W
e started the Coalition of Concerned Parents in 1993, a 501c3 nonprofit designed to address basic imbalances that existed in the Santa Clara County Department of Family and Children’s Services (DFCS). Comprised primarily of social workers, DFCS intervenes in cases of abuse and neglect. It also provides support for foster parents and while it was still in operation, ran the Santa Clara County Children’s Shelter.
Our organization was quite small, perhaps twenty or so parents and grandparents who had noticed issues of arbitrary and punitive decisions on the part of social workers (who wield a lot of power). We got the ACLU involved and finally forced DFCS to take our concerns seriously.
At that time there was a pervasive institutional bias on the part of social workers at DCSF, and it was damaging the children and families that such government agencies are meant to protect. There was a false narrative within the department that labeled virtually all men as abusive and become default suspects in any given child abuse or family dispute situation. It is very similar to the assumption in some police departments that Black, brown, and poor people are natural perpetrators and the only probable suspects in crimes against property.
The National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect shows that between 50-70% of total child abuse is perpetrated by women. Approximately two-fifths (38.8%) of child victims were maltreated by their mothers acting alone; another 18.3 percent were maltreated by their fathers acting alone; 18.3 percent were abused by both parents.
The social workers had it wrong more than half the time, possibly because women are more often abused than men and a lot of social workers are women. It was very difficult getting that message across to those in authority at DFCS. They felt they were absolutely correct, and they didn’t want to hear any alternative. Their thinking and behavior had become institutionalized and handed down to new social workers, one after the other, over the years.
New social workers are often hired straight out of college. They get their practical experience under the supervision of veteran social workers who know all the issues. At the Santa Clara County DFCS, the older social workers were passing down sexist assumptions about men along with their experience to the younger social workers. This perpetuated the situation. Parents complained, we complained, and nothing happened. All men were bad and wrong, all women were pure and innocent, and nothing could be done.
As a foster parent, I was automatically involved with the court system and met with other parents dealing with DFCS through the normal course of events. And we all had our stories.
The work of the ACLU, backed by a group of frustrated parents with picket signs on the steps of the Superior Court made a huge difference. It didn’t hurt that we got television coverage. I was usually the spokesperson, and we had my design and printing capability to make handouts, brochures, and booklets explaining the situation to anyone who might listen. All of this put our group in a position to negotiate with DFCS from a position of strength. But in the end, we had to go higher, to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.
The solution was an ombudsman, someone who had never worked for DFCS, but who had the same training and credentials of a social worker coupled with the power to review and intervene in disputed cases. Credentials were critical, because without them they couldn’t read confidential reports and files or speak with authority in court, and social workers wouldn’t feel obligated to listen to them. They needed to recruit someone with fresh eyes from outside the county system, which they eventually did.
Prior to our efforts, parents had always had the right to go to court—and frequently did—but court dates were usually scheduled months in advance and require specialized attorneys, which many parents cannot afford. And they were always up against The System: DFCS with all its systemic social bias, interlocked to prevent any admission or even acknowledgment that things might not be perfect just the way they were and always had been.
Working with the ACLU and the concerned parents of our coalition changed that situation in the same way that police departments throughout America need to be changed to stop the abuse of power. The office of the ombudsman still operates in Santa Clara County, is still independent, and abuses are dealt with as they come up.
Systemic problems can perpetuate in large organizations if management isn’t careful. This includes public companies like AT&T, which had a similar problem (I helped write the corrective recommendations paper for AT&T upper management).
The U.S. Department of Forestry had a problem hiring and promoting women and treating them fairly on the job. Even after the women went to court and won, men within the department resisted change. People think of the Department of Forestry as a bunch of park rangers who tell stories around a campfire, but in reality, they are more like lumberjacks managing the forest—but packing a gun while in uniform. (It was due to my work with the supervisor of their consent decree that my original Ellipsis... audiotape and writings were spontaneously distributed among the women rangers.)
Institutional bias is part of the human condition, and sometimes it’s nothing more serious than who gets the parking space closest to the front door, but hurting people and damaging families should never be tolerated. Black Lives Matter is an attempt to address these issues within police departments and society in general. If one examines Black Lives Matter, Me Too, voter registration, and similar movements through the lens of history, they add to that long arc of history that sane people keep pushing towards justice. Society can be more fair for everyone, but it takes time and effort to make it so. Incremental changes can happen, just as we were able to do with the Department of Family and Children’s Services.
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