Child Welfare Wisdom

The guest author of Child Welfare Wisdom is a current leader and administrator with over 3 decades of experience in public child welfare. The author will be regularly offering commentary reflecting the wisdom and perspective gained from a long-time passion for and commitment to public child welfare issues.

Any of the opinions expressed within Child Welfare Wisdom do not necessarily represent those of ACTION for Child Protection, Inc. or any of its staff.

August

Have Children Changed?

Reminiscing is a common human trait. At various times in our lives we compare and contrast our present experiences with our past. This is one way of thinking about the effects of changes that have occurred during our lifetime. It is a way to put those changes in perspective and to decide if we are satisfied with what has happened or if there is a need to rethink certain issues.

For some time now I have been curious about and troubled by the differences I see in the children that are currently served through the child welfare system and those that we served thirty years ago. To me, thirty years seems like a very short time for such profound changes to have occurred.

I am at a loss as to explain why so many children in our caseloads require behavioral health services but there is no denying the fact that they are receiving them. It is not just what I would describe as the increasing use of traditional behavioral health services such as counseling and therapy that I find disturbing. It is the increasing use of drugs including psychotropic medications coupled with the application of serious diagnostic classifications to ever younger children that is troubling. Is it really possible to determine that a five year old child is bi polar? Is it possible that a child's behavior may be the result of medication and not a reflection of the child's personality?

I readily admit that I am not a trained behavioral health clinician. I also want to make it clear that I am not categorically opposed to the use of drugs under any circumstances. Lastly, I will admit that my memory is faulty, selective and limited by my own experiences.

Given those admissions I am still amazed by the number of children who have been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, are described as hyperactive or oppositional defiant or otherwise labeled with some sort of behavioral problem. Diagnoses of autism are on the increase, at least where I live, and I wonder what has happened.

When I was in school there were disruptive classmates but they were rare. There were children who were developmentally delayed. There were a few children who seemed to be having serious behavioral problems. Now the numbers of affected children are overwhelming the agencies designated to serve them.

It seems to me that the current approaches to addressing the behavioral health needs of children are not working. As far as I can tell many of the drug therapies and hospitalizations have not produced measurable improvements. Children age out of foster care after years of behavioral health service with little to show for all they have received.

I don't know what the answers are but I continue to be troubled by the increase in the identification of children with behavioral problems and our limited success in addressing these problems. If things continue going this way it will be rare to find a child in child welfare without a diagnosis.

Child welfare and the behavioral health system are inextricably linked as they should be. Child welfare workers are not prepared to address major psychiatric problems. Child Protective services workers need to become more skilled at identifying substance abuse but treatment is not their specialty.

It seems to me that we have choices. We can continue to invent new classifications of problems or we can sit down and ask ourselves what is going on. We can separate out what we believe from what we know. We can review the available information to determine what works from what is questionable. We can determine how we can best work together to help children.

My guess is that if you ask anyone you run into if they agreed that children were one of this county's greatest assets they would agree that they are. It seems to me that we ought to be more concerned about the changes in this asset then we are.