"The jig is up, child savers: Molly McGrath Tierney is on to you"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/19/1517328/-The-jig-is-up-child-savers-Molly-McGrath-Tierney-is-on-to-you

This article describes a TED-X talk from 2014 (and the talk is linked in the article) by Molly McGrath Tierney, the director of a child welfare agency in Baltimore, Maryland. Tierney's agency, under her as the director, became very successful by definition. However, she is quite critical of the system, describing the foster care as "a bad idea" and child welfare as a "a self-protecting ecosystem," children as "commodities," and describing those who work in child welfare as "child savers" who get an adrenaline rush from taking children from their families. The problem, according to Tierney, is that there are kids in foster care, and she believes those kids are oppressed. Her belief is that foster care is an intervention, which is sometimes necessary, but what should be focused on is prevention in families, which could make foster care a "rare and brief" intervention. She believes prevention should start early enough that "a catastrophic intervention like foster care" is not necessary. Her question is, "Why do we wait so late?"

I find Tierney to be an excellent speaker. She is very engaging and confident in her perspective. However, I can see how her position might be controversial, and her delivery, at times, may come off as harsh. Even still, in many ways I believe in what she is saying.

My internship is in private adoption, which in many ways is very different from public child welfare, though similar in many ways, as well. One commonality between the two, is that the well-being of the child is always our top priority. Even though the placement of a child into a home with someone other than the birth family is a choice the parents make in private adoption, unlike with public foster care, it is often the case that the child's well-being would be jeopardized in the birth family's home. What I also see, is that in many of those cases, had the birthparents received interventions long before the pregnancy occurred (and in this case I do not mean pregnancy prevention), the placement and adoption of the child could have been prevented, as the birthparents could have had the ability to parent in a way that would not jeopardize the child's well-being. I find this idea to be even more important to consider in foster care than in private adoption because most private adoptions occur when the child is an infant and has not experienced trauma. With foster care, on the other hand, most children have already experienced significant trauma that will have an impact on them for the rest of their lives, and as we know, not all kids have great resiliency.

I recognize, as I believe Tierney does, that those working in child welfare and foster care in particular genuinely want to help. They are not bad people purposely oppressing others. Tierney is not arguing that the workers need to change. She is arguing that the system needs to change, and I agree. As a society we need to change. I've experienced the backlash that social workers sometimes receive from those with the perspective that we're hurting more than helping. I know it doesn't feel good and many times we don't want to hear it. We have to hear it though, because no system is perfect, and without listening to those who feel hurt rather than helped by our services, or maybe feel both at the same time, we will never do better. As a society, we have to provide the supports that prevent abuse rather than demonizing those in poverty and those with other risk factors.

I do think foster care is needed, and I don't think changing the system and intervening earlier is an easy fix that will eliminate the need overnight. Honestly, I don't think our society will ever get to the point of eliminating the need for foster care completely, regardless of how early and diligently intervention occurs. I feel the same about private adoption. But I do think we, as a society, not just as child welfare workers, can do better in child abuse prevention.