Too many people who have never gotten their hands dirty in the muck are quick to sit in
judgment on those who are daily immersed in it. I find that very unfair
Which is why I asked for your perspective, and glad to have it.
I have worked closely with about a dozen DSHS staff, and indirectly with some number beyond that. I have also had close communication with some of the attorneys involved in the Wenatchee case, which you have probably heard of. My generalizations were based on this admittedly limited exposure. But I have not yet worked with a social worker who started with the presumption of innocence on the part of parents or alleged abusers. There is always, IME, a sense of "where there's a report of a problem that's smoke, where there's smoke there must be fire, so rather than investigate whether there really is a fire or whether it is just a BBQ on somebody's porch, we are going in with hoses on full blast to root out and extinguish this fire." I think some social workers are traumatized by the cases, one highly publicized here, where citizens call in with concerns about a child and the child is left with the parents and soon thereafter the child is badly beaten or killed. Tragic cases, all. But I think they act to set up a certain paranoia among some aid workers. I notice the same thing among DV counsellors here -- basically, any woman who says she has been a victim of domestic violence is, and any possible facts to the contrary are either inventions or meaningless.
BTW, in Washington the recognition of problems with DSHS has gone so far that there are plans underway in the legislature to break the department up to make it more responsive. I don't know that that will solve any of the problems, since it's obvious that I think the root cause is attitudinal, but at least some light is being shone in some dark corners. |
