Want to improve the foster care system in Kansas? Let’s support caseworkers.

Caseworkers for Kansas Child Protective Services can be motivated by fear, writes our columnist. (Sam Bailey/Kansas Reflector)

From 2001 to 2011, I worked as a Child Protective Services social worker in Kansas, growing disillusioned with the effect of foster care on families.

In 2013, I was investigated by CPS and the police for child abuse, and their incompetence wrecked my life for six years. I currently work as a therapist in a psychiatric residential treatment facility in Kansas, and many of my clients have been — or currently are — in foster care. My experience on both sides gives me a perspective that few others share, enabling me to be both fair and compassionate in how I view the system.

In our quest to reduce foster care placement, we often overlook a central driver of CPS decision-making: fear.

A wild pendulum swing has long existed in child welfare. Children like Adrian Jones are killed by their parents, and we are justifiably outraged. Lawsuits are filed, CPS is excoriated in the news, and we rage-tweet from our armchairs about who should be fired.

CPS responds by swinging the other way and removing children from their families so they don’t repeat their sin of not removing kids like Adrian. Children are then removed unnecessarily by an overzealous system, and families are needlessly destroyed. Lawsuits are filed, and then we swing back the other way and leave children with abusive families to avoid being punitive.

In the middle of this chaos are the caseworkers. Nobody wants to be the person who makes the wrong decision that results in a child’s death or continued maltreatment. I made mistakes as a CPS worker, and many mistakes were made by the professionals investigating me. When we talk about fixing these mistakes, we talk a lot about oversight. The Legislature considers a bill limiting which children can enter foster care. Oversight committee meetings occur so people can testify about being wronged by the system. Advocate and author Richard Wexler suggests we provide families with high-quality defense teams.

These solutions are important, but they occur after the fact. We don’t often talk about improving the work product of the caseworkers from the outset. When I knocked on doors to investigate families, I didn’t take the task forces, the oversight committees, or the lawyers with me. I went by myself, and it was my initial assessment of the family that shaped everything that came after. The sad reality of the child welfare system is that once the narrative is created by the state, it’s incredibly hard to get officials to reverse course even if families have quality attorneys.

Anybody who has ever tried to fight the system knows this to be true. I am one of those people.

There are core issues in child welfare that cause a lot of problems, and they aren’t racism or poverty. They are confirmation bias, echo chambers and toxic groupthink, a complete lack of critical thinking skills, arrogance and ego, and a refusal to take accountability and make amends.

If caseworkers are trained to overcome these things, then their decision-making will be less fear-based. They’ll keep more families together regardless of race or socioeconomic status because they will think through problems effectively using facts and not feelings, have a greater understanding of human behavior, and find creative solutions not centered in a hyper-reactive, emotional response. This was my experience as a social worker for the state of Kansas for 10 years.

CPS is an entry-level position most often held by recent college graduates and is viewed as a pit stop on your way to something better. We have paired our most vulnerable families with inexperienced caseworkers who don’t quite know what they’re doing yet. We expect caseworkers to make high-stakes decisions within the constraints of difficult societal issues with no room for error. And when they inevitably make mistakes, we just can’t seem to understand where it all went wrong.

Do you want to improve child welfare outcomes? Let’s focus on supporting caseworkers with quality training and worker development. Families benefit the most when caseworkers succeed, and that’s a win for all of us.

Andrea Verbanic is the author of “Renegade Agency: A Memoir of a Family in Crisis and the Systems Meant to Protect Us.” She currently works as a therapist. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.