Video of NCCPR's spoken testimony, followed by a statement from DHS-Give Us Back Our Children is here:
If all goes well, at just about the time this post goes
live, I will be among those testifying
before a committee of the Philadelphia City Council. The topic will be what it usually is in
Philadelphia: that city’s dismal outlier status when it comes to tearing apart
families. It has the worst record among America’s big cities,
even when rates of child poverty are factored in.
After reading a
story in the Philadelphia Inquirer
Monday, it’s not hard to see why this is still the case.
 |
| Philadelphia City Councilman David Oh |
The story is about the councilman whose legislation prompted
the hearing, Councilman David Oh. He had his own run-in with the Philadelphia
Department of Human Services.
Every
Sunday, Oh teaches martial arts to his children. One morning, his 8-year-old
son was injured. Councilman Oh and his wife rushed the boy to the hospital.
Yes, this is going exactly where you think it’s going. From
the Inquirer story:
A social worker arrived and asked Oh and his wife to leave the room so she could speak to their son alone. After doing so, she told the Ohs she was filing a report of suspected child abuse …
Oh said he tried to show the social worker cell phone photos of him doing martial arts with his kids, to show how common the activity is for the family. …
He said he was bothered that the social worker could not articulate why she thought the incident was more than an accident. He said she told him she typically reports injuries children suffer in all sports. "She insinuated that [a report] was no big deal, it was routine," Oh said. "And when I pressed her for a reason, she made a comment: 'You're a grown man, you shouldn't be teaching your son judo. He's 8.'"
(Just for the record, a quick Google search suggests there
is nothing unusual about 8-year-olds learning judo – and I would think the best
teacher would indeed be “a grown man” or woman.)
DHS followed up and ultimately decided the report was “unfounded.”
But even unfounded reports are
maintained in the state’s central registry of alleged child abusers for
anywhere from one year to about a year and four months.
What DHS should have said
This would be the place for a good child welfare agency
leader to step in and calm things down.
A good leader might say something like: “We understand the
hospital’s concern over keeping children safe, but state law requires reports
when mandated reporters have “reasonable cause to suspect” abuse. Clearly every
sports injury does not qualify. Nor is there anything unusual about learning
judo at age 8. So please don’t do this to families, and don’t waste the time
our workers need to find children in real danger on cases like this.”
 |
| Philadelphia DHS Commissioner Cynthia Figueroa |
Instead, the Commissioner of Philadelphia’s Department of
Human Services, Cynthia Figueroa, seems to have made everything worse.
Not only did she justify the intrusion into Oh’s family, she reportedly revealed
that she encourages such intrusion – indeed, she reportedly encourages turning
in families based on no real evidence at all.
Again, from the story:
Oh said Figueroa “defended the social worker's actions as in line with her directivefor workers to follow their intuition.” [Emphasis added.]
Unfortunately, this is not unusual. Frontline caseworkers sometimes say their decisions come down to "a gut feeling." But this is the first time I've seen anything like that attributed to the head of a child protective services agency.
Whatever happened to laws, and regulations and, you know, evidence?
Would anyone tolerate a jury saying “We didn’t think there was actual evidence of guilt but our intuition told us he did it, so we found him guilty!” (Sadly, I’m sure juries have done that, but I doubt judges have actually encouraged it.)
Or what about police? Should they arrest people based on “intuition”?
The stop-and-frisk standard
Actually, there is a place where something similar happens in police work – and it’s caused outrage across the country. Follow your intuition is the standard behind “stop-and-frisk” policing. If anything, it’s
even worse in child welfare. Bad as it
is to be stopped and thrown against a wall for no reason, at least afterwards
you usually get to go home. When child
welfare agencies use their “intuition,” the children may be forced into foster
care.
But if, indeed, DHS wants people to report alleged child abuse or neglect by following their "intuition," and if they want their own caseworkers to base their decisions on "intuition," then here's what happens under what might be called the Figueroa Doctrine: Overwhelmingly middle
class, often white professionals are supposed to use their “intuition” to pass
judgment on whether parents who are overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately
nonwhite have abused or neglected their children. Much
as we might like to call it “intuition,” that’s just a code word for bias.
This is illustrated by what happened when Nassau County, near New York City, instituted a process known as "blind removal meetings." As soon as those making the decision on whether to remove a child were denied information about the family's race and neighborhood, their "intuition" changed, and removals of African-American children declined significantly.
One of the main reasons we have a government of laws is to stop powerful agents of government or other big institutions from doing terrible things to people who are powerless based on their own arbitrary and capricious judgments – otherwise known as “intuition.”
One of the main reasons we have a government of laws is to stop powerful agents of government or other big institutions from doing terrible things to people who are powerless based on their own arbitrary and capricious judgments – otherwise known as “intuition.”
Given all that it’s no wonder Councilman Oh has suggested
that Philadelphia begin exploring ways to make the whole process more rational.
Figueroa responded the way child welfare agencies usually respond when their failings are exposed: with scare tactics.
According to the Inquirer:
Figueroa said she has met with Oh twice and told him that she believed changing the reporting requirements would violate state law and could jeopardize the agency's license.
But while there are many issues with the whole mandatory
reporting process and the laws surrounding it, the real issue in cases such as
this is following the law as it already exists. Again, that law sets a standard of "reasonable cause to suspect." I suggested above what Figueroa should have said in that regard.
Instead, Figueroa dialed up the fear machine:
"It would also be incredibly chaotic in terms of an enforcement standpoint if each county decided to go rogue in how to adhere to the child protective services law.”
In fact, chaos is an apt term for Philadelphia child welfare
as it exists right now. And there is already wide variation among Pennsylvania
counties.
As the data on Philadelphia’s obscene rate of child removal
make clear, it is DHS that has gone rogue. DHS has been a rogue agency for
decades and it’s time, finally, to bring it under control.
