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| An editorial in the Bangor Daily News wisely recommends rejecting Maine Gov. Paul LePage's bad ideas. (Photo by Gage Skidmore) |
Although Maine child
welfare is careening
full-speed backwards, Maine journalism about child welfare, fortunately, is
not. The editorial response to the bad
ideas spewing forth from Gov. Paul “Trump-Before-Trump” LePage shows the same
prudence and open-mindedness that helped reform child welfare in Maine after
Logan Marr died.
On June 1, for
example, The Bangor Daily News called LePage’s solutions “heavy handed and overly punitive.” The editorial wisely urged rejection of LePage’s
idea to impose criminal penalties on mandated reporters who don’t report their
suspicions of abuse and neglect.
As for LePage’s
embrace of the Big
Lie of American child welfare, the myth that child safety is at odds with
family preservation, the Daily News
reminded readers of what so many in Maine have forgotten:
The focus on family reunification came after
the 2001 death of 5-year-old Logan Marr, who was suffocated by her foster
mother, Sally Schofield, who prosecutors said wrapped 42 feet of duct tape
around the girl’s head, suffocating her.
The editorial also
pointed out that there is no need to change statutes to encourage a
take-the-child-and-run approach, as LePage wants, because “Maine’s statutes on
child placement already emphasize that a child’s safety is the ‘paramount
concern.’”
But then the
editorial veers a bit off course. According to the editorial:
Rather than rewrite the statute, it may be
more effective to put measures in place to ensure that DHHS follows this
directive. For example, whistleblowers have reported that some caseworkers are
so intent on reunited a child with her parents that they are willing to
overlook risk factors, like drug abuse. Changing this does not require a change
of law; instead better training and support can change this practice.
There are several
problems with this.
● Drug abuse
sometimes is indeed a “risk factor” – but it is not cause for automatic confiscation
of the child. This is discussed in
detail in this
NCCPR column for the trade journal Youth
Today. The workers criticized by
the “whistleblowers” may not be overlooking drug abuse or other risk factors,
they may simply be weighing those risks against the enormous known risks of needless foster care,
and reaching a conclusion the “whistleblowers” don’t happen to agree with.
Sometimes, as they
attempt to balance the risks, the workers will get it wrong – in both directions. Assuming that the
errors go only one way only increases the risk of harm to all vulnerable
children.
● It’s a lot easier
for white, middle-class professionals to “blow the whistle” than it is for
those whose children have been needlessly taken – since they are overwhelmingly
poor and disproportionately nonwhite. There
are plenty of poor people who would love to blow the whistle on how their
children were needlessly taken, but they don’t know how to pull together
documents and speak to reporters. And if their cases are still pending they
often fear retaliation by DHHS.
Occasionally, you
get a whistleblower who has both professional status and insight into wrongful
removal. Someone such as former Maine
foster parent Mary Callahan, who led efforts to improve Maine child welfare
after Logan Marr died. Here’s
how she blew the whistle.
And on those rare occasions
when the long arm of DHHS reaches into the middle-class, those parents can blow the whistle. This
recent example is especially worth reading in light of the fact that one of
those who shares responsibility for this family’s pain also was a leading campaigner
against the reforms that followed the death of Logan Marr.
Looking at the data
So what happens when
anecdotes – and the experiences of whistleblowers – collide? That’s when it’s
time to look at the data.
As is explained in
detail in
this previous post, the data show that when Maine embraced family
preservation it made children safer. And
the data from around the country show that the LePage take-the-child-and-run approach
(whether it involves changing laws or “putting measures into place” at the
administrative level) makes children less safe.
● And finally, no
one has to tell DHHS to put “measures into place” to take away more children.
I’ll bet it’s already underway – with a vengeance. Maine almost certainly is in
the midst of a foster-care panic, a sharp,
sudden increase in the number of children taken needlessly from their homes in
the wake of a high-profile tragedy.
Of course that’s not what the editorial suggested should
happen. On the contrary, the Bangor Daily
News and other Maine newspaper editorials have gone out of their way to
avoid pouring gasoline onto the fire of foster-care panic. That’s a good start,
but more is needed.
Someone claiming
that there exists a “practice” of ignoring “risk factors” doesn’t make it
so. Far more likely, overloaded workers
don’t have time to consider those risk factors properly – so they’re making
more mistakes in all directions, taking more children needlessly while leaving
other children in danger in their own homes. Indeed, were DHHS actually to
provide “better training and support” as the editorial suggests, it would
result in fewer removals of children and more emphasis on family preservation –
since that’s what makes children safer.
But obviously DHHS
can’t be counted on to do that.
And that’s why even
more is needed from the state’s most influential journalists. Refusing to pour
gasoline on the fire is a good start, indeed it’s far better than the
performance of journalists in many other states. But what would really help is for people with
influence to pour water on those flames - that is, demand a stop to the
foster-care panic.
I hope they’ll do it
before more children get hurt.
