The Community We Will Blog
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Nevada and the Importance of Advocacy for Children by Denise Tenata Ashby, NICRP
When it comes to child welfare, and child well-being in general, Nevada is consistently ranked as one of the poorest performing states in the country. There are several theories about why Nevada ranks so poorly, stemming from inadequate funding to the transiency nature of our community. However, we are not immune from change. Through change - in attitudes, perceptions and behaviors - we can influence the development of positive social systems which will support and empower families to improve outcomes for all our children. Social change does not occur overnight and must involve a broad-based, coordinated effort. We must understand that we are responsible for all children in our state, and that collectively, we can work to ensure their success. Children don't vote and they don't make campaign contributions. So children need advocates who raise their voices to promote a common message aimed at providing real, long-term solutions that focus on prevention and family empowerment.
It is the responsibility of society as a whole to determine socially acceptable standards of care for children, in and out of the child welfare system, and to ensure that there are adequate resources in place to prevent the mistreatment of children, especially those due to common stress factors such as poverty and substance abuse. We need more advocates for children and their families in Nevada. We need to ensure that we work collectively to promote evidence-based policies and practices that will promote the social and economic security of all children and families in our State.
Advocacy is the pursuit of influencing outcomes - including public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions - that directly affect people's current lives. (Cohen, 2001)
Denise Tanata Ashby
- Executive Director, NV Institute for Children's Research & Policy
- Vice President, Children's Advocacy Alliance
- State Director, Every Child Matters in Nevada
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Moving Toward Keeping Families Together by Paul Buehler, Casey Family Programs
Back in the early to mid-1990s we saw a huge influx of children being placed in out of home care nationally. The overriding belief at that time was in order to ensure that children were safe, we must place them in foster care and away from their biological family. The problem we began to run into in the late 1990s was that these children, became adults and they began to emancipate from the foster care system with no adult to guide them or support them. They had no family and no sense of permanence. These children, now adults became homeless involved in the adult corrections and mental health systems and unemployed at rates much higher than young adults who had not become involved in the child welfare system or who had achieved permanence through adoption or guardianship.
When we as a social work profession looked back at many of those families we had removed the children from we found that many parents were no longer a threat to the youth or there were family members willing and able to care for the children that we never contacted. We also found that many of these young adults had experienced multiple foster care placements and had never known stability or felt any sense of permanence as a child. Foster care was never meant to be permanent but somehow we as a nation had allowed an entire generation of children to grow up in temporary foster homes where at a moment's notice or after making a typical adolescent mistake they could be moved to another home.
Over the past few years this trend has begun to change nationally and the number of children in foster care has dropped significantly as children remain safely in their homes or are moved along to adoption or guardianship more quickly. However, this safe reduction has not occurred in Nevada. In fact the number of children in care has risen over the past few years. Although in some cases children can never be left safely with their parents, in the majority of situations providing various services and resources to families can ensure safety for children and avoid out of home placements in foster care. Providing prevention services to families has significantly increased and the number of children in care has continued to decrease throughout the nation without compromising safety.
Finally, in these difficult economic times funding prevention services has become increasingly difficult and a real risk exists that without prevention services the numbers of children in temporary homes may again increase. That is why a concerted effort is needed to ensure families are kept together and that children who do need to be placed in temporary foster care find permanent homes through adoption and guardianship quickly and safely. Nationally, many states and counties have worked with their Community Based Organizations and private Foundations to develop a seamless prevention service array that aims to keep families together or help children find that one permanent adult in their lives. Through the Community We Will project it is clear that Clark county is on that same path.
Paul Buehler, MSW, LCSW
Casey Family Programs
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EVERYONE Has a Role in Protecting Children by Danielle Dreitzer, Executive Director of Hopelink
Given all of the attention the case of Jaycee Dugard has received lately, I thought it was a relevant example of how a community's involvement can and could have made a huge difference in the lives of so many-Jaycee, her family, her children. Neighbors say they knew there were children living in the backyard, and while it sounds like law enforcement was called, it does not appear that anyone ever notified child protective services. This vital system in our community has been much maligned, criticized, and ridiculed. Certainly, our community's systems need some work, and at the same time, I think few of us can truly appreciate the difficulty of this work, and few are willing to acknowledge that the responsibility lies with all of us to take the safety and well being of our community's children to heart. There is something that EVERYONE can do about this issue. If you want to criticize, I challenge you to also take action. The action can be small or large, but everyone has a role, and everyone can make a difference.
You have an opportunity to make a difference anytime you see a child hurt, in need, or poorly supervised. You can offer help to a neighbor, friend or family member that you know is in a stressful situation. It can be as simple as offering an overwrought mother an hour or two of respite in an effort to prevent her from taking the stress out on her children. It can be cooking a meal to give a family a break or because you are worried that it is the end of the month, and they may not have enough food. It can be reaching out to a friend of your child's who you know doesn't get a lot of support or encouragement at their own house. If you fear the situation is a true danger, it is your opportunity and your responsibility to contact Child Protective Services and make them aware of the situation. While those of us in the social service field are mandated reporters, it is the moral responsibility of everyone in the community to make that call when you fear a child is in danger, being neglected, or not attending school.
Before you step in to vilify the systems that exist, take some time to think, really think, about how hard that job is. How would you make the call to determine whether a child is safe, or not? Would you be able to predict that a parent who has no history of violence is about to snap and smother a child? Would you be willing to take a child, literally kicking and screaming away from the only home he has ever known, regardless of how dirty that home was? Would you risk putting a child in a stranger's home, doing perhaps irreparable emotional damage, simply because her parents couldn't afford to pay the electric bill in the summer? And, how would you know when it was okay and safe to bring those children back home? All of these are real concerns, real struggles, and real choices faced by those in " the system" every day.
In the community WE will, those who take the time to point out problems must commit to working toward solutions. Those who lob criticism and insults must take action-volunteer at a school, become a foster parent, and financially support a non-profit organization that serves children. EVERYONE can and must make a commitment to create a community in which we all want to raise our children. Calling out faults and problems doesn't fix them; hard work, discussion, collaboration, and new energy fixes them. It is time for all of us to put our money, our time, our ideas and ideals where our mouths are. Commentary on the system's weaknesses is important but not sufficient. This community has resources, knowledge, a strong faith base, great programs, organizations, and services. If these resources are utilized and supported appropriately, families can receive the support, encouragement, and assistance needed. If we all commit to the community WE will, we can provide families with what they need to successfully raise their children despite challenges and poverty.
While we may never be able to completely prevent children from having to be taken from their parents and homes, we can certainly minimize the need to do so. No parent is perfect. Everyone has different standards of cleanliness, understanding of appropriate child activities, and emphasis on education. Ask just about any child though, where they want to be, and who they trust most, whom they want to be with, and they will tell you HOME with their PARENTS. The majority of children raised in foster care endeavor to return to their birth parents. The opportunity and ability to support parents in raising their children without judgment is the true statement of what we are working towards. This is the community I will. How about you?
Danielle Dreitzer
Executive Director, Hopelink
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Welcome Blog by Tom Morton, Director of the Clark County Department of Family Services
The Community We Will is a broad based community effort to engage all Clark County residents in answering one profoundly important question, "What kind of community do we 'will' for our children, especially those at risk of child abuse and neglect?" We now have very strong evidence that adverse early childhood experiences, particularly abuse and neglect and its related trauma, have profound affects on the adult lives of such children. At the same time, separating children from parents who can be helped to safely parent only adds one more trauma along the pathway to adulthood for such children.
The fabric of children's welfare cannot be woven entirely from government programs, or even the joint efforts of government and nonprofit organizations. This fabric begins with a community's commitment to the well-being of all children, ensuring that children are safe and that their educational, health, mental health and social development needs are met.
In most all cultures, the family is the primary source of safety and nurture. But in all cultures it is also true that the nuclear family is assisted and augmented by extended family, the clan or tribe, neighbors and the community at large. This has been true for all time and it remains true today.
Most children who experience abuse and neglect do not need to lose the family that created the child in order to remain safe and to develop well. But families struggling with poverty, mental illness, substance abuse and domestic violence can reach thresholds at which strengths that once existed are no longer able to provide the protection and nurture needed. For the most part, these are temporary circumstances if parents can get the support and help they need. This requires the commitment of the community as a whole, a community that sees families as a solution rather than as simply the problem, a community willing to help rather than just blame.
We believe that the citizens of Clark County imbue personal and religious values born of compassion and personal commitment. We believe that beyond the colorful lights and magnificent buildings of the Las Vegas Strip there are neighborhoods whose permanent members prefer that their community be known for the quality of its character, who share a vision of Clark County as a place where children grow to become contributing adults and families can get the help they need to make this happen. The Community We Will is about the social fabric with which we wrap children and families and protect and nurture their future and the future of our community.