5 Steps that institutions can take to protect children

We have been seeing in the media, more and more stories about the abuse of children involved with various institutions.  A recent story tells how the Jehova's Witnesses covered up abuse. In Australia, there has been a Royal Commission looking into institutional abuse. It seems each  chapter of their work reveals more breadth and depth of abuse.

In the United Kingdom, there has been the Rotherham story where 1400 children have been exploited. Authorities failed to act.

The reality is that children typically do not disclose abuse and when they do, they are telling the truth the vast majority of the time - we need to listen. So what can institutions do to better manage - here are 5 thoughts:

The long term impacts of child abuse in institutions is well documented. One only need to look at the impact of the Residential Schools in Canada. One recent story shows how one community is still tackling the impact of the St. Michael's school in Alert Bay, B.C. 

Institutions owe a duty to those in their care.

Abuse in the Catholic Church is more than sexual

Recently demoted Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke. He has blamed the sexual abuse crisis of the Catholic Church to be related to the feminization of the Church in the 1960's.

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke

He is quoted as saying,

There was a period of time when men who were feminized and confused about their own sexual identity had entered the priesthood; sadly some of these disordered men sexually abused minors; a terrible tragedy for which the Church mourns.”

This is a clear attempt at revisionist thinking suggesting that the sexual abuse of children by priests and other clergy only dates back to the 1960's. How wrong that is. One need look no further than the profound pattern of sexual abuse that occurred to Aboriginal children in the Residential Schools of Canada. Those abuses have now been documented to have gone on as far back as the early 20th century. Edmund Metatawabin, in his profoundly moving book, documents his personal story of abuse. It is a tough read but perhaps Cardinal Burke might want to read it. He will see how extensive the abuse was. His is one of a series of books that tell these painful stories. They also tell of the price that Aboriginal children, their families, their communities and subsequent generations have paid.

Image: Indigo.ca

Pope Francis was obviously right to demote this man.

But there is a large error in the story about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church - it ignores that epidemic of physical abuse that also occurred. Many, like Metatawabin, experienced both. There are millions who experienced the physical abuse only. No one victim is better or worse than the other. Abuse in the Catholic Church was a daily occurrence in schools, churches and orphanages run by priests, nuns and brothers.

Brother Hull sent them outside without jackets. It was a cold day for Vancouver. There was even snow. They were made to hold their hands up so that the blood would run down and the hands would be cold. Then they were strapped (Personal memoir of the author).

The stories are everywhere. The Church has become fixated on one form of the abuse. But strapping, hitting, whipping, name calling, put downs, shaming were all tools employed every day by clergy. The Church is not talking much about that.

I was sent out to that hallway by Brother Bates to await my strapping. It would be the third time this week. I had again been caught day dreaming (Personal memoir of the author).

A problem with highlighting the sexual abuse is that those who suffered the other forms of abuse feel as though they cannot talk because their abuse is less than those who were sexually abused. For those physically abused, they too carry the legacy.

I tried to tell my mom about always getting hit. She wouldn't listen. She said that if I got into trouble that it must be my fault because the brothers were close to God (Personal memoir of the author)

The strength of the abuse was in the constant fear but also in the inability to tell anyone who would care. The full extent of abuse in the Catholic Church needs to be spoken about - all the survivors, regardless of what form of abuse they suffered, deserve both a voice and an audience.

 

Child protection as racist and poverty driven

It is perhaps somewhat odd that two Canadian newspapers would chose to write articles on the child protection system in the same week.  Looking at several inquiries, The National Post calls for reform of the system They start by noting that there will be an inquiry starting in Ontario in early 2015 on the death of Katelyn Sampson. She was murdered in 2008. The Toronto Star noted:

When Irving told the Children’s Aid Society on March 30, 2008, that she did not think she could provide for Katelynn and wanted her out of her home, the agency “passed the buck” to the Native Child and Family Services — Irving is part First Nations — and nothing was done, McMahon stated. (When a Native Services caseworker contacted Irving 16 days later, she lied and indicated the Toronto School Board was providing support and that she wanted the file closed, which it was.)

This inquiry will add to the long list of inquiries into the failures of child protection in Canada. In my research, we have identified about 80 inquires of various natures with at least two more on the horizon.
These will add to the legacies of Matthew Vaudreuil, Phoenix Sinclair, Christian Lee, Babby Annie, Jordan Heikamp, Kim Anne Poppen, Jeffrey Baldwin and so on. The stories are children of poverty but also of the First Nations of Canada. In other words, these are stories of the marginalized in our country.

The Toronto Star is also running a series of stories into the child protection system. They see the racism looking at how Black children are severely over represented.

Last week, the Globe and Mail told the story of Eddie Snowshoe who died through the solitary confinement system that Canada runs. But hist story starts much earlier in the institutional abuse of Canada's First Nations peoples through the residential school system. There, children were systemically abused and neglected. Today, we pay for that with the long standing impact of such broad, racist based social policies. They were designed to take the Indian out of the Indian. Now, we see the impact of fragmented Aboriginal communities and families in  the child protection systems.

It is obvious that child welfare must do a better job of the day to day management of complex cases. There are practice errors that get made and need to be corrected. That is the subject of my research. But society must also be willing to face the fact that there are several issues child protection cannot solve:

• Poverty - which is too often linked to neglect - not intentional neglect but neglect from lack of resources. These are often families where parents struggle with marginal housing and limited income, most often from low wage employment. They try to do their best with what they have but that often falls short of what is needed. Society can address these issues through economic programs.
• Aboriginal child welfare - the gross over representation of First Nations children in child protection care occurs because of the Residential Schools and the legacy they created. Child Welfare cannot fix that. 
• Underfunded mental health programs that leave families vulnerable.

The list can go on but the point here is that child welfare is being asked to "fix" problems that arise from social policies that are well beyond their control. This is a conversation we must have rather than just pointing fingers at a child protection system that cannot fix it!

Three things child protection cannot solve

Jessie, is a 25 year old woman with two children who lives in poverty. She struggles with social support and very irregular child support payments from the father of one of her children. Child protection is involved because she periodically struggles with paying her rent, having enough food and having enough clothes for her children. She is deemed to be neglecting her children.

While the story is fictitious, pretty much anyone who has worked in child protection will recognize this story. The Canadian Incidence Study on maltreatment indicates that about 1 in very 3 substantiated cases involved neglect which is strongly linked to poverty.

Child protection cannot fix poverty which typically arises from poor educational opportunities, low wages, physical or mental health and weaknesses in the social support network. These are systemic problems which need to be addressed at a social policy level.  Governments have the power to deal with these issues but may lack the motivation as poverty is often characterized as the result of laziness.

Studies have shown that a significant number of people who live in poverty work often receiving minimum wage with limited or no benefits. They are also forced to live in neighbourhoods where rents are lower but the community infrastructure and safety may be far more concerning.

Poverty is the result of the interplay of powerful forces which the following graphic shows:

Child protection cannot fix these problems yet they are expected to address the impact of them. If we want to solve child protection cases arising from most forms of neglect, then we need to ask society to tackle poverty.

The second big issue is homelessness - often strongly connected to poverty. Indeed, the The Homeless Hub in their 2014 presentation shows that there is again a key linkage between structural factors, systems failures and individual characteristics. Let's look at those:

Child protection can influence some of these issues. They can certainly create solid, supported transitions for youth who are aging out of the care of child protection. They can support families when someone is coming out of a health or criminal justice facility. But there are limits. Child protection cannot create more affordable housing or more jobs. Yet, when things a falling apart, a child may be taken into care.

The third big issue is the intergenerational impact of failed social policies such as those in Canada where large numbers of Aboriginal children were forced into residential schools. There, they were abused and neglected while in state care. Various forms of such social policies have been implemented in other countries such as the Boarding Schools in the USA and the Swiss contract children. The survivors of such systemic abuses may take generations to repair the widespread damage across communities and peoples. Child protection can offer some supports but it is the communities that need to find solutions.

Part of the discussion is really about asking "What is that child protection should do and what is that society as whole must address?" Otherwise we are setting up for ongoing failures in child protection systems. Then, social workers become the societal janitors left to pick up on the failed social policies - and it is a job they are not suited to.

Let the Sandusky convictions mean something

Throughout North America, if not in many parts of the world, the case of former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky was followed closely. There may well have been a sigh of relief at his conviction on 45 charges. Some will think justice has been done and with Sandusky, maybe it has. But little such satisfaction should exist.

The larger question is how does a Sandusky come to exist for so long in society without intervention. His is hardly the first such case. Indeed, in the same week that Sandusky was convicted, Monseigneur Lynn was convicted in Philadelphia for assisting in the cover up of abuse by priests in the Roman Catholic Church. CNN is reporting  that Penn State not only likely knew what he was doing but chose to not report it.

Then there are other cases in Canada such as Graham James who sexually abused minor hockey players for years. There was the Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland where the Christian Brothers of Ireland physically and sexually abused boys placed in their care. Canada also saw the rampant abuse of children in the Residential Schools, with the last one closing as recently as 1996. The impact on Aboriginal families in Canada was profound. Many have yet to recover both from the abuse and the extensive fracturing of family systems.

If society truly wishes to see the end of these horrific stories of abuse, then it must be willing to open the proverbial Pandora’s Box and talk about what has and is going on. Sandusky is a high profile case in which some of his former victims found the strength to come forward and tell their story. As so often happens, their disclosures come years after the abuse occurred. Victims routinely fear disclosing because the perpetrators often occupy positions of power over the child – be it a parent who threatens harm if they disclose or a person in authority such as Sandusky whose position is such that victims typically feel they will not be believed. Many victims mistakenly feel that the abuse was somehow their own fault.

The recent report on the failure by the Boy Scouts of Canada to properly address the issues of sexual abuse perpetrators amongst their midst shows that one of the solutions is better institutional policies and responses. Without them, sexual abusers remain hidden to carry on.

Secrecy is one of the most potent tools that abusers have in order to keep abusing.  To change this, we need to allow children to tell their story with confidence that they will be believed. But we also need institutions that are willing to hear those children.

Most children who are being abused will not have their situation brought to anyone’s attention. Thus, it is up to ordinary Canadians to decide that abuse should stop and be willing to speak up when they see it. Failure to do so, is to give it tacit approval.

Cases like Sandusky serve a purpose. They create conversation and awareness. These high profile cases are rare. It is the far less visible cases that require us to act. Sandusky could get away with it because, like so many abusers, he was in a position of power. Why are we so willing to turn a blind eye to such people whether they be coaches, priests, teachers or other professionals and carers for children? The tide will start to turn against sexual abuse when we call out the powerful people in children’s lives who break the trust granted them with our children. 

As Eldridge Cleaver said, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Become part of the solution. As a nation, we need to raise awareness of the impact of abuse and help to create solutions. We can stop abuse by supporting families so that their children are safe. Families that need help will need to be able to find it in communities across the country. If abuse occurs outside the family, we can make it safe for our children to tell. You can do this by hearing the voices of children and making sure that a child who discloses is given a safe place to tell their story. You might be that person.

Racial Bias in Child Protection

The question of racial bias in child protection is a crucial one that is not often subject to systemic research. There is an apparent case that it does exist as non-Caucasian children are over represented in child welfare systems in both Canada, Australia and the United States, for example. A question that is in need of review is whether this is due to racial bias or other factors.

In Canada, there has been a series of public policies that have targeted Aboriginal populations. The Residential Schools that ran for over 50 years (with the last one being closed in 1996) meant that several generations of children were removed from parental care. They did not get healthy, culturally significant parenting modeled to them. To the contrary, they received harsh, emotionally and physically abusive (and at times sexually abusive) caregiving. They did not receive the nurturing parenting that created a basis upon which they would know how to care for their own children.

Canada also saw the implementation of policies designed to remove large numbers of children from Aboriginal parental care and placing children in non-Aboriginal homes. This came to be known as the “60s scoop”. Australia saw some similar policies.

Research in the United Sates has shown that black populations are over represented in the child protection system there. Research by Berger et a., (n.d.) raised the question of whether this racial bias might be systemic. They concluded that racial bias is more evident when subjective decisions must be made.

However, their research also indicates that many of the expected bias results were better accounted for socio-demographic issues. Clearly, poverty is one of the most powerful. It can be strenuously argued that, if we really seek to address a lot of child protection concerns, we need to address the question of poverty. A significant portion of child protection caseloads involve economically distressed families. This is particularly so for questions of maltreatment. Thus, we may be bringing into care children because we are not prepared, as a society, to address these fundamental economic questions.

Research that I have reviewed in earlier blogs shows that children growing up in the care of child protection authorities tend to have much poorer long term outcomes as opposed to growing up in their own families. This is true even if those families are just good enough. Thus, the long term societal problems grow because we do not address the question of poverty. This can be construed in the classic economic argument of the rich v. poor and the need for the redistribution of wealth. Given the increasing gaps between the rich and the rest of society, that is a tempting argument.

But it is not one that is likely to influence present political structures where taxpayers are pressing government to be more frugal. We see economic collapses in major economies in several countries. Curiously, of course, such forces will increase poverty and raise the number of maltreatment cases that child protection must address. That in turn, will increase the cost to society.

In the alternative, child protection budgets may not increase resulting in changes to the kinds of cases the get opened. When resources are tight, the threshold for opening a case rises.

Rather than looking at the redistribution of wealth, one might also recognize that costs in the long term for taxpayers go down as we solve these poverty issues. Children who grow up in care cost us dearly – not just in the day to day costs of the state being their caregivers. They tend to have much higher rates of mental illness, crime, substance abuse, incarceration and unemployment. Their children are more likely to also be brought into care. This is very expensive.

Of course, this is not a new argument but it is one that has, thus far, fallen on fallow ground. As citizens, we have trained our politicians to look at shorter term outcomes because we want immediate results. Societies today have little interest in long term thinking. We want solutions now! These are problems that cannot be solved in the now.

Reference:

Berger,L., McDaniel, M., & Paxson, C. (n.d.). Assessing Parenting Behaviors across Racial Groups: Implications for the Child Welfare System. Unpublished manuscript. Downloaded 2012/05/26 at http://socwork.wisc.edu/files/race_parenting_SSR_final.pdf