Tom, I tried your Suggestion 1 above, directly with you in fact, to no avail whatsoever. The other suggestions impractical and unhelpful.
1. I tried to discuss with every level of your agency desperately needed reforms. I was wholly ignored by your agency for more than a year, and even then all I got was a short phone call that went nowhere. My personal experience is this agency is not interested in reform.
2. There are people who try every day to emphasize the law to your agency, but until the tone from the top changes and the agency is held accountable for ignoring the law, case managers will continue to ignore it. Until they are condemned for their violations, just as they condemn well-meaning parents, the cycle will repeat. leadership is not interested in self-regulation, so this suggestion is useless.
3. This suggestion is insulting and offensive to suggest that families recognize some sort of authority the State has to regulate their very personal relationships protected by our Constitutuon. The State repeatedly fails at their obligation to protect children because it often causes more trauma than is necessary by removing and unnecessarily regulating families. It does nothing to repair that trauma. I propose that you recognize that families have a right to remain together and publicly acknowledge the harm the agency has done by unnecessarily separating families. To ignore this fact is to ignore the rights of families.
4. I suggest we do more than celebrate social workers who follow the law and actually help families- let’s pay them more and train them better to consider the family as a unit and not to weigh members’ rights against each other.
On the other hand, leadership should acknowledge and be held just as accountable as parents for case managers who violate the law, perjure themselves, or who otherwise behave unethically.
If leadership were held accountable, reform might take place. Unfortunately, I don’t have much hope at all for that, especially without you at the helm.
Tom, I tried your Suggestion 1 above, directly with you in fact, to no avail whatsoever. The other suggestions impractical and unhelpful.
1. I tried to discuss with every level of your agency desperately needed reforms. I was wholly ignored by your agency for more than a year, and even then all I got was a short phone call that went nowhere. My personal experience is this agency is not interested in reform.
2. There are people who try every day to emphasize the law to your agency, but until the tone from the top changes and the agency is held accountable for ignoring the law, case managers will continue to ignore it. Until they are condemned for their violations, just as they condemn well-meaning parents, the cycle will repeat. leadership is not interested in self-regulation, so this suggestion is useless.
3. This suggestion is insulting and offensive to suggest that families recognize some sort of authority the State has to regulate their very personal relationships protected by our Constitutuon. The State repeatedly fails at their obligation to protect children because it often causes more trauma than is necessary by removing and unnecessarily regulating families. It does nothing to repair that trauma. I propose that you recognize that families have a right to remain together and publicly acknowledge the harm the agency has done by unnecessarily separating families. To ignore this fact is to ignore the rights of families.
4. I suggest we do more than celebrate social workers who follow the law and actually help families- let’s pay them more and train them better to consider the family as a unit and not to weigh members’ rights against each other.
On the other hand, leadership should acknowledge and be held just as accountable as parents for case managers who violate the law, perjure themselves, or who otherwise behave unethically.
If leadership were held accountable, reform might take place. Unfortunately, I don’t have much hope at all for that, especially without you at the helm.