The following essay is the latest in the IFCWB essay series, Perspectives on Our Work:
Greetings, and thank you for reading this issue of our ongoing analysis and commentary publication, Perspectives on Our Work.
A report released earlier this year by UNICEF ranked twenty-one economically advanced countries according to six measures of child well-being. The report, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries, ranked countries according to levels of material well-being, health and safety, educational well-being, family and peer relationships, behaviors and risks, and subjective well-being.
Not surprisingly (to many of us at least) the United States was ranked among the lowest of the ranked countries. Only Great Britain was worse in the average rankings. In fact, according to the report, “Great Britain and the United States find themselves in the bottom third of the rankings for five of the six dimensions reviewed.”
Even a casual review of national trends regarding child well-being confirms the above-mentioned report’s conclusions, and should be cause for alarm. Just last month the Annie E. Casey Foundation released the 2007 Kids Count report detailing the current state of child well-being in this country. The results, covering 10 indicators of child well-being, continue to be alarming. According to the report, “the size of the gap between black and non-Hispanic white children varies by indicator, but the outcomes for black children are worse on every one of the 10 indicators.”
Among the indicators… One in three (36%) African American children in this country live in poverty (income below $19,806 for a family of two adults and 2 children), more than three times the percentage for white children and almost double the percentage for all children. The African American infant mortality rate is 13.8 per 1,000 live births, more than twice the national average and almost 2.5 times the rate for white infants.
This data notwithstanding, there are still many African American families and children doing very well, and as I have mentioned previously, thriving against tremendous odds.
Ultimately, I want to strongly encourage all of us to reflect more seriously on the kind of society we live in, and the systems that would be necessary to truly respond to the challenges of struggling families in this country. More specifically, there is an extremely urgent need for us to develop culturally responsive strategies to significantly improve African American child and family well-being.
For those of us working in the child welfare system, it is our obligation to use all of our power and influence to ensure that African American families in need receive the supports that would truly be effective, not just those that have typically been made available.
Relevant services would include (but not be limited to) safe and affordable high quality housing; proven effective substance abuse treatment and rehabilitation programs, effective mental health services comparable to those accessible by families “with means;” stable and family-friendly employment opportunities that pay a living wage; access to free and/or affordable child care; relevant job training and educational advancement programs; safe and publicly accessible recreation and athletic facilities; as well as free comprehensive health care coverage for all families. Far from exhaustive, these would at least make for a good start.
It is imperative that we exhaust all of the support services practical, available and necessary before a child is removed from her or his family. There is nothing more sacred in the realm of African American childhood relationships than the relationship of an African American child to her or his family and community.
When a child must be removed from her or his parents’ home, it is our obligation to find relative caregivers or members of the extended family support network that would be appropriate resource families while the parents work on their challenges. We must ensure that these kinship caregivers and guardianship resource families get at least the same financial resources afforded non-relative (stranger) foster families.
Truly effective support and coordination programs must simultaneously be in place so that birth parents working on their challenges can have constructive interactions with their children and other family members. Experience has demonstrated, and research has documented, that this results in (expedited) family reunification when coordinated effectively.
Our challenge is not just to make the child welfare system that we have known in this society for decades work better. We must leave open for consideration that the foundational values upon which the modern day child welfare system rests is in fact contradictory to the aims of the system reform and transformation efforts we work toward… in fact contradictory to the aim of promoting family and child well-being.
I argue that we must articulate the foundational values that should undergird a truly effective and responsive set of systems that promote comprehensive community development and family well-being. At that point we can identify the real services and support resources families and communities frequently need and develop the structures and institutions that can provide those supports and services effectively and equitable to the need.
Ultimately, this country needs more than an improved child welfare system. We need a fundamentally revamped set of economic and human service systems that truly promote the well-being of family and community. My interactions with families, as well as child welfare and other human service professionals around this country, suggests that this is indeed a possibility.
I firmly believe this country is at a crossroads. We have the know-how and the resources to make this vision a reality. The critical question is whether we have the will, the courage and commitment to do it. Our challenge is to make our voices heard so that individuals with similar ideas can work together. This is our generation’s challenge. We can do this! We will do this! And we will do so in our lifetime!
[Click just below to share your comments!]
The author of this essay, Oronde A. Miller, can be reached via email at omiller@ifcwb.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment