March 12, 2000

DEFICIENT PARENTING DOESN'T ADD UP TO ABUSE OR NEGLECT

Child welfare policy, says Susan Orr, is set by a pendulum that swings from crisis to crisis.

"A child death translates into a policy of removing children too easily from their homes and keeping them in foster care too long," she writes in a paper prepared for the Reason Public Policy Institute. "An overzealous removal rate then triggers the opposite reaction, dictating that too many children stay in dangerous settings as the agency tries to be more 'family friendly.'"

The pendulum is moving in Colorado, where several children died who were either known to child welfare services or already under state care. The deaths prompted Gov. Bill Owens to convene a task force, which presented him with dozens of recommendations in January. Owens has said he supports nearly all of them.

Orr, who is director of RPPI's Center for Social Policy in Washington, D.C., is skeptical that any kind of tinkering with procedures can fix the current system, whose problems spring from the conflicting roles child welfare agencies are expected to play. On the one hand, they are supposed to help children and families. On the other, they have police power to investigate families and to take their children away.

Orr's solution is to separate the roles, to distinguish criminal behavior from deficient parenting. Social workers should provide social services. If allegations of serious child abuse or neglect warrant investigation, the investigation should be carried out by police.

Arkansas has moved in this direction, and at least one county in Florida has done the same. Last month, Owens said he thought Colorado should study whether to adopt the model. He does risk putting difficulties in the way of reforms already proposed.

The task force recommendations require numerous changes in state law, in county rules and in agency practices. If people suspect the whole system is going to be scrapped in a couple of years, they won't have much incentive to work for change in the current system. But Orr's proposals are worth serious consideration anyway. She has five major recommendations (you can download the entire report from http://rppi.org/socialservices/ps262.html).

Narrow the scope of child abuse and neglect definitions. Much that now fits the definition does not merit government interference, Orr notes. Only about 30 percent of abuse reports are substantiated, and only 20 percent of substantiated cases require a child's removal from the home. That implies the current definitions are too broad. Not all bad parenting requires the state to step in; and poverty is not a crime either. But if a parent injures a child, it should be treated as a criminal assault (as it would be if the child were someone else's).

Place investigatory powers with police. If the definition of abuse is appropriately narrow, it deals with essentially criminal behavior and the police are best equipped to investigate criminal behavior.

Recriminalize child abuse and neglect. If that sounds harsh, remember that it also protects accused parents from the secret star-chamber proceedings of child-welfare agencies. Everything is confidential, and even parents who have been investigated cannot see the files in their own cases. Criminal proceedings are public, and why should it be a secret, Orr asks, if someone assaults his own children?

Repeal mandatory reporting laws. These laws, which require professionals to report even the suspicion of child abuse, were prompted by the 1974 federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, originally sponsored by then-U.S. Sen. Walter Mondale and then-U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder. States that adopted them were eligible for grant money. The result has been an explosion in the number of abuse reports, and a corresponding drop in the proportion substantiated. Yet serious abuse cases continue to climb.

Make child and family services voluntary. Orr notes: "Without the threat of child removal hanging over their heads, parents might more willingly accept services - such as help with parenting skills. Knowing that an agency only provides services, parents might be more receptive to receiving such help."

Orr's critique addresses the way the system is structured, not the people who work in it. Since it is definitely not working well now, maybe it is time to try something different. (673 words)