived as a management problem by staff because they were open about their gender identity/expression, or (4) peers did not accept them due to their gender identity/expression. Many agencies simply eliminate LGBTQ+ youth because staff cannot deal with the youths’ sexual orientation and gender identity/expression. Many of these youths have been in multiple placements or replacements by agencies at all levels of foster care.
Replacement and Feelings of Rejection The majority of LGBTQ+ youth sense that they are not welcome in many residential settings where they have been placed (Lopez et al, 2021, 2023a; Mallon, 1998, Paul, 2019, 2020). They perceive that they are reluctantly accepted into some placements and consequently feel isolated and have adverse reactions to their placement. When youths were met with acceptance and provided
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with care that suggested staff was competent in dealing with LGBTQ+ youth, they remained in the setting. Conversely, however, other youth reported that they left their placement once they realized they were not welcomed. Frequently, youth who leave placements become lost in the system, and their multiple placements create a sense of impermanence and drift.
Verbal Harassment and Physical Violence Many youth enter foster care because, at its best, it offers sanctuary from abusive family relationships and violence in their homes. However, with the constant threat of harassment and violence within the system, LGBTQ+ youth report they cannot feel wholly secure or confident (Shelton, 2016). Although violence and harassment may be an unfortunate component of residential care from time to time for all youth, LGBTQ+ youth, unlike their cisgender counterparts, are targeted for attack precisely because of their gender identity/ expression.
The Importance of Policy Child welfare policies provide an administrative backbone for how their caregivers should treat youth involved in the child welfare system. While all youth should be affirmed in their sexual orientation and gender identity expression, LGBTQ+ youth in the child welfare system may have identity-specific needs related to safe and equitable living environments, access to genderaffirming health care, appropriate educational environments, and social supports. Thus, the needs of this population must be ratified in written policies and guides used by organizations that serve them. In the absence of written policies prohibiting discrimination and protecting equitable out-ofhome care for LGBTQ+ and gender-expansive youth, caseworkers, administrators, and caregivers with a limited understanding of the necessity of sexual orientation and gender-affirming care may approach their interactions with them in ways that are consciously or unconsciously discriminatory or marginalizing. Establishing sexual orientation and genderaffirming policies and practices on the organizational and individual provider levels is critical in a child welfare setting (Mallon, 2021). For example, denying the importance of gender identity can lead to inadequate health care
provision and abuse (Mallon et al., 2021, 2022). All child welfare personnel should be aware of what policies (if any) exist within their organization regarding LGBTQ+ youth and critically examine the impact of translating these policies into praxis. There are 37 states that provide protections for youth in the child welfare system through laws, regulations, or agency policies: 24 states and Washington, DC, provide protections based on both sexual orientation and gender identity, and 13 states provide protections based on sexual orientation only (Hynes, 2021). However, in several jurisdictions, policymakers have passed religiousbased exemptions to intentionally discriminate against LGBTQ+ youth in their care (Spoto, 2021). Due to the unpredictable and evolving climate of policy discrimination protections on a state level without a current federal mandate regarding the issue, service providers should take steps to prohibit LGBTQ+ discrimination within their organization, regardless of the federal or state climate. In a recent Executive Order on Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals, the U.S. Federal Government calls for states and child welfare organizations to take action to address the significant disparities that LGBTQI+ youth face in the foster care system, the misuse of State and local child welfare agencies to target LGBTQI+ youth and families, and the mental health needs of LGBTQI+ youth. This Executive Order holds promise for LGBTQ+ children, youth, and families affected by the child welfare system.
Conclusions
1 Available at https:// www.whitehouse. gov/briefing-room/ presidential-actions /2022/06/15/ executive-order-onadvancing-equalityfor-lesbian-gaybisexual-transgenderqueer-and-intersexindividuals/
The issues encountered by LGBTQ+ adolescents and their families frequently are ignored and largely go unrecognized by many child welfare professionals—analogous to how the child welfare system has been deficient in addressing the specific needs of diverse ethnic and racial minorities. Understanding the impact of societal stigmatization of LGBTQ+ individuals and their families is crucial to recognizing and responding to the needs of this population. Ensuring that youth who identify as LGBTQ+ have access to competent child welfare services is still an evolving discussion. The international campaign to secure protections for LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare systems has made significant progress in recent decades. Yet in many countries, LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare systems still face
repression, invisibility, and even the threat of violence from the very individuals who are charged with “caring” for them. Given the severity and ubiquity of such abuses, policies and safeguards protecting this community from legal discrimination and political, social, and economic marginalization must become priorities for child welfare professionals, child and youth activists, and a growing number of governments. While the future of child welfare services moves toward system-wide awareness and inclusive out-of-home care, there are plenty of things that individual child welfare professionals can do to increase their own LGBTQ+ sensitivity. Effecting changes in attitudes and beliefs in pursuit of competent practice with LGBTQ+ youth and their families can be improved in four key areas: (1) development of clear written LGBTQ+-specific policies; (2) development of initial and ongoing LGBTQ+-specific staff training for all levels of child welfare personnel; (3) clinical case consultation when professional staff need additional guidance or support, and (4) advocacy for youth in communities, schools, and youth-serving and health care systems. In the absence of policies, professionals frequently rely on their own sometimes idiosyncratic wisdom to guide their practice. Social workers and supervisors need clear, written policies on how one is expected to practice with LGBTQ+ youth and their families. There are several examples (Mallon, 2018; Paul, 2020) of what constitutes a comprehensive policy statement and organizations should make use of what exists and adapt it to their localities needs rather than try to reinvent new policy statement. To competently serve and safeguard LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare, systems staff should understand what it means for a youth to be LGBTQ+ and should be familiar with and use appropriate language, definitions, and terminology. In addition, child welfare staff— including support staff (clerical, maintenance, recreational, dietary), child care workers, social workers, therapists, school personnel, health and mental health professionals, and program/agency administrators—should consider the following recommendations, culled from the research of colleagues who have examined the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare systems in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL, WINTER 2023
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and Norway (Cossar et al, 2017; González Álvarez, et al, 2021; López López, et al., 2021: Mallon, 1998, 2021; Paul, 2018; Paulsen, et al. 2020). •
• • • • • • • • • •
Adopt and implement written policies prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Treat LGBTQ+ youth with respect and competence. Mandate ongoing LGBTQ+ training for all levels of child welfare personnel. Maintain confidentiality in working with LGBTQ+ youth. Guarantee effective child protection practices that accurately identify abuse and neglect of LGBTQ+ youth. Pledge effective services that address family rejection of LGBTQ+ youth and assist with family reunification. Identify safe and supportive foster or adoptive families for LGBTQ+ youth. Insist on the safety and emotional development of LGBTQ+ youth in residential settings. Provide access to appropriate medical/mental health services for LGBTQ+ youth. Ensure access to safe educational settings. Be knowledgeable about the unique needs of transgender, non-binary, and genderexpansive youth. Provide access to LGBTQ+ community-based programs and services.
In Summary As long as LGBTQ+ youth are isolated, rejected, and not served by the very systems that are ultimately designed to protect vulnerable youth, they cannot enjoy true relational health or feel as if they belong. Such inhospitable conditions negatively impact their safety, permanency, and well-being in profound ways. It is within our power in child welfare systems to give them that acceptance and foster their belonging in a world that is and will often be challenging for them. All young people, including LGBTQ+ young people, deserve to have connection and belonging in their families, in their communities, and in child welfare systems, in very explicit ways.
References Cossar, J., Schofield, G., Belderson, P., Ward, E. Rimmer, J., Larsson, B., Dodsworth, J. and Cocker C. (2017) Speakout: A study of the experiences and identity development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth in care – and the support they receive. Research briefing University of East Anglia, U.K. https:// www.uea.ac.uk/documents/96135/2234204/ CRCF+RB+-+Speakout+A+study+of+the+ exper iences.pdf/7a9112f9-8fcf-5fe0-7cc149b150e8da76?t=159127862414 DeCrescenzo, T., & Mallon, G.P. (2002). Serving LGBTQ+ youth: The role of child welfare systems – Proceedings of a colloquium – September 2000. Child Welfare League of America. Fish, J. N., Baams, L., Wojciak, A. S., Russell, S. T. (2019). Are sexual minority youth overrepresented in foster care, child welfare, and out-of-home placement? Findings from nationally representative data. Child Abuse and Neglect, 89, 203–211. González Álvarez, R., ten Brummelaar, M., van Mierlo, K., Mallon G. P., & López López, M. (2021). A space to be myself, support, and a trusting relationship: Participation of LGBTQIA children and youth in out-of-home care. In K. Križ & M. Petersen (Eds.), Children’s participation in child protection: International research and practice approaches. Oxford University Press. Grooms, J. (2020). No home and no acceptance: Exploring the intersectionality of sexual/gender identities (LGBTQ) and race in the foster care system. The Review of Black Political Economy, 25(2), 211-221. Hailey, J., W. Burton, and J. Arscott. 2020. We are family: Chosen and created families as a protective factor against racialized trauma and anti-LGBTQ oppression among African American sexual and gender minority youth. Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 16(2), 176-191. Hynes, C. (2021). LGBTQ Youth in Child Welfare. C.A.S.E. Fact Sheet Series, No. 10. Center for Adoption Support and Education: López López, M., Mallon, G.P., & WieldraaijerVincent, L. (2023a). Creating safe and welcoming residential care placements for LGBTQIA+ youth. In J.K., Whitaker, L. Holmes, J. Fernandez Del Valle, & S. James. (Eds.) Revitalizing
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residential care for children and youth: Cross-national trends and challenges (pp. 321-335). New York: Oxford University Press. López López, M., Martinez Jothar, G., ten Brummelaar, M., Parra, L., Gonzalez Alvarez, R. Morán, G., Wieldraaijer-Vincent, L., & Mallon, G.P. (2023b). Niños, niñas y adolescentes LGTBIQ+ en los centros de acogimiento residencial del sistema de protección a la infancia de Cantabria. Santander: Govierno de Cantabria. López López, M., Gonzalez-Alvarez, R., ten Brummelaar, M., van Mierlo, K. & WieldraaijerVincent, L. (2021). Working with LGBTQIA+ Youth in the Child Welfare System Perspectives from Youth and Professionals. Groningen University Press. Mallon, G.P. (1992). Gay and no place to go: Serving the needs of gay and lesbian youth in outof-home care settings. Child Welfare, 71(6), 547557. Mallon, G. P. (1998). We don’t exactly get the welcome wagon: The experiences of gay and lesbian adolescents in child welfare systems. Columbia University Press. Mallon, G.P. (2021). Strategies for child welfare professionals working with LGBTQ+ and gender expansive youth. Jessica Kingsley. Mallon, G.P., & DeCrescenzo, T. (2006). LGBTQ+ children and youth: A child welfare practice perspective. Child Welfare, 85(2), 215-241.
Paul, J. C. (2020). Exploring support for LGBTQ youth transitioning from foster care to emerging adulthood. Children & Youth Services Review, 119(4), 105-118 Paulsen V., Thoresen, S.H., & Wendelborg, C. (2002). Outcomes in adulthood among former child welfare services recipients: findings from a Norwegian registry study covering two decades Utfall i voksenlivet blant personer som tidligere har mottatt tiltak fra barnevernet: Funn fra en Norsk registerstudie over to tiår. European Journal of Social Work DOI: 10.1080/13691457.2021.2016646 Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2 021.2016646 Robinson, B.A. (2018). Child welfare systems and LGBTQ youth homelessness: Gender segregation, instability, and Intersectionality. Child Welfare, 96(2), 29-42. Russell, S.T., Pollitt, A. M., Li, G., & Grossman, A. H. (2018). Chosen name use is linked to reduced depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, and suicidal behavior among LGBTQ+ youth. Journal of Adolescent Health, 63, 503-505. Shelton, J. (2016). Reframing risk for LGBTQ+ and gender-expansive youth experiencing homelessness, Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 28(4), 277–291. Spoto, A.M., (2021). Fostering Discrimination: Religious Exemption Laws in Child Welfare and the LGBTQ Community, New York University Law Review, 96(1), 220-231.
Mallon, G.P., Paul, J., & López López, M. (2022). Child protection for LGBTQ+. In J.E. Korbin & R. Krugman (Eds.) Handbook of child maltreatment, 2nd ed. (pp. 575-591). New York: Springer. Mallon, G.P., Paul, J., & López López, M. (2021). Protecting LGBTQ+ children & youth. In R. Krugman & Korbin (Eds.) Handbook of child maltreatment (2nd ed.). Springer Press. Paul, J. C. (2018). Under the radar: Exploring support for lesbian, gay, bisexual LGBTQ+, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) youth transitioning from foster care to emerging adulthood. Doctoral dissertation. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Paul, J. C., & Monahan, E. K. (2019). Sexual minority status and child maltreatment: How do health outcomes among sexual minority young adults differ due to child maltreatment exposure? Child Abuse & Neglect, 96, 104099.
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BRIEFLY
The Intersections of Belonging Adapted from “Broken” JESSICA PRYCE, PhD, MSW
Director, Florida Institute for Child Welfare Florida State University
By now, we all know that the CPS system has routinely mismanaged the structural failings within society by instead highlighting and attempting to address individual flaws within parents. In many ways, the system has punished parents for being low-income without addressing the generational, racial, and/or systemic disadvantages that some families experience. We know that poverty is a powerful factor in the outcomes associated with the work of child protective services. But there are others. Gender and race are also overdetermining factors. If you are a Black woman, you are more likely to be subjected to well-meaning professionals who are guided by a racist, classist, and sexist system of services. When multiple pillars intersect in your individual identity, you and your children all at once become more susceptible to child welfare involvement. Put simply, the consequences of CPS involvement are compounded for Black women. Black feminist legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989, and subsequent scholars have expounded on that seminal work. Crenshaw’s work is an incisive approach to capturing the dynamics of race, gender, class, and other individual characteristics of identity as they interface with society and discriminatory practices attached to (and attacking) those identities. One of her more devastating conclusions is that Black women, historically and
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contemporarily, are “theoretically erased.” The uniqueness of each woman’s needs is ignored by the system, thereby making their need for belonging an insignificant casualty within child welfare. Being an economically poor parent puts you at greater risk of CPS involvement in your family life, and being a Black mother increases that risk even more. Experiencing low income, racial injustice, and gender inequity introduces a devastating set of stressors. Any mother facing the reality of losing their child/children might feel humiliated and terrified by the thought of separation. But for Black mothers with this intersecting threat of discrimination, the stakes for any interaction with CPS are unusually high. I implore the child welfare system to consider the intersections of inequity and oppression that impact Black mothers. With consideration, the system should become intentional about mitigation strategies when working with Black women, as opposed to adding more stress to an already tenuous lived experience. In doing so, the system will have to acknowledge a painful history, but also chart a new path forward where Black women are included at every step of the way. They belong at the table as co-architects of child welfare’s new way of work. It is time that Black women are no longer seen as forced patrons of this system, but partners in re-imagining what it means for families to be safe, well and together.
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Briefly PAUL DILORENZO
National Child Welfare Consultant Senior Fellow, Child Welfare League of America
I have been sober longer than I was drinking: thirtyfive and a half years. It’s not a badge of honor, but I do use it as a daily reminder. In those days, before people had access to highly toxic and instantly addictive substances, it was rare for someone to stop drinking and remain sober longer than five years. So, to honor the cliché, I am grateful, vigilant, and I never underestimate the power of the pull towards a bottle of Scotch. To this day, I cannot answer the question “what made you stop?” with any sort of precise answer. Nor do I know exactly what keeps me on this side of the pull. At the point of my first drinking episode, I knew I was different because I was the only one in the crowd who drank until throwing up— and then went back for more that night, and the next. But when it was time to stop, I was fortunate— I had a job, a competent therapist who saw me once a week, private insurance, and the latitude that comes with being a young, white male. I also had a group of people with whom I could spend time healing. It was as much time as I wanted or needed. I could remain somewhat anonymous, provided I understood the reciprocal nature of the fellowship. I had an obligation to be there for someone else. In fact, that is the genius of the group’s healing process: building your strength through the connection to others. It’s the most organic form of human support. It is not therapy, but it is a path forward, allowing you to surround yourself with people who will keep you honest. You find a sense of purpose while you build a wall of protection from the danger of isolation. It is the Buddhist student who says to his mentor, “Master, I am discouraged. What shall I do?”. And the Master responds, “Encourage others.”
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Once that reality clicked for me, I realized how much more important this model was for those who are fully marginalized because of their addiction, their trauma, their social class, their race, their poor decisions, or their own low self-esteem. Here’s the truth - when you are a problem drinker, binge or otherwise, you are isolated. You take cover from others, even when you are in the middle of a crowd. You drink differently. Not for recreation or sociability. Instead, you drink to feel normal, to feel still, to tame your racing heart and the obsession with your image, or the fear that you might be found out. You’re not having fun. In fact, it doesn’t really matter if anyone else is there or not because you still feel lonely. Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, once said, “Almost without exception, alcoholics are tortured by loneliness.” The second thing is that long-term, sustainable sobriety comes through the connection to others in community, and solidarity with those who share your daily struggles, joys, mistakes, self-doubts, and accomplishments. Some people find that in Twelve Step programs. Others in church groups or neighborhood support meetings. To live sober, to remain sober, is a commitment to the healing of body, mind, and spirit in communion with others. Parents and other adult caregivers, especially those who have experienced addictions, need relationships, even if they seem awkward at first. Being clean and sober comes with being faithful over a few things, so that you can be a ruler over many things in your life (Matthew, 25:23). My health and well-being are gifts I receive daily from others and ones I unashamedly regift with regularity.
My Perspective Weston Charles-Gallo
Business Development Manager,Wound Care Plus Lived Experience Leader
When we are born, we do not get to choose who our parents are, or the color of our skin, or even the economic or social class into which we’re born. And as important as they are, we don’t get to choose our communities, either. Communities are defined by the shared attributes of the people in it along with the strength of the connections among them. It is crucial to identify people’s commonalities in communities so that when we have conversations with people, we can discover what we have in common so we can be united, rather than discover our differences so we can divide ourselves. The more you segment people, the more people can attach to those differences. We are All Different and the Same, and that itself is powerful.
I might “turn the other children gay” along with fears of predatory behaviors. So, while sitting in a residential facility under an emergency shelter status, I found myself on the cusp of ending my life altogether.
I acknowledge that our nation’s foster care system is flawed and believe that, with my lived experience in the system, I can be a part of a change that will empower young people and their families. To give context to why I am passionate about this work, I want to share my story with you.
My two dads have helped me navigate discrimination, racism, and homophobia. Most importantly, though, they gave me the power to be in control of my own voice and embrace who I was. For a long time, I struggled with my identity when it came to the color of my skin. One of my dads is also bi-racial, and the way he carries himself and stands so true to who he is gives me faith and hope. He helps me understand I’m not just white, I’m not just black; at the end of the day, I’m Weston.
Before I met my two dads, I found myself living the life of a chameleon. At times I still do this, masking who I am, adapting, and trying to fit in where I never thought I’d ever belonged. When I was on the edge of ending it altogether, my two dads saved my life. My fathers helped me discover my truth and understand that my identity as a bi-racial LGBTQ+ youth is mine, and no one can take that from me. At a very young age, I knew that I was different – different from my siblings, family members, and all the children in my class at school, but I never really understood what that meant and how that would later affect my life. In my childhood household, being gay was never safe to talk about. I didn’t know what being gay even was until I found myself looking at boys differently. My biological father really pressed hyper-masculinity on me and pushed me so hard to be tough, because he never felt that I was black enough, totally forgetting that I was not just black. In addition to the color of my skin, my biological father would make remarks such as, “if my son is gay, I will not only beat the gay out of him, but I will also throw him out of my house.” After coming out, many situations led to entering the foster care system. At age 14, I was told I was put in foster care because of my sexual orientation, negligence, and a hostile home environment. It really made me feel like I wasn’t enough, as if the dark thoughts in my head were true. I slowly felt unloved, and that all eventually became a reality. Before meeting my two dads, placements in my rural community that were open and affirming to a gay, bi-racial teenager were almost non-existent. I was told by my worker that different potential placements fell through because of the fear that
When I met my forever family, I instantly knew that it was where I was always meant to be. They welcomed me with open arms and never once made me feel like I didn’t belong. It was the first connection with a family that made me feel like I was their own. With so much pain from the past, I found myself testing the limits of my fathers to see if the love they had for me was real. Instead of giving up entirely, they never failed me.
Much conversation about same-sex couples fostering and adopting ignores the fact that all children need safety, stability, love, and the opportunity to thrive. Some people think of thriving as the ability to prosper, to be fortunate, and to be successful. Unfortunately, young people with trauma and lived experience in the system look a little different. The concept of thriving families requires intentional investment in the well-being of families and young people through community-based supports. So often I hear the word equality, or a desire for equal rights, when in reality it is all about equity. With equity – the quality of being fair and impartial – all people within the community have access to the same resources, opportunities, and outcomes. It is time to shift the narrative from child welfare to the idea of child and family well-being. We have to be able to lean into a more proactive approach that clearly identifies the unique needs of parents and caregivers instead of automatic and after-thefact interventions. This would potentially prevent violence before it occurs and create space to strategize and find both support and resources to strengthen families, keeping them connected and whole. I have listened to countless foster care stories about young people being separated from their FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL, WINTER 2023
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siblings with no way to contact them and no way of knowing where they are. All situations are different, but ultimately separating children from their families hinders and affects everyone involved. It is essential to explore ways to build up the family with specific resources that keep the children safe at home and keep the families together. Diverse community stakeholders are indispensable when it comes to families who have direct experience with foster care. We have to rebuild the foundation for these families, and we do that by meeting their unique needs and establishing the conditions in which they can thrive. For me, thriving families mean the world. In the words of Jodi Picoult, “Heroes didn’t leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn’t wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else’s. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back.” No family is perfect, but it wasn’t until I found my forever family that I saw what thriving families really looked like. Forever families express appreciation, establish a strong commitment to one another, spend quality and meaningful time together, and find ways to manage stress and conflict themselves. The importance of connected community-based resources is reflected in the 20,000 young people who age out of the foster care system each year. They have needs for strengthened relationships, expansive support, meaningful opportunities and a community to rely on. David Spangler, a philosopher from Ohio, once said that “Some people think they are in the community, but they are only in proximity. True community requires commitment and openness. It is a willingness to extend yourself to encounter and know the other.” All children and young people need the connections and belonging that they receive from their families and their communities. The relationships that children make with their friends, extended family, neighbors, and school are key when maintaining community and well-being. Our foster care system struggles to maintain those relationships when children are placed outside their homes. However, engaging community members can help to connect children to neighborhood resources and keep them connected to their communities. Research has shown time and time again that young people who can stay in their homes, schools,
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and communities have more positive outcomes when talking about the well-being of the young person and their family, and experience less trauma. The way that I found a sense of community did not happen overnight. With trauma from both my biological family and from my lived experience in the system, I often felt isolated and alone. It wasn’t until I was placed with my two dads – who provided a strong support system – that I began to feel that sense of belonging. Although it was difficult transitioning from one area of the state to another, I was finally able to find diversity and inclusion, both of which were very important to me. I was also able to connect to a support group of young people who had experienced Missouri’s foster care system. We talked about our obstacles in the system, what was going well, and what truly needed to change. It was liberating to be around young people that had similar experiences and the same common goal to strive to reform the system and help youth and families thrive. It was not until joining this organization that I felt a sense of community outside of finding my forever family, and that feeling was so meaningful. We are short-changing young people in the system when we do not help them find a sense of community for themselves where they can reach their full potential. The government cannot solve the crisis that young people in care are facing alone, which is why the need for community-based resources is crucial. As a system, we have to stop, pause, and figure out how we can reconnect. We must restructure what connected communities look like for children and families by incorporating diverse and inclusive perspectives for the people which we serve. To get to a point of thriving, you have to first feel a sense of connectedness. Remember, we are All Different, and the Same, and that itself is powerful.
Reflection HONORABLE ERNESTINE S. GRAY Retired Judge of the Orleans Parish Juvenile Court in Louisiana
Bryan Tarnowski for The Washington Post
Many of us work in a system that routinely separates children from their parents, siblings, other relatives, friends, schools, and communities. However, we know how important a sense of belonging is for a child’s well-being. As I thought about this article, I was reminded of the amount of art that we create that’s intended to capture and share the importance and relevance of home, belonging, and community. Many of us know these lines by heart:
There’s No Place Like Home Home Is Where the Heart Is All for One, One for All Take Me Home, Country Roads No Man Is an Island In addition to music and poetry, I also reflected on my more than 36 years as a judge in the Orleans Parish Juvenile Court managing Child in Need of Care (dependency) cases. Day after day, I saw children and parents enter my courtroom scared, ashamed, isolated, and worried about their futures. They were traumatized. As a result of separation, parents and children suffered from a lack of connection and belonging, which showed up in countless ways: anger, anxiety, depression, distrust, low self-esteem, and more. But I also remembered with great nostalgia my years growing up in my family. We were not middle-class, but I always knew that my parents, grandparents and other relatives all loved and wanted me. In fact, I was one of my maternal grandfather’s favorites. According to Aristotle,
“Humans require an emotional connection with others around them.” Belonging is fundamental to humankind, and as such it is included in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Basic Needs as “Love and Belonging Needs,” which include friendship, family, intimacy, and connections.
longevity. It gives us a sense of purpose and meaning. Research has shown that loss of belonging has been associated with stress, illness, decreased well-being, and depression. When we separate children from their families, we behave as if the relationships between them have no meaning. It is as Thomas Jefferson said about slave mothers: “Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether Heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them.” (1785 Treatise Notes on the State of Virginia) These separations/disruptions can cause serious setbacks in the children’s social lives, education, and their health. (Monique B. Mitchell, The Neglected Transition: Building a Relational Home for Children Entering Foster Care (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), 12.) In May of 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a press release which warned that “the toxic stress” that children experience because of being separated from their parents “can cause irreparable harm, disrupting a child’s brain architecture,” potentially leading to “lifelong consequences for children.” The stronger one’s sense of belonging, the stronger their well-being. So, what is belonging? Belonging is an outcome. Belonging is the feeling of security and support when there is a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity for a member of a certain group. It is about being seen, accepted, and supported by others and doing the same for them. From birth, a child develops a positive sense of who they are, along with a feeling that they are valued and respected as part of a family and community. Support from family does wonders for children: it becomes their support system, allows them to accomplish great things, and reach even greater heights. To do well out in the world, one must feel accepted and integrated into the family. This need to belong is important throughout life, from childhood to old age, and is irrespective of culture, race, or geography.
Belonging is a human emotional need to associate with and be accepted by members of a group. These groups include family and relatives, friends and peers, sports teams, schoolmates, business teams, political groups, religious/spiritual groups, fraternities and sororities, and groups based on city/ country/nationality.
When we separate children from their families and communities, we destroy their sense of belonging. In doing so, we start them down the road towards many negative consequences: depression, poor school attendance and performance, running away, drug use, and worse.
Belonging is crucial to our life satisfaction, happiness, mental and physical health, and even
In preparing this piece, I thought a lot about lines from songs and poems that resonated with me about FAMILY JUSTICE JOURNAL, WINTER 2023
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the importance of family and home. These words are what I want child welfare professionals (social workers, lawyers, and judges) to think about every time they are called upon to make a decision about separating children and families. I realize now what a source of strength and inspiration they were for me on the bench in a deeply subconscious way. Of course, my own sense of belonging with my family and community also helped make me the person I am today and shaped how I see the world. Words like those in the songs and poems I’ve shared here are often written from a place of gratitude, or a place of deep pain and loss. While our child welfare system can cause both, for far too many children and families involved with the child welfare system, it only causes the latter. The words of Stand By Me, by Ben E. King, are a reminder that, as humans, we all need support from each other. We can only take so much before we start to break down:
If the sky that we look upon Should tumble and fall Or the mountains should crumble to the sea I won’t cry, I won’t cry No, I won’t shed a tear Just as long as you stand, stand by me Home is ultimately not about a place to live, but about the people (family) with whom one is most fully alive. John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads, means there is no place like home: the people, the food, the friends, the community, the scenery. Everything we love is “at home.” Home is a place to connect (belong) with people. Home is love for family and friends. Home by Anne Brontë
Restore to me that little spot, With gray walls compassed around, Where knotted grass neglected lies, And weeds usurp the ground. Though all around this mansion high Invites the foot to roam, And though its halls are fair within Oh, give me back my HOME!
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Home is a haven. There’s No Place Like Home by John Howard Payne
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home. A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere: Home!
Home should be a place to call your own with lots of love to share. While not explicitly about home, we are all familiar with the line “all for one, one for all.” This means that the whole group (the family) will do anything for each member of the group. And each member of the group will do anything for the group; we are all in this together, no matter what. Everyone should belong to such a group. Everyone needs to belong to such a group. Many of us belong to a family like that. Others join the Marines, and still others may join a street gang. But we are all looking for the same thing: a place to belong. Such a group gives one protection and power when one is surrounded by hostility. Such a group gives confidence and power, even if you find yourself alone or in an unfamiliar environment. You know that you can handle whatever the challenge is because you are part of a group that knows no fear and will support you. Our work with children and families must be evidence of our commitment to ensuring that their well-being is enhanced by focusing our attention on the outcome of belonging as an integral component of well-being. No matter where you sit - be it on the bench, in an agency administrator’s chair, as an attorney representing children or parents, as a social worker, as a CASA volunteer, or as a service provider working directly with parents and children – we must value belonging, and recognize and maintain it to prevent harmful and needless child removals and promote reunification. In doing so, we make sure that we do not separate children and families, whether at the border or within the U.S., unless absolutely necessary for substantiated safety concerns. Our work needs to be led by research which tells us that if we want the best outcomes for our children, we will be careful about severing “the ties that bind.”
The FJJ features original artwork, poems, and other visual and audio works that speak to the experiences of impacted individuals, community art projects, and art works for social justice in every issue of the journal, including the front cover. If you have a creative expression you would like considered for inclusion in a future issue, please write to info@thefamilyjusticegroup.org The Summer issue of the FJJ is anticipated in June 2024 and will focus on policy changes needed to promote relational health. Subscribe to the FJJ here