Failed to Death Commentary: Caseworker Burnout

Last year Channel 9 News, in conjunction with the Denver Post, presented a series of news stories called “Failed to Death” that brought to light the system’s inability to protect children from abuse and neglect. I was so relieved at the news teams' courage for speaking up for the sake of the children. This blog series pays homage to those reporters who were brave enough to speak out against a system that is failing these kids to death.

Recently, I spoke at a conference where the topic addressed resiliency in victims of abuse. What I have witnessed over the years is that families will thrive when you incorporate the five protective factors: nurturing and attachment, knowledge of parenting and of child and youth development, parental resiliency, social connection, and concrete support for parents. Most parents don’t start out wanting to hurt their children but many have grown up in abuse themselves and have never had healthy habits role modeled to them. I have taught a court ordered parenting class for almost fifteen years and I can count on one hand the parents that didn’t care and had no business raising children—all of the others did. What does that tell us about how we are approaching this critical issue? Maybe—just maybe—we need to repackage our services to families and start looking at treatment as healthy and right for them rather than viewing the help as a punishment. They don’t know what they don’t know…until we educate them. How many times have we heard that knowledge is power?

For years, I have proposed that we order the entire family to treatment when Child Protective Services becomes involved or when children witness family violence, as family systems are much like ecosystems…when you change one part of the environment by ordering only one parent to treatment the entire unit becomes imbalanced—and it doesn't work! There are many other advantages to mandating the entire family to treatment besides the obvious—good mental health. This series will share how we can reduce caseworker burnout, save time and money in the court system, take the guesswork out of mandatory arrests for the police officers and redirect child abuse convictions through education—all while achieving the goals to build healthier families.

Today, we will address caseworker burnout and the negative impact their decisions can have on the family system. The emotional tolls experienced by workers who have to cope with extreme exposure to child abuse is horrendous and could significantly traumatize these professionals subjected to such atrocities. It’s no wonder the caseworker burnout rate is between 1-5 years. Therefore, when families get caseworkers that have been serving in their positions for 15-20 years, goals of customer service and family reunification might be low priority or even nonexistent.

At a conference, a caseworker supervisor indicated to me that 35 positions had become available and that the department had to hire and train new personnel to fill the vacancies. When I challenged why the money was being allocated for new caseworkers rather than revitalizing the ones already in place the supervisor frustratingly retorted, “That's a great question.” What I sensed from the conversation was that caseworker development is much like puppy mills where we produce an over abundance of professionals, place them in extremely untenable and harsh conditions, mistreat them and then release them—permanently tainting these fundamentally caring individuals. I have seen these highly educated and motivated people quit and work as bartenders and bus drivers. They enter this field because they have a passion for kids and then the system breaks their spirit. My recommendation is that instead of taking the dwindling dollars to unnecessarily train new personnel, use the resources to protect our most precious commodities—the children and the superheroes who save them. We could create team-building programs, respite retreats, better collaborations and staff appreciation days. Burnout impacts these professionals’ ability to objectively advocate for their clients, which doesn't bode well for the families. In fact, children are needlessly being ripped away from their families and our system is creating deeper levels of trauma—that we have to pay for later when the children grow up. I repeatedly hear from parents that their caseworkers have threatened to take kids away unless they leave their partners. Others have been advised that caseworkers had found a “more suitable” home for their kids. This…is…not…the…goal. The objective is to keep families together. When most caseworkers trained for this field, I’m confident that they wanted to help families, but the inevitable exhaustion and trauma they experience causes significant problems. When I address these solutions in a professional training, the caseworkers wholeheartedly agree that they love their job, but they are tired. This is a solvable issue if we envelop and nurture the invaluable resources that we already have available to us.

In Part II of this series, we will discuss the child-abuse-conviction approach and how it often causes more harm than good. We will provide alternative solutions that could work.

Children: Who Do They Think They Are?

Children are conditioned to do as they’re told, to not talk back, to respect their elders and to know that adults are always right. Consequently, children are forced to embrace external input and feel bad or good based on the whims of others. As we mature into adults, we often carry many of these generated inputs with us into our daily lives. These thoughts and feelings are our conditioned responses to that indoctrination and, whether they are negative or positive, kids act accordingly. Therefore, if you had an uncle who called you lazy, you may be lethargic or unmotivated when you are exposed to him at Thanksgiving. But then a neighbor who often praised your hard work tells you that you’re wonderful, you will shine in her presence. This reaction is typically referred to as object referral and occurs when a person’s self-esteem and self-worth shift, change, decline or elevate as a result of an external source entering the room. This makes the esteem and worth malleable and unsteady. With clients I will tap on a table and ask them to identify the object and they’ll state matter-of-factly that the object is a table. I ask them why and they say because that is what they understand the object to be. Then a debate proves that no matter who walks into the room a table is a table is a table. It’s value or representation doesn’t change.

Self-esteem and self-worth need to have the same reference points. We need to allow children to decide what the facts are about them. This means we have to provide them with an internal source that doesn’t require external input. Instead of stating that we are proud of them, we need to say, “You must be so proud of yourself for…” or “You should feel so good about yourself because…” The translation for them becomes, “I must be proud of myself and should feel good about who I am.” And although initially we are providing external suggestions, the intended message can be compared to passing the torch during the Olympics. We have to allow our children to shine on their own without us. This can only be accomplished by giving them the ability to know the truth about them. Therefore, we must teach children to back every thought and feeling up with facts so that when someone negative walks into their lives, the impact is minimal.

I recently spoke to an 86-year old woman who I have always revered as an angel. She lamented that she was a bad person and I asked her to back that thought up with a fact and she absolutely could not find one reason for that thought. It saddened me to see that throughout her entire life she had given to people and loved them yet she hated herself. And for what? Because perhaps sometime in her childhood or maybe later as an adult, someone told her she was inadequate, inferior or incompetent. When I shared how much I loved and admired her, she admitted that when I was around she felt good about herself. The sad part is that I can’t always be there so if her sense of regard is based on me then her feelings will change once someone else walked into the room—this is object referral. Her sense of self never gets to be solid like that table because she adopts the opinions of those around her instead of knowing her own self-truth.

A parent once shared that he was frustrated with a neighbor because the neighbor would scream the F-word at his 6-year old daughter when she was outside playing. I suggested that he tell her that hurt people hurt people and that the neighbor was a sad old man. Later, the father came to me and reported that he and his daughter were walking down the street and the elderly man raced out onto the porch and threw out the F-bomb again, but this time his daughter with the sweetest sincerity announced loudly, “Daddy, you’re right, he is a sad old man.” The grump stopped in his tracks and then retreated back into his home where he never bothered them again. The poignant element to this story is that this father gave his daughter the ability to let others own their own feelings and behaviors. She was no longer forced to embrace the external input and take responsibility for how others feel. She was able to recognize that his pain was not her issue or fault. This child, if guided properly, will not have to experience object referral as she is not dependent on the opinions of others to judge herself. This precious child is a precious child is a precious child.