The Self-Defeating "System"

It’s interesting how my blog reflects my moods, I have noticed. When things are going fairly well, lighthearted things make it here. When they aren’t there are rants and rages and lots of deep reflective angry things...

Today I was thinking about “Child Protection” and how the system defeats itself. This has been brought on, primarily, by the involvement of our county in our lives. For example, we have a trial coming up ... even though everyone in the court room is in agreement.... but I“ll save that blog for another day.

Right now I am thinking about another situation in which a family had siblings placed with them and now their county is involved. It’s a long, confidential story, but my question is this:

Why do good people, setting out to do a good thing, become suspect the second they try to do it? Why would a part of the system attack people who are seen as heroes by another part of the system?

Part of the problem with the ”system“ is that ”the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.“ For example, I work with social workers on both sides of the picture all the time. One side is the workers who have families looking for kids. The other side is workers who have kids they are looking for families for. I sent out an email about a child to all of my contacts who are social workers of families looking for kids. They read the emails, and if they are interested, they contact me and I give them the contact information for the social worker who has the kids. A few weeks ago one of these family workers asked for contact info. When I gave it to him, he sheepishly responded that he guessed he could walk the study down the hall. Apparently they shared the same building, but were not communicating.

However, more than just the ”left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing“ often the left hand is waiting with an axe to chop off the right hand, or the other way around. Counties, always watching out for their own budget, may not want children with special needs to be placed from another county into theirs because that child might require services that would cost too much. Many ”child protection workers“ are suspicious of the motives of adoptive parents.

My biggest frustration is that people who step up to the plate and say ”Sure, I’ll parent a child who has been birthed, abused, neglected and sometimes tortured by someone else. I will bear the brunt of their pain, I will attempt to deal with their challenging behaviors“ are often slapped by the very system who is asking them to do so. Motives are suspect, a standard for foster and adoptive parents is higher than standards for the abusing neglecting birth parents, and many disruptions occur because another piece of the system steps in to scrutinize the placement.

But regardless of the crap that we go through the bottom line is this: the way the system works is not the childrens’ fault. Whether or not the system improves, children will still be in it. If we do not find people willing to ”march into hell for a heavenly cause“ the children will stay there. And systems were never designed to raise children.

So even when I see adults crushed and bruised by the way they may be treated from start to finish of the process, I will still ask more adults to be willing to do so . . . because to refuse to work with a system that is notoriously inept and bad would mean ABANDONING CHILDREN to that very system. I will not let that happen. I will continue to beg people to willingly suffer, to put their own thoughts, feelings, and self-esteems aside, and to welcome a corrupt system into their lives. For if we refuse to do so, we knowingly say to the system, ”I do not want to work with you, so I now leave you with the task of raising the children.“

I will relentlessly fight to change the system, to point out its errors, to change the minds of the players in the system one person at a time and I will NEVER turn my back on children in order to save adults (myself included) pain and discomfort. Someone has to pay the price, and it is NOT going to be the kids ... because the price they have already paid has been way too high.