The momentum of change is palpable in the United States child welfare system today, with a profound shift toward child and family well-being. The imperative for change has been well-established: we must work harder to keep families together, develop a more just approach to surveillance and investigation, and keep children with loved ones if they must be removed from home.
This moment is also the right time to consider the mindsets and approaches that produce the most effective and ethical child welfare practice. Because today’s momentum is doomed without a commitment to train the workforce accordingly. Training and professional development are important elements for retooling the child welfare workforce. These efforts have already had some success in shaping the knowledge and skills of child welfare professionals. But, if we want to see our workforce move toward child and family well-being, it will require a professional shift in mindset.
What a caseworker believes about the family’s culture, condition and/or potential can over-determine what that professional will do. The caseworker’s judgment, bias and capacity for empathy can be critical elements in any familial intervention.
The framework below charts three distinct phases — agent, advocate and activist — each associated with evolving mindsets and approaches toward power dynamics. The belief systems and operating systems are described within each phase. The trajectory from one phase to another is not only a personal evolution but a paradigmatic shift in how professionals engage with the families they serve.
Currently, bold initiatives are sprouting around the country relating to kinship care, family well-being, racial equity and mandated reporting. The excitement is resounding and the importance of managing the change within the workforce cannot be overstated. The success of these initiatives will depend almost exclusively on front-line professionals, supervisors and managers.
To facilitate the ongoing evolution and development of the professionals in our field, many outdated approaches and some conventional institutional practices will have to be retired. Too many child welfare professionals have historically viewed themselves as agents of the state, gatekeepers positioned through the powerful apparatus of the state to render judgments and edicts that adversely impact families, especially poor families of color.
Workers in this phase of development operate within a segregationist mindset. They utilize a hierarchical power dynamic that is imbalanced. This dated dynamic reflects a belief system within which some families are considered permanently inferior and incapable of change. The operating system in this phase is punitive, driven by a sense of duty to punish individuals without examining structural disadvantages and systemic barriers.
Those with this mindset do not believe that they have anything in common with the families they serve. There is no empathy in these state-sanctioned interactions. There is a deep sense of othering and hopelessness. This mindset will continue to be a barrier to the most bold and revolutionary ideas designed for and determined to make systemic change.
Next, advocates move with the systemic winds of change in child welfare services. They step in the right direction. In this phase, an assimilationist mindset takes root. The power dynamic turns into a game of bargaining. Those in this phase tend to have hope in families and believe that families can meet the standards that are generally imposed on them. Advocates have a disposition toward saving families. Historically, this mindset, often held by health and human service professionals, set out to make families more suitable for the system. According to the assimilationist/advocate position, a family’s eligibility to receive assistance was largely assessed by how moral they were. This “systemic savior” posture has historically stripped families of their dignity, autonomy and sense of worth. This mindset is fairly common in the current child welfare workforce. At face value, this phase is optimistic and can be beneficial, but it still requires an unlearning of what has been ingrained in the fabric of human services: these families can make it, but only if they have us.
Where we want workers to be in order to meet this moment in child welfare is in the activist category, characterized by an anti-racist mindset. The power dynamic becomes shared and balanced, acknowledging the strength, value and inherent worth of every individual. In this phase, professionals operate from a liberating perspective, recognizing the agency and autonomy of parents and youth. They focus on getting families what they need, not simply offering families what the system has.
Those with this mindset hold a fundamental truth: that they are not so different from the families they serve. They lead with compassion, partner with families, and remain committed to building relationships. The ultimate goal for activists is to strengthen families. They are not invested in creating a pseudo sense of protection and aid like the professionals stuck in the previous phases. The person with this mindset exhaustively endeavors to keep families together, especially within communities that have historically been pulled apart.
It has become important to engage the workforce in knowledge gains, skill development and their intrinsic being which is connected to values. Many leaders are moving toward intentional training where they are aiming to impact all three, specifically mindset and attitude. Although the impact of training on knowledge and skills has been documented, unfortunately, the data on the impact of training on attitude and mindset are somewhat inconclusive. Early studies on the training of professionals who facilitate workshops for substance abuse, found that knowledge was acquired, but there was no significant change in their attitudes or mindset.
In 2005, a group of researchers measured child welfare professionals’ attitudes toward engaging parents who were going through a CPS process. In this study, some professionals were trained with the goal that their mindset and values would ignite a different approach for family engagement. But the results found no differences between those who were trained and those who were not. Although scholars have not been able to find enduring impacts of training on mindset and attitude, some researchers have found positive shifts when measuring attitudes of family service workers and their effort to adapt their approaches with families.
It would behoove child welfare leaders to consider incorporating a training that is exclusively focused on how our attitudes and mindsets inform our work with families, but they cannot stop there. A concerted and intentional program of mentorship and coaching around professional mindset development will only help to sustain the momentum of change that defines this moment for the child welfare system. We all have solidified, sometimes calcified value sets, but I believe we also have malleable hearts — hearts that long for a world where families can access the support they need to thrive and stay together.
