AFTER NEARLY FIVE decades working in government, including eight years as our state’s Child Advocate, I have come to see that in the field of child protection, there are no easy answers – even though everyone wishes there were.

Right now, a new generation of leadership in child services is emerging. Meanwhile, there are many proposals on the table to improve our system, even as some have called for a complete overhaul of it. Now is the time to take a step back, think systematically, and focus on fundamental principles. 

The child protection system is charged with ensuring the well-being and safety of children, which in some instances can lead to a decision to separate a child from their biological family. This is one of the most serious actions the state can take, with profound long-term consequences and significant pain for both parent and child. At the same time, leaving a child in a situation where their well-being and even life is at serious risk is one of the worst things the state can do to a defenseless child.

No matter what decision a child protection system makes, the potential for harm to family and child is real. This is why, over the course of my career, I’ve witnessed the pendulum swing back and forth, alternating between a focus on removing children from harmful environments and an emphasis on keeping families together at all costs.

This oscillation reflects our society’s struggle to reach a consensus about what constitutes an acceptable level of risk to a child and how to manage challenging cases: when to remove a child and when not to. The choice is clearer when a child is being physically and/or sexually abused. Yet most cases the child protection system deals with are cases of neglect, which covers a broad range of situations where parents are not ensuring a child’s well-being and development. This is where the decisions become far more complicated.

A large proportion of neglect cases involve parents struggling with substance use disorder and/or serious mental illness in ways that can put their child at serious risk of harm. Many cases involve families who have multi-generational involvement with the child protection system. These parents need help. In some cases, as a society we have failed to provide them with that help – the challenges of waitlists and lack of availability of appropriate behavioral health services is a long-standing and vexing problem that needs our continued attention. In other situations, due to the nature of addiction and mental illness, parents are not yet ready, willing, and/or able to accept that help and make necessary changes.

A parent can love their child deeply, but still not have the capacity to meet that child’s most fundamental needs. That’s what makes many of these cases so heartbreaking, and these decisions so hard to make.

Overlaying all of this are the difficult financial circumstances so many families involved with the child protection system face. Poverty is not a valid or legal reason to remove a child, but there is no denying that the stress of poverty can greatly exacerbate other challenges that contribute to abuse or neglect. Unconscious bias around both poverty and race also likely plays a role. Research shows that poor families as well as Black and Latino families are disproportionately subject to investigation and family separation.

Separating a child from their family may, at times, be necessary – but there is much more our state can do to avoid this situation altogether and promote faster, safer reunification when it does occur. In our work at the Office of the Child Advocate, we regularly see the many state-erected barriers that hinder families’ reunification, including delays in the court process, failure to engage families effectively in case planning, and a lack of necessary services and support, leading to unreasonable and unreachable requirements placed on families.  

The challenges facing us are many and the stakes are high, so how do we move forward? Taking a systemic view, I propose five key principles to start with.  

First and foremost, we must resist the allure of easy answers. Calls to eliminate the Department of Children and Families (DCF) are just as unreasonable as advocating for immediate child removal at the first sign of risk. Both approaches jeopardize the well-being of our children. While calls for an increased “public health approach” are valid, this does not negate the need to improve existing processes. We can and should do both.

Second, we must improve our systems for assessing what a family needs to keep their children safe. Vitally, that must include an increased focus on effectively engaging families themselves in that conversation and providing them with the tools they identify that they need to help their children thrive, understanding that these cases are complex and multifaceted.

Improving decision-making is the third crucial step. This entails enhancing communication across the system, improving data collection and reporting from both the Department of Children and Families and the Juvenile Court, and more robust continuous quality improvement processes. It also includes ensuring that children’s attorneys are acting as a true independent voice advocating for the best interest of the children in these cases, which I believe will also help improve decision-making in court-involved cases. 

Fourth, we must understand that children operate on a different timescale than adults: “kid time” is not the same as “adult time.” Our current processes are clunky and time-consuming, resulting in lengthy delays in achieving permanency. Streamlining these timelines is imperative to ensure children do not languish in uncertainty.

Finally, and importantly, we must invest more in prevention services, such as family resource centers, behavioral health services, and genuine family support. By intervening early, we can help families before their situations escalate.

If we can commit to these five principles, we have a real chance at creating a child welfare system that both supports families and protects children. We can build it, together.

Maria Mossaides is director of the state Office of the Child Advocate.