The Journal Sentinel editorial board took its time commenting on the child welfare series – and it was time well spent. The editorial today (October 1) is far wiser than the stories which prompted it.
It is almost unheard-of for an editorial to reject the central thesis of the reporter behind a big “project” – even in the gentle terms seen in the one in the Journal Sentinel today. But when this editorial correctly states that “the guiding principle should be children’s welfare, which isn’t simply a matter of parental rights vs. children’s rights” [emphasis added] the editorial does just that.
And while the editorial is all about lessons that can be learned from “A series of articles in the Journal Sentinel by reporter Crocker Stephenson …” there is not one word praising the series, not even a complimentary adjective between the words “A” and “series.”
Instead, the editorial is a serious attempt to come to grips with very difficult issues; it reads as though it were the product of a lot of thought, a lot of compromise among editorial board members or both.
So the editorial declares that:
Returning children to parents who abused or neglected them can result in more of the same - except when it doesn't, in which case it's likely the best thing. Successful reunifications occur. And kinship foster care is often a good alternative that keeps a child connected.
It is a sad testament to the failure of Crocker Stephenson’s reporting that the editorial board actually had to remind readers that “successful reunifications occur” when, in fact, that outcome is the norm.
The editorial also mentions something entirely omitted by the stories:
Also, there is an argument to be made that sometimes children are too easily taken away from birth parents, when with a little immediate help on the poverty or behavior management front, home life could be made safer and more comfortable for the children. Milwaukee's ranking as the nation's fourth-poorest big city will likely translate into more stresses on more families - but there is a difference between less-than-optimum parents because of economic circumstances and circumstances that clearly endanger a child.
There also are some flaws in the editorial.
● It mentions that “abuse occurs in foster care” but it would have been a useful corrective to the series to discuss the research showing that it probably happens to at least one quarter to one third of foster children, and the record of orphanages is worse.
● The editorial states, correctly, both that infallibility must be the goal and that achieving the goal is impossible. But then it calls for the public to be “unforgiving of [errors] as a matter of accountability and making sure the same mistakes are not repeated ad infinitum.”
Unforgiving? How in the world will you keep your best employees if they can never make an honest mistake? There is a vast difference between the hardworking caseworker who simply gets it wrong and the worker who is lazy or incompetent.
And as a practical matter, the only errors that get sustained public attention – especially in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - are when workers leave a child in his or her own home and something goes wrong. The far more common error of wrongful removal is forgiven, forgotten, and generally never even noticed. Or, to put it another way, contrary to what caseworkers often say, when it comes to taking away children, they’re not damned if they do and damned if they don’t – they’re only damned if they don’t.
So the advice to be unforgiving only further encourages the foster-care panic that may have been started by the stories themselves.
● There’s also an interesting factual error in this paragraph:
As the series demonstrated in one specific case, foster parents who want to adopt are left in limbo because a seemingly unfeeling bureaucracy can't pull the trigger on termination of parental rights after one failed reunification morphs into another and into another.
The paragraph conflates the two cases that were the subject of the news stories. The case in which reunification was tried and failed is not the case in which the foster parents want to adopt.
● The biggest failing in the editorial is the lead paragraph, which led me to think the editorial would be more of the same. It reads:
Once children are taken away, how many chances should parents get to prove they're fit before more able and willing parents are able to step in permanently? Once, twice, three times? As many times as it takes? Meanwhile, very young children who know only the love of their foster parents run the risk of being wrenched from even that.
But, of course, there are many cases in which children are taken from parents who were never unfit to begin with, and instead of “more able and willing parents” desperate to take them in, there is only a succession of foster homes or, worse, a latter-day orphanage. (Gooey nostalgia notwithstanding, orphanages produce the worst outcomes by far, since institutionalization is so inherently harmful. For details see our Issue Paper on orphanages and our review of the literature on residential treatment.)
Fortunately, the lead notwithstanding, the rest of the editorial makes a lot of that quite clear.
(Actual date of post: October 1, 2010)
