Child welfare is a subject close to the hearts of many people in the Lynchburg area, including Dr. Sara Bailey, director of the Ken West Center for Family Studies and Educational Advancement and the counselor education programs at the University of Lynchburg.
Bailey describes herself as a “reunited adoptee” who spent several months in the foster care system before being placed and adopted as a child. This personal connection, as well as the West Center’s history of providing parenting classes and other resources, motivated Bailey to arrange “Strong Families, Healthy Children, Connected Communities: A Panel Discussion on Foster Care and Adoption.”
The event was hosted by the University on June 18.
The panel, made up of individuals who work in the child welfare system, discussed the challenges, needs, and goals of the system, as well as how it functions. Bailey served as panel moderator.
As they introduced themselves, the panelists expressed how meaningful and important their work is to them.
“I love this work,” said Leroy Wingo, a licensed clinical social worker with Agate of Life Counseling, who helped compile the panel. “I’m committed to it, dedicated to it. And that’s why we’re all sitting here today, because I know everybody up here with me is dedicated to what we do.”
Many of the panelists had previously worked together, but coming together at the event was a unique opportunity for them to explore the challenges faced by children, parents, and workers within the local child welfare system.
“I’ve worked with a number of these people … on the panel and some others I’ve seen in the community,” Mark Stewart, an area attorney, said. “I would just say one of the things I appreciate about this area of Central Virginia and the counties and so forth is that …everybody tries to do their job as best they can.”
While every state has a different approach to managing child welfare, Dawn Wilson, the Piedmont region’s permanency practice consultant with the Virginia Department of Social Services, said child welfare in Virginia is “state supervised and locally administered.”
Wilson went on to explain that while the state sets overarching standards, guidance, and supervision, each county has its unique administration and resources for addressing child welfare issues.
April Watson, deputy director of human services for the city of Lynchburg, talked about the unique set of challenges faced by the various jurisdictions, involving resources, funding, and processes that can vary dramatically from county to county.
“There are 120 different DSS agencies throughout the state of Virginia,” she said. “We all have the same policy and code and guidance, but we all operate a little bit differently, and our resources are different because it’s based on what our locality gives us.”
Watson explained that compared to the surrounding counties, Lynchburg is actually “rich in resources.” Smaller communities nearby may not have city infrastructure, such as a bus system or needed services providers, meaning citizens may have to travel further and spend more money to achieve the same goals.
Even with the acknowledgment of Lynchburg’s good fortune, all of the panelists agreed that much of the deficits in child welfare services have to do with a need for more funding and a larger, well-trained child welfare workforce.
The panel members also agreed that the federally mandated timeline for how long children can be in foster care before establishing permanency, or a permanent living situation, makes for a delicate balancing act.
“A lot of what we do focuses on safety, permanency, and well-being,” Watson said. “Is this child safe right now? What is the risk and well-being? Are their needs being met? … Where are they going to grow up?
“It is really, really hard for a child not to know where they’re going to spend their next birthday or Christmas — when they’re going to see Mom or if they’re ever going to see Dad again.”
Watson explained that federal law mandates that children cannot remain in foster care indefinitely. Over time, the timeline has been reduced to about one year.
“That’s one of the things that, as a social worker, I struggle with,” Watson said. “A year is forever for a child, but it’s nowhere near long enough for a parent who’s in recovery or who’s really working through some hard mental health issues.
“That’s one of those things that I don’t have a perfect answer for.”
Mary Rice, a licensed professional counselor with Rice Counseling and Associates, provided additional insight into the difficulty of managing the one-year timeline. “When these kids come into foster care, their parents are shocked,” she said.
“They’re going through the hardest time, often in their lives. They never thought they would get to this point. … They’re going through a grief-and-loss process that is very similar to … the death of a loved one.”
Rice added that in addition to emotional turmoil and stress, if a parent is dealing with addiction issues, the timeline doesn’t line up with the reality of addiction recovery.
“They’re not jumping straight into sobriety,” she said. “It doesn’t happen that way. … We’re expecting them to in some ways pull off a magic trick.”
The combination of being understaffed and needing more resources, as well as the trauma experienced by the children and their families, leaves an undeniable mark on those working to ensure child welfare.
“Every day, I see the challenges,” Wingo said. “I see the frustrations. I see the struggles. … When I worked for foster care in North Dakota, the first … three months … almost every day, I went home and cried [from] the traumas and the things that I was seeing.”
Judge Cary Payne, presiding judge for the Lynchburg Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, agreed with Wingo and addressed the Lynchburg Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling students in attendance.
“This vicarious trauma that [Wingo] was talking about is real,” he said. “And for those of you who are going into this type of business, you need to be cognizant of that. What these children have experienced, what families have experienced, it creeps up on you and it will hurt you unless you have avenues to take care of it.”
Throughout the panel discussion, there was a recurring theme: reunification and the best interest of the child.
“Ultimately, the goal is for reunification, or the goal is for the children to remain in the home,” said Adrian Massie, executive director of Alliance Human Services. “We celebrate when permanency is achieved and the child returns home. It is wonderful.”
Near the end of the conversation, Payne took a moment to address a comment often heard when the child welfare system is brought up: “It’s easy to say the ‘system’ is broken. Until you sit here, you really don’t understand all of the different pieces that go into the ‘system’ and all the hard work that everybody is doing to make sure that ‘system’ is adequate.”
He encouraged those in attendance, now armed with new knowledge and information, to challenge that notion.
“The statutes are a mess. … But just to flippantly say, ‘The system is broken,’ you’re throwing all these people up here under the bus because the system is not broken,” he said.
“What is broken? We don’t have enough participants for every child and family that needs it. So if somebody comes to you and says, ‘The system is broken,’ I think the first question you have to [ask is], ‘What are you doing to fix it?’”
Additional panelists included:
- Dana Wright, Children’s Services Act coordinator, City of Lynchburg
- Liana Timberlake, family services supervisor, child protective services investigations, City of Lynchburg Department of Human Services
The full livestream of Strong Families, Healthy Children, Connected Communities: A Panel Discussion on Foster Care and Adoption is available.
For questions regarding the panel or the Ken West Center for Family Studies and Educational Advancement, please contact Bailey at [email protected].
