Child protection must present an unbiased view

A recent judgment in Nova Scotia raises some crucial issues for social workers and their lawyers who are presenting applications in court. The Honourable Justice Mona M. Lynch in the case of Ministry of Community Services v. F.B. noted some significant concerns with the bias of the presentation to court by the Ministry. She noted that the mother in this case was a difficult client. At paragraph 41, Justice Lynch notes:

There is no doubt that the mother was a difficult client to deal with, however, a parent’s failure to cooperate with the MCS does not equate to their child being in need of protective services

This matters a great deal. Difficult clients are hard to manage. They can seem to be "unworkable" when they are simply feeling powerless against the greater force of child protection. Justice Lynch appears to take the position that difficult should not be used as the basis for determining whether a child is in need of protection.

Justice Lynch goes on to make a much more crucial point - how invested should workers be in the outcome of the case. At paragraph 47, she states:

Witnesses for the MCS should not be personally invested in the outcome of a proceeding.   The proceeding is about the best interests of children, not who wins or loses. 

When a worker has been putting many hours into a case, has formulated a case plan and has aimed at succeeding with that plan, it is natural to want to achieve what one has set out to achieve. Being invested in that plan may hinder the view that one has to a case. Research has shown that this can create a information bias filtering out new information that contradicts the case plan. This is known as confirmation bias. Justice Lynch became concerned as she notes later in that same paragraph:

The court expects balance.  The court expects that the witnesses from the MCS provide evidence of both the good and the bad that they have witnessed.  The court expects that they will just relay the facts without attempting to colour the evidence in a negative light.  Sadly in this case, with few exceptions, the witnesses who work for the MCS were not impartial or unbiased.  They appeared to be so invested in the outcome of the case that it has affected the weight the court can give their evidence.  They appeared unable to say something positive about the mother even when there were positive things to say.   The evidence of many of the access facilitators can be given little weight.  This is unfortunate because the access facilitators spent the most time with the mother and the children of all of the witnesses.  

In essence, the bias was such that the credibility of the evidence was in question. If a case has merits, then it does not need workers to filter out data that may not support their preferred position. What this case shows is that when a judge becomes concerned that the data has been selected to support a position as opposed to offering the court the data it needs to weigh the merits, then the usefulness of the child protection witnesses wanes.

It is rare that a parent is totally without merit. By putting both the strengths and the weaknesses before the court, the judge can then weigh the balance. If the worker feels that they must do that ahead of time, then the worker is beginning to take the place of the court. That is dangerous.

Justice Lynch's comments are a good reminder that courts are ultimately responsible for determining the best interests of the child when child protection takes matters before them.

 

We already know the reasons for child deaths

Rarely would I juts copy an article to put in a blog, but a thoughtful op-ed piece written by Marlene Huff who chairs the Kentucky Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers raises some thoughts that deserve attention. She states:

Eighteen children died as a result of abuse or neglect in fiscal year 2011 compared to 33 deaths the previous year, 29 in fiscal year 2009 and 31 in fiscal year 2008.

Now, the commissioner of the state Department for Community Based Services has resigned during a debate about record reviews of deceased children that may have nothing to contribute to a discussion about the death of children.

Social workers, though not all employees of the department, are graduates of accredited schools of social work and are bound by a social work code of ethics that strictly prohibits the release of client information as well as those associated with the client even after the client has died.

In this case, the social work principle of confidentiality flies directly in the face of the journalistic principle indicating that the public has a right to know all.

The governor's mandate to release the records of those children killed by their caregivers in 2011 would have forced the commissioner, in essence, to act in direct opposition to her professional values and ethics.

  

Social workers (even those appointed to the position of commissioner) who violate the code are to be reported to the State Board of Social Work for review and action leading to a variety of possible negative actions against the violator's license.

Might we find in those record the answers necessary to end all child fatalities suffered at the hand of caregivers?

Sadly, I predict that this will not happen. We may, indeed, find an employee (social worker or not) to blame, a policy that is not consistently enforced or a sharp decline in fiscal resources that needs to be addressed.

    

In fact, I am sure this type of information is contained in the records of those deceased children whose confidentiality social workers are ethically bound to protect.

We, the public, through our resource allocations and decisions about which people among us are worthy and which are not, have a role to play in the death of those children.

We have allowed the department's already-meager budget to be cut to unspeakably low levels, allowed the case loads of social workers to increase to the point that even a supremely talented and educated social worker struggles with the sheer volume of the work, and we have only begun to discuss the needs of vulnerable children after 18 of them have died.

It seems to me that we decided long ago that Kentucky's children were not deserving of the best resources the state could offer.

I can predict the review of those records will lead to findings that are already known to us but left unaddressed.

Children die in Kentucky because of poverty. Social workers work with children and families that, two years ago, were operating on the "just" system — just enough food to get to the first of the month, just enough gas to go to the doctor, just enough coal to get through the winter.

Those same Kentucky families, barely functioning before the economic crisis, collapsed afterwards. Rates of drug and alcohol abuse rose dramatically, jobs were lost, mental-health problems increased, and families became isolated in their poverty and suffering. When families collapse, children suffer.

 

As the deaths of those children are reviewed and their confidentiality is shattered like a fragile vase, we need to take responsibility for our failure of those same children as well as the department. We allow Kentucky's children to live in squalor, deal with hunger as best they can, and be subjected to angry, out-of-control individuals who comprise the only family ever known to them.

We have financially starved the department to the point that it cannot protect the children in Kentucky without some of them being killed. Is this good enough? I think not. I wonder what the department could do for Kentucky's children if it was supported by the public, legislature and the media instead of breaking the confidentiality promised to those children prior to their death?

The reasons for their death, as well as the way to prevent additional deaths, are right in front of us already

Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/12/14/1993899/we-already-know-the-reasons-for.html#ixzz1gcCHyQif