The Complexities of Child Welfare with Danaah McCallum
The child welfare system is a continuum of services that is setup to ensure children are safe and families have the appropriate resources to provide for the needs of their kids.. but does it? In our episode today, Josh talks to Danaah McCallum, a woman with over 20 years of experience working with the Department of Children and Families, about the complexities of this work and how it intersects with other systems. What do you think about the child welfare system?
More on DCF.
More on the Department of Mental Health.
More on WEC.
Transcript for this episode
DANNAH MCCALUM:
My name is Dannah McCallum. I am a resident of a Worcester, Massachusetts. I was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, and I have lived in Massachusetts since 1998. And I'm the mother of an adult daughter as well. Professionally. I have well over 20 years of experience in child welfare. I currently work for the US Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to that, I worked at the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families for over 20 years. And I currently work as an adjunct professor for Elms College in the satellite program at Springfield Technical Community College. I teach American Government and I teach social welfare policy. So that's a little bit about me.
JOSHUA CROKE: Today, we’re talking with Danaah about the Department of Children and Families, DCF, and, more broadly, child welfare and how it intersects with other systems addressing youth needs. If you listened to our second episode with Katie Byrne from the Department of Youth Services, DYS, you’ll recall our mention of DCF and how many youth and families have had to work with both DCF and DYS. I know that’s a lot of acronyms, but again, we’re addressing systems change and one of the things we’re continuing to unravel is how complex and often complicated navigating these structures are.
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In case you’re not familiar with DCF, I asked Danaah to give us an overview of the role that system plays in the lives of youth. Oh, and I’d also like to mention that Danaah had few disclaimers before we spoke; she is not on the show in any official capacity relative to her current or former positions and that, as a public servant, she wanted to note that she was on her own personal time when we recorded this interview.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
So the department- DCF stands for the Department of Children and Families, and it is the agency in Massachusetts that is charged with protecting children from abuse and neglect from by caregivers. I mean, that's sort of the, the simple answer. But I think along those lines, DCF also has at least in my mind, a charge to promote wellbeing as a whole for families. So as much as you might have families interfacing with the Department of Children and Families specifically for services relating to abuse and neglect the department of children and families also services families on a voluntary basis. So you could, for example have a a youth who might be having some difficulties or behavioral difficulties in the communities, the family could also reach out to the department and request help specific to a child's or an adolescent's needs as well. DCF also Massachusetts DCF in particular is one of the States who actually services youth beyond the age of 18. So you could have a youth who, for example has been involved with the department for his, throughout his or her life has come into care and then has remained who remained involved with the department beyond age 18.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Okay. And so one of the roles that you've held was the Child Welfare Investigator, right. Could you tell us a little bit about that role and the work that you did there?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
So, the Child Welfare Investigator is the first person typically to interface in person with the family. So the child wall welfare investigator is the person who receives the report of abuse and neglect from the screener. And they actually are the ones who they go out to make the determination as to whether or not abuse and neglect abuse and or neglect of a child has occurred by someone who is in the role of a caregiver for the child. You go out, you assess the situation, you talk to the children, you would talk to the family, you would talk to people who know the family. You talk to teachers, you talk to medical professionals to try and get sort of an entire picture of the family to help better inform your decisions about, you know, whether abuse and neglect has occurred. And then as the investigator, you would write, you know, write your response to that. What do you, his is what I think occurred based on what I learned during the investigation. And you share that information with say, you know, your supervisor, your manager, and then collectively a decision would be made us to, you know, whether abuse occurred and whether to keep the case open, whether there was no substantiated concern and whether or not the case should be closed.
JOSHUA CROKE:
So that's a lot of responsibility and sounds very overwhelming.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
Yes. yes. And I mean, also keeping in mind that, you know, child welfare investigators are you know, I recall having to go out in the, you know, in the middle of the night as a hotline investigator and it is very overwhelming. You know, I think as a child welfare investigator, you sometimes fear making the wrong, obviously making the wrong decisions, right. So it's like, okay, I see this situation one way. And you know, one of your fears is leaving a child in a situation that may not be the best situation or removing a child because inherently based on your fear of what might happen. So it's that definitely these definitely are not easy decisions that child welfare investigators are making.
JOSHUA CROKE:
And so when we talked earlier we one of the things that you talked about was a desire to have like less removal of children from homes. Could you talk a little bit more about that and why that's kinda your position?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
So, I mean, I think the short of it for me is that I think when children can safely be in their homes and with their families, that that's where there need to be. I think that obviously there are situations where children are at eminent danger. I think where it gets fuzzy is where you have concerns or fear that something might happen as opposed to a child actually being in danger. And so I think when you don't explore the nuances of what is actually happening in that family, you can end up with a high number of children being removed from their homes when perhaps what they really might need are additional supports additional services and not necessarily a removal from the home. I think, you know, when children are able to safely remain in their families or even with family in the event that a parent isn't able to, I feel like it offers a level of stability and support that they might not necessarily receive when coming into foster care.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
I think that, you know, a lot of foster care systems, they're overwhelmed and, and, and, you know, they're high number of kids coming into care. So I think as a result of that, you could have a kid bouncing from place to place. So I feel like that coming into care needs to be the absolute last resort. Because I don't think the system is set for high, you know, for a high number of children to become, to come in and out of care. I mean, to come into care, which is why I think you see, you know, youth children bouncing from placement to placement. So you know, I guess, I guess the short of it is that I think kids belong with their families when that can safely happen. And, and that needs to be a priority.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Right. And, and community, and consistency is such an important part of youth development and growth. And I was hosting a, or facilitating a workshop the other day, addressing, again, the, these systemic challenges that we see and how DYS, you know, the Department of Youth Services and DCF, intersect or are challenged as systems that exist and then how that works or doesn't work with the family and the community. And one person shared a story that resonated with me about how a DCF involved youth was arrested in place in detention accused of I think it was like shoplifting or, or something like that. So it was placed in DYS custody or, you know, into a detention facility. And then even though that situation was resolved within like a few days when that young person was released from detention, the spot in the DCF home that they were living in was filled. And so that young person then had to move into a different DCF facility. Is that something that is common or like these situations come up?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
So I would say that, you know, from my experience, my child welfare experience, I would say that that is definitely probably common because the other thing you have to look at is I'm not sure how old this, this young person is. But there's a lack of, you know, foster homes for older youth. And, you know, people are more reluctant to take older youth into foster care into their homes and to adopt them and so forth. So I would not be surprised to learn that, you know, something along those lines happen. And so you have this situation where in some States, you know, kids end up what they call hotline and going from, you know, a temporary placement to a temporary placement to a temporary placement sort of night tonight until you know, until the agency is able to find to find a home that will take that youth. And I think this is why, you know, at least from my perspective, kinship homes are important because kids are less likely, statistically speaking kids are less likely to bounce around if they're placed with kin. So I, I would not be surprised if, you know, at hearing that story for sure.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Definitely and one of the other things that we're constantly trying to tackle with this show is just like systemic issues, like systemic racism and, you know, just like systemic classism, that's built into these systems. And I wonder if you can share a little bit about your experiences with like financial security or food security and like the role that plays in, you know, assessments of, of young people's like safety in their spaces.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
Yeah. So what I, what I can say is that I don't, I think, I don't think that the child welfare system is exempt from being rooted in systemic racism and institutional racism. And I want to clarify, cause you know, these things sort of this podcast may get around. I want to clarify when I say that, that I don't mean that social workers are racist or or that DCF is racist, but the, the systems- pretty much every system in particular in the United States is rooted in some sort of institutional racism. And so the one of the- it's sort of like this ripple effect. So you have situations where you have an, overrepresentation say people of color in the criminal justice system that ends up trickling down in terms of, you know, well, what types of jobs can people do- can people have if they have this criminal record, so then you go into a lack of jobs and then you go into a lack of a lack of resources. And then sometimes there's this sort of this misrepresentation of issues of poverty being neglect. And so I think that, you know, a lot of times you'll have situations where families have resolved, say for example, the issues relating to the reason whythe, you know, the actual safety concern. But perhaps the children are still being held by the department because the family hasn't been able to identify housing. So there's just this whole, there's this whole ripple effect. And maybe they can't, maybe they can't have, they don't have housing because they don't have the resources to, you know, do first last and, and you know, security, or maybe they don't have housing because they were evicted before.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
So then they're having a difficult time in that way, or maybe they don't have housing because they have a criminal record. And so there's, this, it's just this ripple effect from the criminal justice system down to the education system, down to the child welfare system. Another, another way that I think systemic racism plays into the child welfare system is very specific to kinship providers. So again, going back to the over representation of say for example, black people in the criminal justice system, and then also black children are also overrepresented in the, in the child welfare system. So when those kids come into care obviously no child welfare agencies just going to hand over a child to a relative, you know, they're going to be background checks and so forth. And so if you're overrepresented in the criminal justice system, you're more likely to have a criminal record. And that is very likely to prevent you from being able to care for a relative who comes into care. So again, just literally ripple effects all, all across the board relating to relating to the disproportionality in the criminal justice system.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Right. And one of the statistics that popped into my head while you were sharing that was our guest in episode two, Katie Byrne, who works for the Department of Youth Services through JDAI, the juvenile detention alternatives initiative, which is actually a national initiative started by the Annie Casey Foundation. And the work that they've done over the past 10 years has resulted in like a 55% drop in the number of youth who are detained in detention through like DYS in the country, which is a really remarkable statistic. But then when you segment that 70% decrease for white kids, like 39% decrease for black kids, right. And I think it's even lower for like Latino kids. And so like that is just again like a glaring example of like, we may be, as a system, re-evaluating the need for detention, but who is being detained is still not improving at an equal pace.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
Right. and just to go along your statistics, I did a little bit of reading yesterday and the most recent information that I have is specific to African American kids, 15% of the population in the United States and 32% of the child welfare system. So, you know, again you know, those youth end up being in care for longer periods of time. And, you know I don't know- how do we tackle that, I guess.
JOSHUA CROKE:
And this is one of the things that we're hoping to really create or spark some ideas in people listening. Cause I think, you know, this show has all sorts of folks listening, people who are practitioners in this work, people who are impacted by these systems and as like a community design facilitator, I'm constantly wanting to bring people together across systems to talk about their individual challenges and then brainstorm and create solutions together. And I think, you know, when we talk about child welfare and we go back to what you were talking about around the institutional racism that has been a factor in the determinations of placement for kids, whether they can be with family or not, you know, you also have to factor in like redlining and housing and like the right, like, and this is for, you know, for those unfamiliar, with like red lining and the work done to like keep like black Americans from generating wealth and like holding like property, you know, please look into that.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
I know, cause we could be here all day talking about that, but yes.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Right. And, and so it goes, it for me, so much of this comes back to almost like a Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, right? And it's like, if we are not providing pathways for stable housing for food security, of course, we're going to be continuing to overwhelm systems that are addressing symptoms that are down the path, like down the pipeline of what the root cause of these issues are.
DANAAH MCCALUM:
Absolutely. Could not agree more.
JOSHUA CROKE:
So can you give, since we're talking about systems, can you give us like a rapid overview of some of the systems that intersect with child welfare? Because I want listeners to understand some of the complexity here and why a lot of these things that I feel like at dinner table conversations, people are like, well, why don't they just do this? You know? And, and just to kind of paint the landscape of-
DANNAH MCCALUM:
Right. So the Department of Children and Families, at least in Massachusetts, where I worked for many years, we interfaced routinely with the Department of Youth Services. So would not be uncommon to have a youth who, whose family had both involvement relating to abuse and neglect. And then for the youth to be involved with the Department of Youth Services for quote unquote delinquent behavior, so to speak. Another agency that the department interfaces with is the Department of Transitional Assistance for formerly known or commonly known to people as Welfare. And so that particular agency deals with with children, with children and families around services you know, relating to transitional assistance for for families who have needs as well as Medicaid which is the which is what all of the children who were involved with DCF- or who are not involved necessarily, but who in the custody of DCF, they typically are are given Medicaid.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
And these, these two agencies are the two agencies that I think, at least in my mind, I think could communicate or could work together a little bit better specifically around the issues where there's this poverty that may be considered neglect, but really it's more, it's more poverty. And I, and one of the things that I think comes to mind for me around these two agencies where I wish they work together more specifically- is specifically around housing. So I know when I was a social worker, for example, if I had a family that had resolved and I, I mentioned this briefly, but I'm going to bring it up again because it's, I think it's important if I had a family that had resolved all of the issues necessary to say, for example, have their child returned home, that parent could not even start the process going on a wait list for shelter or housing or anything until that child was physically back in their care. And I think that, that for me just doesn't make a lot of sense, right. If they're a wait list, why do you, like, why can't you, why can't you preemptively be on the waiting list for housing? Why do you need to have your, your child in your care to sort of get the ball rolling? And so I think that, that those two agencies, while they could, could work together to sort of address that and to make that process a little more efficient, I don't think that it's as efficient as, as it could be at least here in Massachusetts. I'm not sure how it works in other, in other State; or if there have been any recent changes to the system. But I see that as sort of detrimental to efficiency and progress.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
The other agency that the department would offer would interface with, or families that involved with DCF is would interface with, would be, say, for example, the Department of Mental Health. So sometimes you have these, you know, these families and these children who might be sort of on the cusp of sometimes you can't figure out if it's behavioral. Is it mental health? Are there underlying issues in the home that are causing the behavior of, of the, of the young person or the adolescent? I mean, I think I'm personally of the belief, and I guess I could probably say this is that- I typically think if children are acting out- I typically think that there's a reason for it. I don't really think they're bad kids. So I'm under the impression that most of it is not really like delinquent behavior, that there are some, either underlying issues at home or there are underlying mental health issues, unfortunately parents sort of have to choose. So if you think your child may or may not fall between, you know, DCU may want help from DCF, but then you may realize, no, I actually want help from DMH. Once you start that process with DCF, you can sort of forget about working with DMH because DMH will not touch a family if the family is currently involved with DCF.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
So, you know, I think as you said, sometimes people think it's easy for parents to navigate these systems and it really is not, it's not all that easy. You know, I field questions from, you know, from people, people who I know personally who are like, I, you know, up against a wall, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with my kid, you know, which agency, Oh, I had no idea that I couldn't be involved with DCF and DMH and you, and you really can't. So so that's just a little bit of the insight that I have regarding those agencies.
JOSHUA CROKE:
One of the things that always pops into my mind during this, you know, I talk about various forms of privilege a lot. And one of the positions of privilege, which I don't think is talked about in that way, as much as it might have the opportunity to be is time privilege, and like the, the need for having so much time to be able to navigate these various systems. And so like, and often we, I think from a systems level take advantage of time people don't really have, but this is their kids, right? So they're forced into making this time. And so what do you give up there, right? Like, do you have to leave work and do you risk your job and your employment and the income that you're trying to, you know, use to stabilize your family in order to engage with these systems to try and address the needs of your family. And so that's something that rolls around in my head a lot.
JOSHUA CROKE:
And then also relative to how this is so interconnected, you know, when you're talking about not believing that there's any bad kids, which I am so in agreement with this echoes back to our first podcast episode with Jennifer Davis Carey of the Worcester Education Collaborative talking about how all of these experiences and all of the systems that we see providing services to address challenges in our community are laid in the grounds of the public school. And one of the things that we really focus on in the education space right now, and I do work with the Worcester Education Collaborative and in some of the equity centered educational development work in, in the city of Worcester is trauma informed, learning, and care and prioritizing social and emotional learning needs of our young people to address, like, if you're acting up in class more often than not and I would argue to say a hundred percent of the time something is going on in which is causing you to act out. And I spoke with a young man the other day who grew up in and out of having stable housing. So would get yelled at, by a teacher for not having a pencil in class. And he was like, I slept outside last night, you know? And like we haven't built our system to properly respond to the fact that kids aren't just students, kids are like people growing up in this country. And so like education, child welfare, housing, like all of these systems are so interwoven or should be interwoven and they're not currently. Right?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
And unfortunately, I don't know that the education system for those youth really seeks to intervene in any other ways, other than through DCF. And I think that can be problematic. You know, I think that again, and this isn't, this isn't a knock on the education system, but I think you know, I think of Worcester in particular, I mean, there was a big, a big issue in Worcester with the rate at which you know, students of color were disciplined right at a disproportionate rate. I mean, the numbers don't lie. They make up this percentage and this percentage has been disciplined. So I don't, you know, unfortunately or situations where you know, kids of color may very well be over reported to the Department of Children and Families or child protection agencies in general as opposed to say for example you know, education is education systems or schools directly contacting parents.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
You know, I always, I always wish when I see these sort of these TV shows where the teacher comes and she knocks on the parent's door and she's like, Oh, such and such, hasn't been in school and, you know, we were worried and I'm like, you know, and like, yeah, the odds of that, I mean really happening probably fairly slim. And I don't, you know, I'm, I'm probably oversimplifying it some, but boy oh boy- Um how helpful would that be? Or, you know, the times where the teachers and the students lived in the same communities. All of those things sort of impact how well, you know, these systems you know, interface with one another.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Right. And we know from data and research, the impact for every child, you know, across you know, across racial identity to have diverse teachers as they grow up through school. And nationally 80% of teachers are white women here in Worcester, that numbers, that percentage is even higher. And so we have you know, that reflection of, you know, a national statistic in which we know is more beneficial for youth development and youth access to education. If they have like a diverse leadership team that they see as they, as they go through schools. And the other thing that I think a lot about is, is resources and resource allocation. And for listeners don't shut off the podcast just yet, but I want to briefly, I briefly want to touch on school resource officers and the, just to plant the seed of future conversations that we will have on the show about resources and about priorities and about the role police officers play in schools currently.
JOSHUA CROKE:
And I think this is so important because when you talk about how the schools sometimes interface with DCF or DYS as a escalation of disciplinary action within the schools, if that escalation occurs and a police officer is walking down the hallways and is the person responsible for that escalation, this is what truly catalyzes and realizes the school to prison pipeline, which we know most negatively impacts youth of color. And, you know, here in Worcester locally, there's an School Resource Officer budget of about a million dollars for salaries for seven resource officers, I believe is the number four of which are stationed full time at an individual school for the high schools in the community. The two other officers- or two or three out there. Officers kind of navigate the elementary and middle schools and just kind of go in and, and as check-ins, and I was in a conversation the other day where someone said school resource officers are in schools to prevent from external threats. And my response back to that was if that is the case, why are they only in four schools and not in every school? A. And why are we seeing the, you know the escalation of students who are being arrested for things that I know when I was going to school in a like white suburb would never have resulted in an arrest, it would have been a, you have a detention, or you need to sit down or you need to just walk out of class and it never would have escalated in the way that we're seeing it in the, you know in the school system today. So I want people to just think generally about police in schools. And if you have thoughts on that, send us a note to send us, the show, a note, but appreciate you letting me go on that tangent.
JOSHUA CROKE:
I want to go back to the conversation of like, if removals required looking at families first and relative to that around place-based reform and reimagination versus like people based reform and reimagination, we've seen so much disinvestment from communities, you know, in this, in this country that plays a role in the economic disparity and like the over-policing of certain neighborhoods and districts and all of that playing out into the landscapes of, you know department of children and families, department of youth services and things like that. So could you talk to me a little bit more about some of your thoughts around that and what we might do better?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
So I think, you know, the saying that it takes a village, I think, you know, some people might think it's overplayed or overstated, but it is the absolute unequivocal truth. I think when children need to be removed from his or her, her home because their parents aren't able to care for them. I think as child welfare professionals, we have got to do a better job with keeping those kids in their, in their families or in in situations where they are with folks who are like family to them, not necessarily by by the, by blood relation, so to speak. I think part of how you do that is and I, I do think that over the year, some agents, some, some child welfare agencies may have gotten better at this. And that is right from the beginning of the, your, you know, the agency's involvement with the family is asking that family right off the bat, who is important to you.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
If something happened to you, who would be in a position to be who would you call to take care, take care of your children if something happened? I mean beginning to document that stuff early on in the event that a child needs to, or young adult needs to come into placement. Asking the young adults who is your person who can you rely on who do you call when you, you know, are having a difficult day and so forth? I think, you know, I, I mentioned, and I think I might've mentioned this in sort of our pre-call is I grew up in, in Newark and it was, you know, we, I often joke about it cause what's, there's obviously a city, but Newark where I grew up is like, you know, what's almost feels like a suburb sometimes to me.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
And so I grew up I grew up where a lot of youth were being raised by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and so forth. And you know, I think about, you know, points in times in my life personally, where I could have potentially ended up in foster care if it weren't for like relatives, like, okay, yeah. She, you know, she can come stay with us for a little while or whatever the case may be. And I don't think that as a system, I think we sort of say it casually, "Yup you know what, it'd be better off if these youth are with kin", but I don't know how much due diligence we do as child welfare professionals, when it actually comes down to the nitty gritty. Right. So if it comes down to, okay, you got to run a CORI on this relative, they may have an issue that may require a waiver, or it comes down to, Oh, you know what?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
We've got this family who lives here and they can take the kid. I think sometimes the system is so overwhelmed that social workers may actually say, it's, it's easiest. It's just easiest to place this child with this foster parent, as opposed to looking looking for kin. I don't think that the system in particular you know, I think if we're talking about trending upwards with children being removed due to the opioid crisis I don't think the system can handle, I don't think we have enough, you know, non-related foster parents to handle the, the number of kids who are coming into care. So you really do not have a choice other than to to really to exercise diligence in recruiting, Ken and looking at situations where it's not just blood relatives, it's looking at the neighbor. We've, I, you know, when I worked for DCF, there would occasionally be teachers who would come in to say, you know, I'll move this kid out of my class. Because, you know, I, I understand he's, I mean, granted, those were few and far between, but they did happen. And so I would say if we could do better, it's, it's basically identifying those potential caregivers potential caregivers early on in the, in the life of the involvement with the, with the family, before it even reaches the level of a removal.
JOSHUA CROKE:
So I have a potentially ignorant question. So when foster families take in youth, are they given financial resources to support that?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
Yes.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Okay. And does that come through DCF?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
It comes through DCF. And the, the depending on, and I'm probably, I don't want to go too much into the weeds, but sometimes a percentage of that child's placement is reimbursed by the federal government through what we call Title-4E funding. So and it's not all of it, and it's only for certain kids who meet a certain criteria.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Okay. And so I guess where I'm going with that question is if family placement is approved, are family given supportive resources, or is it just like you got the approval to be with family?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
If a family goes through as a kinship, what we would call a kinship foster family, those families are reimbursed at this at typically the same rate as a departmental foster home. I mean, but there are variations of foster care. There's, you know, there was I don't know if they still call it, I'm pretty sure they don't call it specialized foster care anymore, but there's this specialized foster care, that's more like contracted foster care. And these foster parents that typically through a private agency that contracts with the departments and they get paid at typically a higher rate than departmental foster parents and kinship foster parents. But yes, the pay is roughly equal between the two.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Okay. Yeah, because my mind is going like again, to resourcing and like allocation and like, are there opportunities to create more funding, like fund opportunities to support family stability with some of these transitions?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
Obviously, that's a great question. And so the short answer to that is yes. That, you know, and again, probably going into the weeds, but but there are definitely services and reimbursements that come or potentially can come from the federal government around, you know, support for that States would get specific to supporting kinship providers. And then there's also there's also wait- we were talking about funding. So definitely there are other funding sources. And then the other thing is that the federal government will sometimes incentivize or trying to at least incentivize prevention services and, and giving States money specifically for prevention services. A lot of it is just, I think sometimes the States really digging into how to effectively implement preventive services. I mean, it sounds, it sounds really, really, really good, but I think sometimes in real life, what happens is that I think people are kind of thinking quickly and they're like, is this, can I put a prevention service in to remove this, to avoid removing this child? Or is it easier to remove this child based on, you know, say for example, how long it might take for these services to, to come into play. So I, I think that there, that I think that there's money out there. I think that sometimes it's difficult to figure out how to effectively use that money and then how to determine when you do use it, how are we interpreting the data to really know whether or not it's actually working?
JOSHUA CROKE:
So this really, again, raises, it brings me back to this recent workshop that I did with DYS looking at our, we brought multiple stakeholders together, people who were attorneys, people who were parents of kids who went through you know, DYS youth services involvement. We had a young person who went through detention and like different programs to support like his own personal development and growth. And one of the things that everybody identified was we want, we believe that there's the most opportunity for pre like pre-arrest and like pre-incident to intervene and create systems that support the development of young people so that these interactions and these arrests don't even occur. And so one of the challenging parts of that is like, while everyone agrees to that, that's not really what DYS is charged to do. Their budget is around detention and providing like services surrounding, like once a child is arrested and put into the system and go into DYS, like that's what DYS is focused on. And that's why one of the reasons we created this show is to talk about like, okay, if pre-incident is the biggest opportunity to really address this stuff, how do we get funding to go into like a pre-incident system?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
Like a divergent program.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Exactly.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
And so I do think that the courts actually do get money for, you know, to institute some programs around diversion. But I also think it goes to the larger issue- judges have discretion, right. And how is it that they use their discretion? Right. So, you know, I, you could argue that not all of these youth need to go into the, into the system. You could easily say, okay, the judges can use their discretion. If this particular youngster is in need of a specific service to sort of prevent them from being, you know, committed to to, to DYS. And I think your statistics earlier speak to the fact that that seems to be happening or could potentially be happening for some youth, but just not for all youth. So so yes, I do think that, you know, my understanding is that, that there is money along those lines to help in sort of the implementation of diversion programs and I don't know, specifics or how much States receive you know, and whether it's enough impact anything in a meaningful way but I do know that, you know, judges can use their discretion to sort of mitigate some of that.
JOSHUA CROKE:
That's right. And the way that systems are built as well is, you know, anytime I do any type of nonprofit consulting work, one of the first questions I ask an organization is at what level of success for whatever it is you do, do you no longer need to exist. Right. And I don't know if our systems ask themselves that enough of like, why do we need this system, right? Why do we need you know, Department of Children and Families? Like, why do we need Department of Youth Services, right. If we can really address the again, the like root cause of why these systems have been created and often systems are built in response to need and not the most like innovative or reflective on how they could completely be changed or re-imagined. So what would the world look like if, or what would the world look like where DCF was no longer needed to exist?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
Well, I could, I guess I can say now my bias is showing, cause I'm like, I don't know what the world would look like without DCF. I probably wouldn't have a job. But if DCF did not exist for me, I would see that I would see a place where where people had access to housing that they needed housing. I would say that people had a routine access to mental health services, that there was no such thing, as you mentioned, as food insecurity that people had access to education this, the same access. Everyone has the same access, cause we all know that there's some level of access, but it's not always equal so equal access and equal opportunity. And so I think some of those, some of those issues are at the root cause of some of the poverty issues.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
And so I think if a lot of those issues were resolved, you would minimize the need for an agency like the department of children and families. I mean, honestly I struggle with saying that that DCF could no longer exist because, you know, I think that sometimes there are, you know, obviously there are issues where people are just largely dysfunctional or they have significant mental health needs that lead them to, you know, behave in a certain way towards their children. So I guess I struggle with it, but at the time we'd have -they'd have access to those services that would actually work to minimize those that the, the impact of the mentor oh, health needs.
JOSHUA CROKE:
What motivates you to keep doing the work that you do?
DANNAH MCCALUM:
So I, I think I kind of touched upon it a little bit with, you know, my own personal experiences. I think play, play a role in it. I think about you know, I think about sort of my life and I think by some standards I'd be considered successful so to speak. But I think about sort of where, where I came from and how my life could have been. And so I'm- it's always in the, it's always in the back of my head that, you know yeah, I may have made some good decisions for myself, but also it's in the back- it's always in the back of my head, that one wrong decision or one miss opportunity or lack of access lack of access and lack of opportunity I think could have, you know, sort of, you know, I could have been a DCF client myself and I that's always in the back of my head.
DANNAH MCCALUM:
And so I think I'm always in the I'm always thinking about how how, how we can, how I can help to help others sort of be better or reach whatever potential they feel like they want to reach, or you know, am I in my current role, like think about some of the issues that we've talked about with the, with the systems and so on my current role, I'm like, okay, I work for the federal government now. So I want to help go in and sort of change those systems and hold those systems accountable if they're not interfacing with families appropriately, or if the policies that they have set up are not fully meeting the needs of those children and families. I want to be involved in that. Because I, I realize how- I realized how important it is and I realize, you know, unfortunately in some situations who you have as a social worker or what office you're in can greatly impact what your you know, what your in result with the agency is. And I think I'm a, I'm a huge advocate for wanting to see you know, children and families be treated well within the child welfare system.
JOSHUA CROKE: Today, we talked about a lot; as usual. I’d like to reflect on a couple things before we wrap up. 1) We put a lot of responsibility on the backs of individuals to make decisions about what happens in the lives of young people. How might we create supportive environments for these people; from child welfare investigators to judges, that also hold them accountable to make the most informed decisions of actual need?
2) I’ll just repeat something Danaah that is important; sometimes there is a misrepresentation of neglect based on issues of poverty. How might we continue to create stronger supports for families that are struggling with basic needs such as housing and food so they might best support the needs of their family and not be faced with entering a system like DCF?
3) Related to two; Danaah mentioned “ripple effect”; How might we better tune into the core issues people face and address that challenge before it ripples into complex and intersecting systems like DYS, DCF, DMH, DTA, and more?
4) We’ve talked about this one before, but it has come up in, I believe, every conversation: asking the young people being affected what they feel their needs are. How might we center youth voices in decisions that affect their lives?
End Credits
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Public Hearing is created and produced by Action! by Design. We use design thinking, facilitation, and storytelling to help strengthen community in a way that is inclusive, equitable, and prosperous. You can find our show wherever you listen to podcasts and on WICN 90.5FM, Worcester’s NPR affiliate station. Thank you to the United Way of Central Massachusetts for supporting community conversations through podcasting and radio.
I’m your host, Joshua Croke. Our Creative Producer is Myka Papetti. Our Audio Producer is Giuliano D’Orazio. Original music by Giuliano D’Orazio. Our intern is Ellie Garfield from Clark University.
To learn more about us, visit actionbydesign.co // Thanks for listening!
