A busy couple of weeks, and my tribute to English classes past...

Life has been a little crazy by my standards in recent days.  I was in Denver three days last week, and I'm spending most of this week in Orlando.  Apparently, this is the time of year for big child welfare conferences, and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to attend, to learn, and to share.

Last week was a group of kids in foster care, kids who've aged out of foster care, and professionals who work with this population of youth.  This week is the big statewide dependency summit that we have in Florida every year.

Yesterday, I was part of a small team who presented some information to a large group of Florida judges--talk about an intimidating crowd!  But they were attentive and had thoughtful comments and questions--not a heckler in the bunch--and I was fortunate to be presenting alongside some wonderful people, including my colleague and friend, Jen Behnam, who gave a TED talk on the value of permanency, which nearly knocked my socks off.  Jen and people like her are why I get up every day and head to the office with a positive attitude.

So, because I have been out of my beloved routine, I've struggled to find time for my blog.  I've got a bunch of ideas floating around in my head and notes scribbled on paper, but I don't know when I'll have time to develop them into something worth reading.  Therefore, I will go to my fall back position and share with you a piece that I wrote a few years ago after reading a book that continues to resonate with me today...

Jeanette Walls’ memoir, “The Glass Castle,” is a study in contrasts.  The writing is both raw and beautiful, and Walls pulls no punches as she describes her childhood—one of grinding poverty and unbelievable neglect, as well as undeniable examples of an at times almost magical existence with truly unique parents, who although limited by their personal struggles with alcoholism and mental illness, also encouraged in their children incredible spirit, intelligence, strength, and love.

            “The Glass Castle” contains a valuable message for the child welfare world:  We should never become so committed to our particular system of care that it causes us to overlook the individuality of each child and family and the importance of sibling and family bonds.  Even when a child’s experience includes terrible neglect, those experiences belong to the child, contribute to her individuality and strength, and often exist side by side with other experiences that can be quite lovely.

            Jeannette Walls grew up with her brother and two sisters, the children of an artistic mother struggling with mental illness and a brilliant father struggling with alcoholism.  Walls’ earliest memory is from when she was just three years old.  She suffered severe burns as the result of her clothes catching on fire while she was going through her usual routine of preparing hotdogs for herself:

I’d put a chair next to the sink, climb up and fill a glass, then stand on a chair by the stove and pour the water into the pan.  I did that over and over again until the pan held enough water.  Then I’d turn on the stove and when the water was boiling, I’d drop in the hot dogs. ‘Mom says I’m mature for my age,’ I told [the doctors and nurses at the hospital], ‘and she lets me cook for myself a lot.’

            This type of extreme inadequate supervision, while shocking, does not tell the whole story of this family.  Although Walls’ parents had some questionable ideas about child rearing, they loved their children and sometimes showed that love in startlingly beautiful ways.  One Christmas, although the family had no money for presents, their father “took each of us kids out into the desert night one by one” and allowed each child to pick out a star as a present.  When it was Walls’ turn, the “star” she chose turned out to be a planet, and her father responded, “It’s Christmas.  You can have a planet if you want.”  Walls marveled, “And he gave me Venus.”  Later, the children “laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys.  ‘Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,’ Dad said, ‘you’ll still have your stars.’”

            Later in the book, as her parents struggle to support their family, Walls draws a stark contrast between the hardships in her house and those of a troubled boy in the neighborhood.  Billy is emotionally disturbed and in many ways is much worse off than Walls and her siblings:

The funny thing Billy wanted to show me was in his house, which was dark inside and smelled like pee, and was even messier than our house, although in a different way.  Our house was filled with stuff:  papers, books, tools, lumber, paintings, art supplies, and statues of Venus de Milo painted in different colors.  There was hardly anything in Billy’s house.  No furniture…It had only one room with two mattresses on the floor next to a TV. There was nothing on the walls, not a single painting or drawing.  A naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling, right next to three or four dangling spiral strips of flypaper so thick with flies that you couldn’t see the sticky yellow surface underneath.  Empty beer cans and whiskey bottles and a few half-eaten tins of Vienna sausages littered the floor.  On one of the mattresses, Billy’s father was snoring unevenly.  His mouth hung open, and flies were gathered in the stubble of his beard.  A wet stain had darkened his pants nearly to his knees.

When Walls shares this with her family, her mother takes the opportunity to talk to her daughter about compassion: “She told me I should try to be nice to Billy.  ‘He doesn’t have all the advantages you kids do.’”

            Like many people, Walls’ mother taught her children to be wary of the government.  When Walls approached her after having had nothing to eat for three days but popcorn, her mother refused any suggestion of signing up for benefits such as food stamps:

 

Mom wouldn’t hear of it.  Welfare, she said, would cause irreparable psychological damage to us kids.  ‘You can be hungry every now and then, but once you eat, you’re okay,’ she said.  ‘And you can get cold for awhile, but you always warm up.  Once you go on welfare, it changes you.  Even if you get off welfare, you never escape the stigma that you were a charity case.  You’re scarred for life.

            At only one point in Walls’ childhood does a child welfare worker show up to check on the family, and Walls, although living in deplorable conditions in a decrepit house without heat, running water, or indoor plumbing, has nothing but fear for what this might mean:

If the child-welfare man got it into his head that we were an unfit family, we’d have no way to drive him off.  He’d launch an investigation and end up sending me and Brian and Lori and Maureen off to live with different families, even though we all got good grades and knew Morse code.  I couldn’t let that happen.  No way was I going to lose Brian and Lori and Maureen.

            As they grow up, Walls and her siblings help each other find ways out of the unstable life of poverty and neglect they have led.  Their parents taught them to think for themselves, and ironically this ultimately leads them to leave their parents and their unstable lifestyle behind.  Sadly, their parents continued to live in the same manner they always had—ending up virtually homeless in New York City, rejecting all offers of assistance by their children.

            “The Glass Castle” is an excellent book that everyone should read just because it is so good.  However, for those of us in the child welfare arena, there are important messages that should inform the work we do every day.  All families are not alike, and we must approach each with respect and compassion.  One size does not fit all, and determining what will work best for a particular family requires true collaboration, creativity, and open-mindedness.  Additionally, just like the Walls family, many are distrustful of the child welfare system and have strong views about what it means to accept help.  A strength-based and family-centered approach is a must.  Of course, this is not always easy and rarely happens overnight.  Finally, we need to really see our kids and hear what they are telling us.  The bonds they have with their brothers and sisters often represent the most important thing in their lives and absent significant evidence to the contrary should be treated as sacred.  We cannot just say these things, we have to recommit ourselves to these principles and find creative ways to fundamentally change our system to embody them.

My recent book relationship history

After I finished reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, I went through kind of a dry spell.  Four books in a row, I opened and then closed without finishing.  I won't name names because I really think it was me and not them.  Really, they seemed like great books, but I just wasn't that into them.

I loved Americanah so much, so when it was over, I just needed a little time.

Finally, I dallied with a little something that didn't require a lot of investment. I had a fling with the easily read and then set aside Firebird by Susanna Kearsley.  I loved Kearsley's Winter Sea, and so returning to a little history, a little romance, and a lovely Scottish background was just what I needed. Kind of like fooling around with your ex--you know it's not really going to satisfy, but it's a comforting and perhaps necessary distraction.

Fortunately, the next two books I read were the real deal.  Whether you loved or didn't Kathryn Stockett's the Help, you would probably be interested to read both House Girl by Tara Conklin and Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (of Secret Life of Bees fame--one of my faves).

The lawyer in me enjoyed House Girl, as the book is the story of a present day lawyer working on a reparations case, and in her research, discovering the story of Josephine.  Josephine was a slave and also an artist whose art was wrongly attributed to her owner, a much less talented artist.  Interesting, readable, thought-provoking.

I then turned to Invention of Wings, which was similar in that it was told from two voices, though in this case, both were from the same time period: Hetty "Handful" Grimke, a slave, who tells the story of her life and that of her mother, both of whom are excellent seamstresses and love quilting, which they use for warmth, story-telling, and all sorts of other things; and Sarah Grimke, who is given Handful as a gift for her birthday and who goes on to become one of the first pioneers for abolition and women's rights.  The story is historically based, as Sarah and Angelina Grimke were actual prominent figures in the abolition and women's rights movements, though not particularly well-remembered.  And there is even a historical record of Hetty being one of the slaves in the Grimke home, though in reality she died fairly young, and the story about her imagined in this book is almost entirely invented.

I didn't really set out to read two books in a row that delve into the awful history of slavery in this county, but I think they were exactly what I needed after Americanah, which contains such profound commentary on race through an author and main character who are born in Nigeria, move to the U.S. as young adults, and then return to Nigeria with a perspective altered by time and experience.

The other aspect of Americanah that I loved was that the main character, Ifemelu, is a blogger.  I'd been seriously thinking about starting my blog, and reading this novel was one of the final pushes I needed to go ahead and get started.

I am officially a Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi fan, and I've just started reading her first novel, Purple Hibiscus.  So far, so good.  I'll let you know how it turns out.  But I'm pretty sure it's true love.

The Calculus of Child Welfare (Partnership for Strong Families, Partnership Connection, July-September 2014)

Every quarter, I get to write an article for the Partnership for Strong Families' newletter, Partnership Connection.  I've been doing this for years, and I love doing it.  It started out with a request for me to contribute an article from the legal perspective focusing on legal issues that foster and adoptive parents and other caregivers would be interested in.  It quickly deteriorated into me just writing about whatever came to mind when I received the reminder email that my article was due (it's only four times a year, but it comes around SO quickly!).

I always try to keep the article focused on child welfare, but often I end up commenting on some book I've read or some parenting experience I have had that ties into the child welfare issue I'm addressing.  Luckily, the responses have been overwhelmingly positive, and that has contributed to my decision to begin this blog.  Keeping work in balance with life is a huge part of my life calculus for sure, and one that I am forever thinking about and adjusting.

So, at least every quarter, I will share my PSF article.  It doesn't look like they copyright it, and even if they did, PSF is such a great organization that I'm certain they'd give me permission to re-publish (have I mentioned I'm an ask forgiveness not permission kind of a gal?).

So, here it is...

The Calculus of Child Welfare

            Full Disclosure:  I just finished reading Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball,” and whether you are a baseball fanatic like my husband, or just married to one like I am, “Moneyball” is a beautifully written and fascinating book. 

When you think about baseball, you can’t help but think about statistics—batting averages, runs batted in, on base percentage, earned run average, and the list goes on.  As a child welfare professional, I have been both a little suspicious and a little jealous of all these seemingly endless items that are painstakingly tracked in connection with the game of baseball.  Baseball seems to measure everything, so they must have it all worked out!  But as hard as we try in the child welfare world to come up with performance metrics, score cards, predictive analytics, and foolproof ways to measure our efforts, prevent serious injury and death of children, and ensure best outcomes, we continue to fall short. 

I always thought it was for a variety of reasons: 1) we’re late to the game and have only recently begun trying to operate in this realm of data and evidence-based outcomes; 2) we’re wasting a lot of time because just like Mark Twain said, “There are three kinds of lies—lies, damned lies, and statistics,” or in other words, why bother because numbers will never tell the truth about the complex world that is child welfare, and 3) even if there is something to be gained from looking at these numbers, we will never have the level of resources dedicated to this task to allow us to do it right.

But after reading “Moneyball,” I feel differently.  Baseball has also struggled both to measure the right things and to properly interpret the many, many numbers they have at their disposal.  The biggest message I took from Lewis’ book is that statistics in and of themselves are not truth, but if you are willing to ask, “Why?”, the statistics and information you gather can help you gain insight into the most important issues you are dealing with, empower you to creatively solve problems and improve outcomes, and allow you to make the most of your limited resources.  The Oakland A's, under the guidance of General Manager Billy Beane, are the case in point that “Moneyball” focuses on, and it is an inspiring story.  If the A's can consistently create a top-notch team in an economical way by understanding the needs of the team and the abilities each player brings to the equation, we in the child welfare profession can do the same thing.

This week, I received the May Scorecards for both the community-based care agencies and child protective investigations, and Partnership and our Circuit 3/8 investigators looked good, as usual, with their measurements of things such as, recurrence of abuse and reentry into the child welfare system, permanence for youth, investigation commencement times, timely closure of cases, case loads, and measures related to education and administrative costs.  My Children’s Legal Services team is also in preparation for our Northeast Regional Review of our work, where we will be evaluated on things such as case load size, quality of legal writing, quality of legal decision making and documentation, timeliness of adjudication of dependency and permanence, courtroom preparation and skills, efforts to address children’s educational, safety, permanence, and well-being needs, and whether children have the appropriate goals and are moving through the court system appropriately.  I have also had the privilege over the last several years of working with Casey Family Programs on the Cold Case Project, where we use predictive analytics to identify the youth in our system of care who are at greatest risk of “aging out” without permanent connections.  We then do in-depth reviews of cases and participate in Permanency Round Tables where we share our findings and help to develop action plans focused on achieving legal permanence.

With all of this information and analysis and grading and comparison, it is easy to get overwhelmed, and even defensive and discouraged.  But I prefer the approach of Billy Beane and the Oakland A's.  I want to find ways to dig into all of this data and make sense out of it so that we can use it to improve our work.  I want to make sure we are tracking the right things and that we are gathering accurate information.  I want to make sure we are making smart decisions about where to focus our resources and how to improve our system.

Also this week, I received a report that indicated that around 25 percent of the children in care in the Northeast Region do not have a father listed for them in our Florida Safe Families Network database (the statewide database we use to record all of our child welfare investigations and cases).  One possibility in response to this report would be to conclude that 25 percent of the children in care in the Northeast Region have no legal father.  Instead, we should be asking where the information came from and whether it is accurate.  Until we understand that, we don’t really know what the problem is and what the best approach would be.  Do we have a data entry problem, do we have a problem with identifying fathers, or do we have a problem with establishing paternity?  Probably a little of each, but until we can get a better handle on the proportions, we don’t know how or where to devote our resources.

I could go on and on, but there is only so much space in this newsletter, so I will just say this:  the data we collect and what we do with it matter.  We should never lose sight of the individual children and families, but we should also spend time gathering information, understanding what it can and can’t tell us, and never being afraid to ask why.  And then, to quote a wise man, “Do. Or do not.  There is no try.”

            

Kelsey Burnette is the Managing Attorney for Children’s Legal Services, the division of the Department of Children and Families that represents the State of Florida on behalf of the best interests of children in dependency cases.