{"id":31156,"date":"2015-07-22T20:52:56","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T20:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caseyfamilyv2.wpengine.com\/family-defenders\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T20:16:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T20:16:52","slug":"defensores-de-la-familia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casey.org\/es\/family-defenders\/","title":{"rendered":"Medidas que pueden tomar los defensores de la familia para reducir la destrucci\u00f3n de las familias en Estados Unidos"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n\n \n \n \n \n

This is William C. Bell’s opening keynote address at the National Parent Attorney Conference, a\u00a0two-day event hosted by the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law on July 22, 2015. The theme for the event was\u00a0“Achieving Justice Against the Odds.” About 400 attorneys, judges, court personnel and representatives from child welfare attended.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n

Children, parents, attorneys, the courts, CPS \u2013 we all have to work together toward the same goal. We have to work toward the goal of giving families hope and giving families a chance to be a better, stronger family together. We have to be family defenders.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

— William C. Bell<\/cite><\/figcaption>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n
\n
\n\n \n

Speech as written<\/h2>\n \n \n \n

It is an honor to be here with you this morning to offer a few remarks on a subject that is so critical to our future, reducing the destruction of families in America.<\/p>\n

This is an area where we all must stand together to make sure that all of our nation\u2019s families have the support they need to achieve well-being and stability.<\/p>\n

We have to bring others along. There have been many issues throughout time that people never thought would change. I believe that agencies, judges, social workers and others can change.<\/p>\n

I do not stand before you today as one who believes that he can or should tell you what to do.\u00a0 I speak to you today to offer a perspective \u2013 my perspective, CFP\u2019s perspective \u2013 on how we can better assist parents and families to remain strong and grow even stronger as they face the overwhelmingly complex experience of dealing with the impact that a child welfare and a dependency court case has on their lives.<\/p>\n

This experience begins with one of the most difficult and life changing decisions that child welfare professionals, police officers, judges, attorneys, and others will ever make. It begins with the question, should this child be separated from their family for protective reasons?<\/p>\n

Put a different way, this experience begins with someone making the decision that they should demonstrate to a child that the one belief that we have all held as the core tenet of our own safety in our minds and in our hearts is no longer true for them.<\/p>\n

We all begin our lives and most of us move throughout our entire childhood holding on to the undeniable belief that our parents are the most powerful people in our world and they can protect us from anything.<\/p>\n

Most of us go through our entire childhood never having any reason not to believe that our parents can and will protect us from anything.<\/p>\n

Without this belief structure it would be impossible for us to ever feel truly safe. Every child protective removal changes this perspective for the impacted children for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n

The child protective removal decision also challenges and changes the parent\u2019s perspective on their ability to meet their parental responsibility, even when they are convinced that\u00a0 the removal was the wrong decision, or even when they realize that their child did need to be protected from them in that moment.<\/p>\n

Most parents would at least suggest that they would be willing to lay down their lives for the lives of their children, but in these cases they are unable to even prevent someone from walking into their homes and removing their children.<\/p>\n

This is where our concept and discussions about reducing the destruction of families must begin. Children and parents should not be forced into a legal confrontation over child\u2019s rights vs. parent\u2019s rights, but rather the question should be how do we restore that bond that has now been broken? Whether broken as a result of a boyfriend\u2019s behavior, or broken as a result of poor decision making by others, we need to question \u2013 when children are in care for 90 days or less \u2013 was there some other option.<\/p>\n

And even if the ultimate outcome is adoption, how do we help this parent and this child to heal from an experience that many of us have no way of conceiving as ever being real in our own lives.<\/p>\n

Imagine this<\/h3>\n

Imagine, as a single, working parent you\u2019re arrested for letting your 9-year-old daughter play unsupervised at a playground near your job, and your daughter is placed in foster care. Nothing could have prepared you for this. You feel vilified, when, as a parent, all you were trying to do was to do your best with the life circumstances you had. But should it take years to get her back?<\/p>\n

Imagine, as a parent, your spouse, who normally picks up your three children from school every day, is out of town. You arrange for a relative to pick up the children and drop them off at home, where they spend the next two hours alone and unsupervised until you get home from work.\u00a0 But at some point, the police are alerted and your children are removed from their home. Your and your spouse\u2019s parenting is called into question. You\u2019re made to feel unfit to parent and raise your own children. You question yourself, and your children question everything.<\/p>\n

Or imagine, as a parent, you have an 18-month-old child, your husband or wife just walked out on you. You are isolated, embarrassed and depressed. You have been drinking to cope with your situation. You take your 18-month-old child to the doctor at one of those 24-hour medical services clinics. The child has been irritable, cranky and crying a lot. The doctor diagnoses an ear infection, which is not uncommon for children in their very early years of life. But the doctor suspects something more has been going on, and he reports his suspicions to child welfare.\u00a0 What happens next should not be a multi-year struggle to prove your worthiness as a parent.<\/p>\n

In reality, there is no such thing as an ideal parent. We are all less than perfect. But for parents in the child welfare system, it is time for us as a nation to decide how much we are willing to change their experience.<\/p>\n

But you know these stories all too well. Imagination is not required. As attorneys, judges, social workers, and advocates you know that these stories happen all too often in America today. It\u2019s happening far more frequently than it should in the lives of families all across this country; parents who, most of the time, live in certain ZIP codes.<\/p>\n

The question is what must we do differently if we want to see a different result for the families that come before us.<\/p>\n

In 2013, 3.5 million referrals alleging maltreatment were made to CPS.<\/p>\n

Of the nearly 1.3 million children who received child welfare services in 2013, a little more than one million received services at home and approximately 239,000 were placed in foster care.<\/p>\n

If nothing changes in the way we are behaving as a system over the next decade nearly 2.5 million more children and their families will have to face this life changing and reality altering experience.<\/p>\n

Impacts that reduce the destruction of families<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What must we do if we are serious about the reduction in family destruction?<\/p>\n

This morning I want to share with you eight thoughts that I believe can impact our efforts to help reduce the destruction of families in America:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u00a0We must re-frame our mindset to accommodate a broader perspective of child well-being in the dependency court and child welfare case practice areas\n