In Wisconsin, 72,942 reports were made to Child Protective Services last year alone. To make sense of that, 200 children are being reported every day because someone believes they are being abused or neglected. Every single day. To put that in further perspective, that comes out to about 1 out of every 17 children in our state being subject to a child protective services report. Imagine having someone call a government agency to report that your child appears to be unsafe. How might that feel as a parent? Now, of those nearly 73,000 reports, 51,000 of them (or 7 out of every 10) is screened out, meaning that they don’t rise to the level of maltreatment that would require an assessment to be completed by CPS. And finally, just over 3,000 children were separated last year from their parents from those nearly 73,000 initial reports. At the same time this is happening, we have nearly 40,000 non-profits statewide that support our children, families and communities, yet families too often need support or services that are unknown to them or hard to access. So how might we work smarter, not harder, to elevate solutions to ensure all families can access the help they need when they need it? How might we lead with compassion and curiosity to build bridges between service providers, community organizations, and the families we serve, so we can create a more equitable, collaborative, and impactful support network rather than a reporting network? I invited Julie Ahnen, Laura Glaub and Marc Seidl to have this conversation today to explore these questions as they have been on a journey of confronting the challenges of mandated reporting and mistrust of our systems.
Host: Luke Waldo
Experts:
:00-:16 – Julie Ahnen “Do the best you can until you know better. And then when you know better, do better.”
:20-3:50 – Luke Waldo – Opening and Welcome
3:51-4:26 – Luke - I’d like to begin our conversation by learning more about you and your journeys with mandated reporting, community collaboration, and systems and service failures on children and families. Welcome, Julie.
4:27-9:22– Julie Ahnen – Over a 25 year career in child welfare, she acknowledges that she has had some blind spots with mandated reporting. In the past 15 years in Dane County, they have recognized the disproportionality that exists in our child welfare system. “We don’t have control over who comes through the front door.” Center for the Study of Social Policy webinar on Implicit Bias and Structural Racism led her team to researching changes in mandated reporting to mandated supporting in places like New York. The mantra has been for decades “see something, say something”, but the last two and a half years since the murder of George Floyd has led to a shift. People like Dorothy Roberts have been articulating these messages of change for decades.
9:23-10:01 - Luke – Dorothy Roberts is mentioned frequently in this podcast. Marc, what has your journey looked like?
10:02-14:17 – Marc Seidl – Over the past 15 years as part of the child welfare system, he too has voiced the mantra of reporting whenever you have a concern for a child. However, he now recognizes that the data shows that this has resulted in “casting an incredibly wide net that is entangling families needlessly” in the system. Most of those families don’t meet the maltreatment standards, so they don’t receive services that they truly need as CPS is not built to do that for families that don’t enter the system. In Brown County, of the 4,000 reports that they receive each year, 73% are screened out, yet those reports live on for those families. This reality has led to a real passion to addressing our mandated reporting process to improve outcomes for families.
14:18-15:41 - Luke – Thank you, Marc, for sharing those startling statistics in which 3,000 of the 4,000 families that are reported to Brown County CPS never reach the system.
15:42-16:21 - Marc – Of those 1000 or so families that are screened in, only 6% or so are substantiated for maltreatment. “So there is this reverse funnel” where only a few families actually have committed maltreatment while the majority of families coming to the attention of the child welfare system have not.
16:22-16:44 – Luke – So based on my math, only 60 families ultimately enter the child welfare system due to substantiated maltreatment of the 4,000 initial reports?
16:45-17:28 - Marc – Ultimately, around 140 families entered the Brown County child welfare system of the 4,000 reports that were made.
17:29-17:35 - Luke – Laura, can you share your journey?
17:36-23:30 – Laura Glaub – Her journey starts once she joined a school district. As a White woman, she didn’t experience the child welfare system on the other side of mandated reporting. As an AmeriCorps member, she always consulted with her students and families so that she could support them rather than report them. As a social worker, she looks to collaborate with families even though the policies often encourage her to call CPS whenever there is doubt. Laura tells a story about how she handled an incident when a student disclosed an allegation of abuse to her. She contacted the parent to work collaboratively with the parent in reporting with her. Laura has worked more collaboratively with partners like Julie and Dane County HHS since the pandemic to improve outcomes like chronic absenteeism for children and families.
23:31-25:00 – Luke – How does mandated reporting impact overloaded families and our workforce?
25:01-30:15 – Julie – The history of our child welfare laws have targeted Black and minority families starting with AFDC. Family separation of Black and Native families has been deeply rooted in our history. The Flemming Rule came along in the 1960s that led to an increase in more families coming into the child welfare system. Then CAPTA led to an even greater increase due to fear from mandated reporters as they didn’t want to be penalized for not reporting. Reporters have historically wanted to remain anonymous, and would get angry if they were discovered by the family that they reported. This creates an adversarial dynamic rather than one of collaboration and trust, which overloaded families need to overcome their challenges. Now, Dane County is shifting more towards collaborating with families to build that trust, which is empowering staff.
30:16-30:24 – Luke – What does AFDC stand for?
30:25-30:43 - Julie – Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) is now known as TANF.
30:44-31:46 - Luke – The consequences for mandated reporting often lead to a lack of engagement and support from our community and our most overloaded families. There is often a lack of accountability to overloaded families who need support, but instead are reported to CPS.
31:47-35:18 - Marc – We got into this work because we want to help families. There has been a shift from investigating families like law enforcement to conducting assessments, which started with the alternative response pilot to better understand and support families that are overloaded. Access is critical as it is the front door to the child welfare system, so the assessment process should feel like an interview to better understand what is really happening in families’ lives. Trust is very difficult when our role is seen as intruding in their lives and not providing the support they need. We “need to bridge that gap (of trust) first.”
35:19-35:22 - Luke – Laura, how does mandated reporting impact families and school staff?
35:23-37:28 - Laura – “When I think of mandated reporting, I think of stressful and punitive interactions. When I make a report, I know that it will not be neutral as my experience influences my decision.” Families are doing the best for their kids. They are navigating systems that have harmed them.
37:29-39:24 - Julie – There is a level of fear in the community of mandated reporters and child welfare professionals because they know that they can interview their children without their presence and have the authority to separate their families. This dynamic makes it difficult to build trust.
39:25-39:43 - Luke – What is not working that is leading to overloaded families being reported to CPS?
39:44-42:30 - Marc – Wendy Henderson, DCF Administrator, shared recently that 15 years ago around 40% of all child maltreatment substantiations were due to neglect. That number is now 70%. That coupled with 15 years ago had 80 out of 100 families that lived in poverty were supported by TANF whereas now that number is 21 out of 100 families. If Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is not met, the basic needs of an individual or family, then all the other needs are more difficult to focus on and meet. How does a low-paying job pay for the high costs of childcare? If economic instability wasn’t an issue, would we see as much substance abuse and mental health issues?
42:31-43:18 - Luke – We may need to invite you back, Marc, to join our conversations around economic stability. Laura?
43:19-45:15 - Laura – The new Race to Equity report came out, which shows that it is very difficult to be Black in this state. Wisconsin also has many non-profits, but it is too often difficult for families to get what they actually need. It’s easier to get a turkey or backpack than the services or resources that would help families overcome the systemic challenges that overload them.
45:16-47:04 - Luke – What is the state of community collaboration in your community?
47:05-48:52 - Julie – There is still a belief system that poverty is a moral failing. We then look to “repair” this struggling individual rather than fix the systems that lead to poverty.
48:53-50:02 - Luke – As Jennifer Jones stated in the first season, we can both feed people that are hungry while also addressing the systemic and root causes of hunger. Marc, what is the state of community collaboration?
50:03-53:26 - Marc – There is robust collaboration between Brown County CPS and its school districts through a number of meetings each year. Those meetings have expanded since the pandemic. They exchange knowledge and dialogue around how they can work better together and with their families. They have worked on mandated reporting with one another. CPS is now looking to connect with families first rather than making decisions without their input.
53:27-53:45 - Luke – Laura?
53:46-57:25 - Laura – The school district in partnership with Dane County HHS has shifted from mandated reporting to mandated supporting, from truancy to chronic absenteeism, which focuses on trying to understand what is underlying the chronic absenteeism and what might be missing for families. This has led to a wraparound approach and community collaboration with housing, mental health, family-serving organizations that are communicating more effectively now, particularly for families that have been historically excluded.
57:26-58:11 - Luke – Julie Incitti from Department for Public Instruction introduced us through their efforts to better understand how mandated reporting has worked and not worked in schools. Julie, what has your team been working on to shift from mandated reporting to a more supporting mindset?
58:12-1:03:11 - Julie – Dane County’s mandated reporting process has long been a “how to” rather than emphasizing why we report who and what we report. There has been a shift towards understanding implicit bias and how it has led to disproportionality of Black and minority families being reported as well as too many families being reported who never receive the services that they could really benefit from. Encouraging more critical thinking to determine if the report rises to the level of maltreatment. Providing education to the community that anyone can refer families to the services that CPS can refer to so that they don’t feel that they need to refer to CPS for those services. Dane County has opened a line for reporters to consult with CPS rather than make the report before reflecting on whether it meets the definition of maltreatment.
1:03:12-1:04:18 – Luke – What if the thousands of families in Wisconsin that were reported to CPS but didn’t receive services were referred to a system that is designed to support them?
1:04:19-1:05:36 – Laura – The new Mandated Supporting approach centers families as the solution. All of MMSD is receiving the Mandated Supporting training.
1:05:37-1:05:58 – Luke – MMSD is Madison Metro School District. Marc?
1:05:59-1:09:55 - Marc – There has been a shift towards engagement and assessment with children and families to better understand what is truly happening with a family. They have also added their phone numbers and encouragement on screen out letters so that reporters can understand the screen out decision. This creates more collaboration and open lines of communication.
1:09:56-1:12:08 - Luke – There are two systems change levers that have been shared – 1. Change in mental models. 2. Relationships with overloaded families and community partners. What is still needed?
1:12:09-1:14:29 - Julie – Our mental models still need to shift. Some overloaded families don’t have the awareness that they are struggling, so we need to build community support around those families before they need intervention. We can’t rely solely on community organizations to solve these problems.
1:14:30-1:14:31 – Luke – Thank you, Julie. Marc?
1:14:32-1:17:23 - Marc – We need to meet families’ basic needs so that we can reduce the need for child welfare intervention. During the pandemic, stimulus checks brought down poverty and child welfare removals. 87% of families used their checks for basic needs.
1:17:24-1:19:00 - Luke – We have a poverty crisis in this country. There needs to be upward pressure that includes more money in families’ pockets and downward pressure on the rising costs of housing, childcare, and food.
1:19:01-1:22:08 - Laura – We need to shift the responsibility more onto our systems that are causing many of these problems, particularly the cost and inaccessibility of basic needs. We also need a community wraparound approach that supports and empowers families.
1:22:09-1:22:26 – Luke – What makes you optimistic?
1:22:27-1:23:21 - Laura – Students and families advocating for themselves. There are great collaborative efforts that are pushing to dismantle oppressive systems and improve our policies and practices.
1:23:22-1:23:26 - Luke – Marc?
1:23:27-1:24:52 - Marc – We are having these conversations. Years ago, this conversation wouldn’t have happened. Most of the people having these conversations are receptive to these new ideas.
1:24:53-1:25:51 - Luke – Systems change does not happen unless hearts and minds change, and that can’t happen if these conversations aren’t happening.
1:25:52-1:28:12 - Julie – Similar to Marc, the fact that these conversations are happening in our organizations and communities is promising. There are local and national efforts that are looking at economic and concrete supports as a solution to family separation. It’s also promising that young professionals entering the child welfare system today are learning differently, are exposed to the teachings of Dorothy Roberts and can be the disruptors to change the system.
1:28:13-1:28:51 - Luke – What book or author has shaped your thinking?
1:28:52-1:29:31 - Julie
1:29:32-1:29:33 – Luke – Laura?
1:29:34-1:30:19 – Laura
1:30:20-1:30:29 – Luke – Marc?
1:30:30-1:31:27 - Marc
1:31:28-1:32:28 - Luke – Thank you, Julie, Laura and Marc
1:32:34-1:35:10 - Luke – 3 Key Takeaways
1:35:11-1:37:24 - Luke – Closing Credits
Join the conversation and connect with us!
SPEAKERS
Marc Seidl, Luke Waldo, Julie Ahnen, Laura Glaub
Julie Ahnen 00:09
“Do the best you can until you know better. And then, when you know better, do better.” - Maya Angelou
Luke Waldo 00:30
Welcome to season 2 of Overloaded: Understanding Neglect, where we explore the Critical Pathways that lead to child and family well-being and reduce family separations for reasons of neglect.
Hey everyone, this is Luke Waldo, your host for this podcast series and the Director of Program Design and Community Engagement for the Institute for Child and Family Well-being, our partnership between Children’s Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Helen Bader School of Social Welfare.
Luke Waldo 01:13
In Wisconsin, 72,942 reports were made to Child Protective Services last year alone. To make sense of that, 200 children are being reported every day because someone believes they are being abused or neglected. Every single day. To put that in further perspective, that comes out to about 1 out of every 17 children in our state being subject to a Child Protective Services report. Imagine having someone call a government agency to report that your child appears to be unsafe. How might that feel as a parent?
Now, of those nearly 73,000 reports, 51,000 of them (or 7 out of every 10) is screened out, meaning that they don’t rise to the level of maltreatment that would require an assessment to be completed by CPS. And finally, just over 3,000 children were separated last year from their parents from those nearly 73,000 initial reports.
At the same time this is happening, we have nearly 40,000 non-profits statewide that support our children, families and communities, yet families too often need support or services that are unknown to them or hard to access.
So how might we work smarter, not harder, to elevate solutions to ensure all families can access the help they need when they need it? How might we lead with compassion and curiosity to build bridges between service providers, community organizations, and the families we serve, so we can create a more equitable, collaborative, and impactful support network rather than a reporting network?
I invited Julie Ahnen, Laura Glaub and Marc Seidl to have this conversation today to explore these questions as they have been on a journey of confronting the challenges of mandated reporting and mistrust of our systems.
Julie Ahnen is a Manager of Child Protective Services at Dane County Department of Human Services where she has worked in a variety of child welfare roles for the past 28 years.
Laura Glaub is a Lead Social Worker at the Madison Metropolitan School District where she has served in a variety of roles over the past 12 years.
Marc Seidl is a Child Protection Initial Assessment Supervisor with Brown County Health and Human Services where he has worked for the past 15 years. Marc has also worked in Outagamie County.
It’s fitting that this episode is the last of our Critical Pathways conversations as my guests bring incredible passion and optimism in the face of really complex challenges. I hope that this season has presented those challenges authentically while providing pathways towards the sort of collaboration and solutions that I believe you will hear today.
With that in mind, let’s get to the episode.
Thank you again, Julie, Laura, and Marc for joining us for this conversation. I'd like to begin our conversation today by learning more about you and your journeys with mandated reporting with how our communities collaborate, and the systems and service failures that are overloaded families have experienced. So I'd like to start with you, Julie, by asking you to share your journey in the space of mandated reporting. And welcome.
Julie Ahnen 04:26
Thank you very much, Luke. I really appreciated this opportunity to reflect on the journey that I've been on around mandated reporting. I've been working in Child Protective Services for over 25 years now and really want to acknowledge that I've had some blind spots and some flawed thinking about mandated reporting specifically and you know about the role of Child Protective Services in general. I work in Dane County, and we've been aware for at least 15 years, we've been following our data around race and ethnicity and how that relates to certain decision making points in Child Protective Services and youth justice. And we have significant disparities at every decision making point from who gets reported to Child Protective Services, you know, through out of home placement. And one of the things, one of the messages that I know, was said repeatedly in many meetings that I've been in over the years is, we don't have any control over what comes in the front door. I just, I can't even remember how many times but that was a message that was just said over and over again. And then I think, in May of 2020, when George the murder of George Floyd was receiving a lot of attention, and you know, the murders of other African American people in the country and the movement to abolish policing. And that's when some of the, the language around abolishing the child welfare system came up, too. And we were in the pandemic, I started attending some webinars around anti-racist work, and how do you develop an anti-racist framework that I remember specifically a Center for the Study of Social Policy webinar, where that was talked about. And there was a deep dive into implicit bias and structural racism. And that was very impactful. And I think it was impactful on a lot of my staff too, because my staff really started researching mandated reporting and some of the work that was happening in the state of New York, especially around you know shifting the messaging to mandated supporting. And so we, a group of staff got together, and we had been doing mandated reporting for many years with some of the messaging that's been around for years of “see something, say something”, and when in doubt, call CPS, we'll figure it out. We're the experts. If you have a concern, give us a call. You know, all those kinds of messages that have been out there for at least 50 years now. We were helping to reinforce those messages. And so for the past two and a half years or so, we've shifted our messaging. And it's been refreshing, and it's been challenging on some ends, but it feels like the best next step for us to be taking. And you know, one of the things that I really want to acknowledge is that there are people in our country who have been calling this out for at least a couple of decades. Dorothy Roberts, for example, with her book, Shattered Bonds, The Color of Child Welfare, has been articulating some of this information for a long, long time. And it's hard to reckon with the fact that we are now just, you know, two and a half years into this shift and messaging, but, but we're here now. So that's, that's a little bit about the journey that I've been on.
Luke Waldo 09:23
Thank you, Julie. Dorothy Roberts is mentioned frequently in this podcast series as her work has clearly had an impact on a lot of reimagining kind of our child welfare work. And particularly as it relates to disproportionality when it comes to African American families, and in families of color in general. So, thank you for sharing that. I'd like to turn it over to Marc, I saw you nodding quite a bit as Julie was speaking, and allow you to share your journey as well.
Marc Seidl 10:02
Well, thank you Luke, and I'd like to thank you by also just thanking you for inviting us to have this conversation today. My journey with mandated reporting and child welfare is very similar to Julie's in that over the course of my 15 years in child welfare, I've done numerous mandated reporter trainings. And as I over the last three years, four years have reflected on that, I've given much of that same messaging around, if you are at all worried about a child, make the call to child protection, take the burden off of your shoulders, you know, we'll take that and we'll determine what needs to happen. And also going so far as to say, you know, don't ask a lot of additional questions, we will, you know, we'll we'll handle that. And, in looking at the data, and looking at the research, what that's done is cast an incredibly wide net that is entangling families needlessly, that reports that are made to CPS, that we have no authority to conduct assessments on. There are often very real service needs, you know, for those families, but they're not allegations of maltreatment, as we define them, in the state of Wisconsin. And what did come to a head then, in 2020. Again, similar to what Julie said, there’s nothing that we're talking about today is new. Even back to when I was an undergrad, we were talking in my social work classes about disproportionality and its impact on families of color. And it's only been from what we learned, during and after the pandemic, from the murder of George Floyd, that we really began to have a reckoning with how are we interfacing, how are we working with families? What does that mean? And we do through the training through the conversations that we have with our community partners, whether that's school social workers, hospitals, social workers, we do have through that training, that ability to provide that, that that education on what definitions of maltreatment mean, what does it mean, to have a reasonable suspicion? We do have some of that control that that we previously didn't think we had. And that's, that's where my journey has led me to, because I know, it's, it's so important to me to walk this path to have these conversations, because I know what I what I've talked about in the past with groups of mandated reporters hasn't led to it has been part of where we live where we lead today with the disproportionality, you know, in Brown County. You know, I was looking at statistics leading up to this conversation. And of the over just over 4000 reports that we've received this year, we've screened out almost 73% of those families. Are those reports, and what those reports live on in our system, and what does that mean for families? So that's what has been my journey in this work, and why I feel so, so passionately about it today.
Luke Waldo 14:18
Thank you, Marc. And I really appreciate you providing those, I think, quite startling statistics that you shared in the end, because I don't think many people, including people even within the child welfare system, that they understand the large number of families that come to the attention of the child welfare system through the mandated reporting process, without ever being without ever having a substantiated allegation of abuse or neglect. And what that means we'll explore that I think later on in the conversation, but when we're talking about the importance of trust, right when it comes to building community, when it comes to supporting a family, trust is a common theme in most of my conversations on this podcast, it's really hard to build trust, when that family has been reported to, to a system that we can all agree being part of that system at some level is very intrusive. Right. And so I think it's really important that we have that information that of 4000 families that come to the attention of the child welfare system in Brown County, 3000 or so of them never rise to the level of right needing Child Welfare intervention.
Marc Seidl 15:42
And I think what's even more startling with those statistics are the 1000 or so referrals that gets screened in only 6% of those in Brown County, roughly equate then to a substantiated finding of maltreatment. So you have it's just it is it's this reverse funnel, that all of these referrals that get captured in our system through reporting funneled down to a few number of those that get screened in at that an even fewer number, that then result in a substantiated finding of maltreatment.
Luke Waldo 16:22
We are not necessarily known for our math skills in this field, however, I think I'm an anomaly and I'm pretty decent. So you're telling me that of 4000 families that are referred in Brown County, somewhere around 60 of those 4000 families ultimately end up with a child welfare intervention?
Marc Seidl 16:45
It's different because you could have a couple of referrals, we get a several referrals on one family. But it would be, it's fair to say that this year total of 1000 or so just over 1000 initial assessments that our staff have completed, only 140 of those have resulted in a substantiated finding. So it's not exact families, but it's assessments that are completed. But it's only 6%, six and a half percent of the assessments that we've completed this year so far.
Luke Waldo 17:29
Thanks, Marc. That's super helpful. All right. So I'm going to kick it over to you, Laura.
Laura Glaub 17:35
Thank you, Luke. I'm glad to be here. My journey as a mandated reporter, or understanding the mandated reporting system did not start until I joined a school system. So I just want to acknowledge like, as a white woman, I didn't know mandated reporting until I became a school employee and a lot of my students, families, friends, colleagues understand that at a really young age, you know, per your statistics that you just shared, Marc. So I joined the school system after college as a 22 year old as an AmeriCorps member. I will say, I was trained in mandated reporting almost as a mandate supporter without even knowing it. As an AmeriCorps member we're taught to consult with multiple people because of our roles. So it was natural for me to already bring in a team of people to consult when my students were disclosing information to me after school. I had after school roles in the Madison School District for most of my career here and this is my 13th year in the school district. And as an after school, Program Director We really are centered on preventative and proactive work. So a lot of my work already was around community care around the wraparound approach around students and families, sharing what they needed. And then we responded from that. And so I had this practice already that was really around. Students and families know best, they have the brilliance in them. And us as a community just need to find the resources that they request to get them to where they want to be, right, we're just there to cheerlead them on provide the resources and connect them so that our community can grow to the best it can be. So that was my most of my career in the Madison School District as a mandated reporter. I very rarely reported in those roles. I consulted, collaborated and reached out to community organizations. I had a lot of students who were not connected to the school day who were put in multiple systems and seeing an impact. I decided to go to school and become a school social worker so that I could advocate with students and families that actually shifted my experience with mandated report. Already, I actually felt becoming a school social worker, I was very trained and policy trained in protocol. And I saw a shift of moving from this community care role from this collaboration, student and family at the center to the shift of following compliance. Especially as a school social worker, school employees are really told, just thinking about Marc statistics really told us, when in doubt, call and report. This is what was in when I became a school social worker. And sometimes I saw I was reflecting my practice, I would call and then that was it, right? It wasn't then like, Okay, I'm calling and I'm matching that with an intervention. And I'm calling a housing resource. So I started to examine my own practice, when we're with children, the majority of their day. And so when I started to practice at an elementary school, I saw a shift in my practice, because I was really collaborating with parents, and I felt, if parents were trusting me with their children, then it was my ethical responsibility to be truthful with that parent. So I remember a student came in disclosed information to me about abuse. And I remember at that time, I was reflecting, do I notify the parent that I'm making this report? Or do I just keep it the, the intake worker will screen it in, they'll go to the house, she'll never know it was me. This like, so there was this, because what we're taught right from this community care, and then there's also policy and protection as a school employee. And I really felt the best decision at that moment was to bring the parent in, if I'm truly there for that students’ well-being, if I truly am on the family care team, like I say I am, then I would be open and honest. And so I actually called the parent and we made a decision to report together that opened up my whole heart, whole practice into a totally different thing. I started to work more with the county with the county workers, we started to collaborate in our practice, it was more about what piecing together rather than compliance or, or practice legal obligations. And I started to see the shift of mandated reporting to mandate supporting even to the point of like doing consults or just questioning and thinking about what else the county offers, rather than just CPS, what other departments are we looking into? Then I moved to the lead social work role, and the pandemic hit and assists to social workers. Actually, at the same time that Dane County social workers were saying, what are we doing with our practices? We are social workers, a lot of the time we are policing, because we're complying. And so what are we doing to step back and think about the what we do have control over and what we can shift. So working with Dane County with Julie has been an honor, because we really have shifted professional learning awareness, the focus on basic needs and chronic absenteeism rather than compliance and reporting. And so we, the last couple years have continued to grow together and work with keep collaborating. And so that's my journey so far.
Luke Waldo 23:31
Thank you, Laura. I appreciate that,that very powerful story, an example of collaborating with the mom in clearly a very difficult moment for her and her family, but also a really difficult moment as a social worker, right to have to make that decision. And I'd like us to take a moment to explore a bit more the kind of the historical impacts of mandated reporting and the expectations of mandated reporting on both overloaded families, right, the focus of our podcast and our initiative is really on overloaded families that become vulnerable to neglect in particular. So things like you mentioned, Laura, you know, the the chronic absenteeism that often time, right is a symptom of challenges in the home, right, whether it's housing instability, poverty, things along those lines. You know, Julie, I believe you you had mentioned, right, this idea of like, how do we support things like housing and so on? Yeah, we've talked about disproportionality clearly mandated reporting has had a district disproportionate impact on families of color. But how also has mandated reporting and the standards around reporting impacted our workforce? I'm going to turn it over to whoever would like to jump in first, but we'd love to hear a little bit more about how you see the current state of mandated reporting impacting overloaded families or our workforce.
Julie Ahnen 25:01
I'm happy to start there. I think one of the things that really impacted my shift in thinking is looking at the history of mandated reporter laws, and how they developed in this country and some information that I never knew before that we started out in the 1930s, with a system of AFDC, that supported families who are struggling financially. And then, you know, backing up even further than that, we know that this country has not had a good history of supporting African American family unity, or Native American family unity, you know, through slavery and boarding homes. And then in the 1930s, when AFDC came on the radar. Suddenly, like in the 1950s, the suitable home laws rules were created, where families had to be, pass a determination about whether they were a suitable home to continue receiving AFDC. And this mostly impacted Black families. And then in 1960, the Flemming rule was created, where payments were the people, the messaging was that you either need to find a way to support families or place them into foster care. And that led to huge increase in kids coming into care. And then when the CAPTA federal legislation came in, were mandated reporting laws were created, there was just an explosion of reports. And within that, the capital law penalties were created, where if people don't fail to report, they could be subject to penalties. And I think that led to some fear based reporting on the part of mandated reporters, which has just been, I think, a deeply rooted part, you know, deeply, deeply rooted fear in the mandated reporter community. And that it I think, is going to be hard to overcome. One of the things that Laura mentioned about that struggle about whether or not to tell a parent that you're going to make a report, we've been telling mandated reporters for years that it doesn't matter to us whether you tell the parent that you're making a report that, you know, that's up to you, that's up to your organization. We know that's not going to impact our assessment. But many people are very adamant that they want to remain anonymous, and they become very upset, if a parent guesses who made the report. And then, you know, our staff get accused of telling the parent who made the report. So we have that back and forth with reporters. And, and you know, that's difficult for our staff to have to explain that and complaints get made. But going back to what you were saying about the impact on staff, prior to us opening up our phone lines to consultations and encouraging our staff to engage in conversations with mandated reporters, it was very hard for our, our phone intake staff to hear the judgments that were made about families. And you know, there, we gave them the message that you are, you are the gateway to the County Child Protective Services system, your job is to provide good customer service. And, you know, we told them just type out or write up the information that the reporter gives you. And that was very difficult for those staff to hear some of the things that community members would say about families and that that they would label as abuse or neglect. So I think, you know, having empowering our trained social workers to be able to have more informed conversations with reporters has really professionalized that this job it's a, the first assessment of a family. And I think our staff are very appreciative of being able to have these sometimes difficult conversations with reporters.
Luke Waldo 30:16
Thanks, Julie, real quickly, because we're really good at acronyms in our field. Can you inform people what AFDC is?
Julie Ahnen 30:25
Sure. That is Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which now is called TANF, Temporary Aid for Needy Families. So that was a very old term for public benefits that families receive.
Luke Waldo 30:44
Excellent, thank you. I appreciate that history. I think it's, it's really important that we acknowledge our history, and how oftentimes, the systems in many ways were designed right to marginalize certain populations, right, certain races and ethnicities. And I think you've, you've shared that quite, quite eloquently. So thank you. The other thing I want to make a quick note on and then I'll pass it over to Marc and Laura is, again, this idea, right, as you've laid out beautifully, that, you know, the standard around mandated reporting and and the potential consequences of not meeting those standards, right has really created and unfortunately, this, this oftentimes very adversarial and unaccountable kind of process, right, but doing so without having any engagement or any real, you know, concern for the parent that you reporting. And I think it's a real tragedy. And the reason why in many cases, while we're having this conversation today, so I appreciate you sharing that.
Marc Seidl 31:46
When I think of how it impacts the workforce. You know, the workers that we have, they got into this, they got into this work to, to help families. And what they have, over time ended up becoming. And, again, early on in my career, it was considered we were doing investigations, we're doing assessments, we're doing investigations, almost like many law enforcement. And it's taken time, but we've really changed that language around where we're conducting an initial assessment. What was very helpful with that shift was the pilot program that Wisconsin had with Alternative Response, which was a different way of doing that assessment where we were not getting to the bottom of did this thing happen, it was a more holistic, how is your family functioning? How is your family working, because that's where our safety model is rooted in. So that has been helpful. But for a long time, it was this investigation, investigative model. And that really were on staff who wanted to be out in the field, working with families connecting with connecting them with resources, connecting them with services. And I think I agree with what Julie said about our access staff, hearing the reports, hearing the judgments, on supervisors, reading all of those reports. And I've said it for a while now, but access is a such a critical role within the child welfare system, because it really is that it's that front door, it is the first that is the first child welfare worker that is going to have any contact with a family without even knowing it, by taking that report by interviewing, you know that reporter. And that's really something that we've really tried to, again, shift that mindset of, you know, if you are calling to make a report, we are we will listen to what you know what your concerns are, but we're going to have some additional questions as well. It should feel more like an interview, because that's the goal that we're really trying to have now. And I think from an impact on family standpoint, Luke, you've mentioned a couple of times trust and how critical that is to the change process to the engagement process. And when we have, you know, I referenced that earlier around the, you know, that that reverse funnel, you know, we will have families that we come into contact with often and it never results in a you know, in a finding of maltreatment, it does not result in court intervention. And those families, why would they trust us? You know, we come into contact with them maybe a couple of times a year or maybe once a year or something like that. And those are really, you know, difficult initial conversations to have, especially when that worker is really there. Maybe they're wanting to approach that family in a different way. But they have to bridge that gap first.
Luke Waldo 35:19
All right, thank you. Thank you, Marc. I'm going to turn it over to you, Laura.
Laura Glaub 35:23
Oh, thank you. And I told Julie, I wouldn't look at my phone. But I finally got a student to school. I guess that's also, I'm doing mandated supporting currently, while we're doing this podcast. So I was just really thinking about the family perspective and what families have shared. As we've been together and collaborating throughout the years, and I just when I think of mandated reporting, I think of stressful, punitive, families feel like they're being surveillance, policed. Families have had traumatizing experiences, it has impacted caretakers to like extended family, it really creates this ripple effect in a child's life and in their family's life. So I'm just thinking of those key words that I've heard. And then it really, as school staff, breaks trust, breaks the relationship and, and really creates this divide. Because as we know, like, if I'm reporting, my report is not going to be neutral. My lived experiences are going to show up in that report, my biases are going to, are going to be brought up into that report. And so that when I make a decision to call, I have to understand everything that comes in my life is in that report. And what I've decided is the reason to report is going to show up. I think, when I think of families who we who are being reported to the system, I think of all the families that I've collaborated with, they've never not wanted what's best for their child. They're navigating harmful systems that have impacted their family, generations of their family, and trying to figure out what to do what's best for their, their child. When they send their child to school, their hope is that we all have the same values, that their child matters, and that their family matters. And we are all part of this community.
Julie Ahnen 37:28
Yeah, I just wanted to expand on something that Laura was saying about the systems that families are involved with. Families know who the mandated reporters are in the community, and often mandated, mandated reporters come from systems whose mission is to support families. But families know that the people in those systems are mandated reporters. And they then are fearful of telling, being vulnerable with those caring supportive systems out of fear of being reported to Child Protective Services. And I think that's something that mandated reporters don't understand is the level of fear that people have of being reported to Child Protective Services. Because most of us, as Laura has said so eloquently, most of us have never had that experience of being reported to Child Protective Services. We have this idea that Child Protective Services, people are just their helpers, they're there to help people. But other people who have experienced the Child Protective Services system, know that we have great authority. And, you know, we have the authority to interview children without parents’ knowledge or permission. And we have the ability to read, you know, to separate families, separate children from their families. And that is a deeply rooted fear in the communities that are disproportionately impacted by Child Protective Services.
Luke Waldo 39:24
So I want to build off of a couple of things that both you, Julie and Laura, have just shared. I mean, it's this idea of what is not working right, like, well, what is failing, that is leading to overloaded families being reported to CPS?
Marc Seidl 39:44
One thing that I think of Luke with that question is I was in a meeting recently, and Wendy Henderson, who's our Wisconsin administrator for the Division of Safety and Permanence, shared some very interesting statistics with the group. And she talked about that 15 years ago, substantiation for neglect was approximately 40% of all substantiations. It's now 70%. For neglect. That coupled with when you look at about 15 years ago, 80 out of 100 families living in poverty, were supported by the TANF dollars that Julie mentioned earlier. That number is now 21 out of 100 families. So, you know, I haven't looked at all of the research on this, but that's a very interesting correlation. I don't know if it's a causation, but it's a very interesting correlation. So when, when I think about this, I think about the families that we all interact with in our various systems who are struggling to get by, they do not know where their next meal is going to come from, they do not know where they are going to lay their head down at night. And when you think of, you know, Maslow's hierarchy, if you don't have your basic needs met, you, you can't even focus on the stress of, you know, maybe your toddler who was sick, or your baby who was waking up in the middle of the night needing to be fed, because you don't even your own basic needs are not being met there. So it's that economic instability that families experience in the form of low income jobs, high cost of childcare, and I'm sure it's similar in other parts of Wisconsin, here in Brown County, the availability of that child care, where is it located? Families having to rely on the public transportation system, which, in some communities, it's a great system, and others, maybe not so much, if it exists at all. So when I think of the overloaded families, the referrals that get made, it always comes back to that, that economic instability, and if that were addressed, if that were not the issue, would that family maybe be struggling in the way that they are? Whether it's with substance abuse or mental health challenges, you know, what would that look like?
Luke Waldo 42:31
Well, I might have to have you back Marc for one of our economic stability critical pathway conversations, because that, as you've laid out, right, is, is the reason why it is another one of our critical pathways, because it's, it's very clear that as you've pointed out, neglect has risen as the predominant reason for child removal. And I'm assuming, therefore, the highest level of reports in Brown County as it is across the state, and there is just a very strong correlation, as you've mentioned, between neglect and poverty, right, or, you know, you know, economic instability at a minimum. So, thank you for sharing all of that. I think it's really important. Laura, would you like to round us out with this question?
Laura Glaub 43:19
Yes. Well, when you asked that question, I was like, Okay, what's not working? I mean, we are in Wisconsin, the new Race to Equity report just came out. And what it showed us is that it's even worse, to Back in Wisconsin. And what we see is that are over reporting for school staff, majority White staff, over reporting on Black families. And what also that report shows us is not just economic, racism, health care, job opportunities, like you said, childcare, the list goes on. Our families are impacted by every system. It's hard to talk about the Race to Equity report and then also talk about being in Madison and hearing we have the most nonprofits per capita yet our families are not getting access to those community care resources. I make a joke that you can find a turkey anywhere in Madison, because you have five agencies down to give you a turkey, you have 20 agencies down to give you a backpack, yet we're not collaborating as community care resources so that families don't have to know someone to get something or go over on this side of town to get a Christmas gift and then go on this side of town to get their food. So I really feel what's not working is our collaboration with the city, the county, our stakeholders in the community, community organizations and not having that student and family voice at the center, not having families having that wraparound where it's not just agencies of care or help making these decisions, but students and families, children and families are part of being stakeholders to make a decision of where our community funding goes and supports them.
Luke Waldo 45:16
Laura, that's a great segue. As we're going to move into the space of community collaboration, right, and what that looks like, and how our systems, our organizations, and our families, right, really connect with one another in a more proactive and meaningful way. Because if we're going to move from mandated reporting process to a mandated supporting process, it's not just about mindsets, which clearly is very important, as many of you have laid out here, right. It's also about because this is what we heard a lot in our, our first year of this initiative. It's also about those that like you, Laura, who are in schools, for example, and really want to support families who are overloaded, who are struggling with housing instability, who are struggling with childcare, and so on, who simply don't know how to support that family, don't know who is providing, you know, safe and affordable housing, doesn't know who is providing safe and affordable childcare. Right. And so I like to hear from each of you. What you believe the current state of, you've already laid quite a bit of it out with your with your turkey and backpack examples, which I think is is powerful. But how do you see in both Dane County and Brown County, which you all represent today, the state of community collaboration? And again, that's not just about how child welfare, or CPS is collaborating with our education system, although that's really important. It's also about right, how are our families able to engage, right, organically, in a trusting manner with organizations and with the systems themselves? So Julie had your hand up? So I'm gonna turn it over to you. And if you had something else you wanted to share, go ahead and share that as well.
Julie Ahnen 47:04
I think what I wanted to say, relates to this question as well. But I think one of the things that's not working is that there continue to be deeply rooted beliefs that poverty, and parenting struggles reflects a moral or personal failure on the part of a person rather than a community failure to support or a societal failure to support a family. And so a lot of our supportive services revolve around how do we repair this damaged person? Rather than as Laura was saying, how do we make sure that the end Marc has said this to how do we make sure that this family has their basic needs met? And that, you know, our organizations need to be more collaborative around basic needs for families, rather than, you know, just focused on we need to teach you better parenting skills. Or, you know, I'm not opposed to therapy at all, I think we can all benefit from that. But as has been said earlier, if someone's basic needs are not being met, they're not going to be in a place where they're going to be able to engage in a therapeutic process. So that's where I feel the system is not working with some of our most neediest families.
Luke Waldo 48:53
Thanks, I think it's, it's really important that we both acknowledge and applaud organizations and communities that want to feed families that, for example, may not have a turkey for Thanksgiving. But as Jennifer Jones said in our first season of the podcast, we can both meet the immediate needs of a hungry person, while also recognizing that something isn't working in our systems that is allowing that person to be hungry in the first place. Right. And so how do we, as Marc pointed out, how do we recognize that there are 79 eligible families out of 100 that are not receiving the basic financial support that our system was designed to provide to them? Right, how is that happening? And what do we need to do differently to address those kind of systemic failures, right, those kind of community support failures. So I appreciate that, Julie. All right. I'm going to flip over you, Marc to continue in this kind of state of our community collaboration,
Marc Seidl 50:03
I think, in Brown County, we have ongoing and robust conversations with our school partners. I've been with Brown County for 10 years now, and it predates my time here. But every three, three times a school year, we have meetings with representatives from all of the school social workers across the county. And what's actually been interesting is when COVID hit, and then those meetings became virtual, the audience actually expanded, you know, used to be one school social worker, maybe to, you know, from a district, and now, you know, those meetings can have upwards of, you know, 20 to 30 people, you know, on those phone calls, and they're really, it's an excellent opportunity for us to, for us to collaborate on mandated reporting, or on how can we, as these two, child and family serving systems, obviously, they, you know, different parts of the families and the children. But we that's at the end of the day, who we serve, and who we work with, you know, how can we work better together? And how can we better work with our families? You know, and that has also expanded. In some ways. I recently had a meeting with one of our local shelters where we're going to do some collaboration on, on mandated reporting, on this on what CPS is, you know, what, what is the CPS process? As well as how can we how can our two systems just or our two agencies, I guess, better collaborate with one another. Because like Julie said, there is, you know, our staff and in child protection, we do have great authority, in terms of we interview, when we interview them, the removal of a child. But we also try to be thoughtful with our use of power with families, and trying to talk with our community partners about how, you know, we are trying to do things differently. In certain reports that we screen in, our first, you know, historically, the first thing we might have done is gone to the school and interviewed that child. Now, we're trying to do things differently, we might be calling that family first to say, Hey, we got this report. I'd like to talk with you about it. In the next couple of days, when are you available? So trying to share that we're with our community partners who might still think of us in this very, in the old way of doing things, very punitive. And that's not to say that we've fixed that, we haven't. But we're trying to do that in a different way, and tried to get that education and that information out to, you know, the partners that we work with. And it's been, it's an ongoing process. But the folks at the table are receptive to these conversations.
Luke Waldo 53:27
Thanks, Marc. I'm gonna turn this question and be a little bit more targeted with you, Laura. What other examples do you have of these systems collaborations or organizational collaborations that are really coming together to focus on supporting overloaded families rather than reporting overloaded families?
Laura Glaub 53:47
Yeah, definitely. And I can even speak for specifically for the relationship with the county is not just about mandated reporting to supporting it has actually expanded beyond this conversation of calls and intake calls where we started to have a conversation around moving from reporting to supporting which then led into what are other ways with the report? Well, we report with truancy petitions. Okay, how is that supporting overloaded families? We know many families, attendance is a signal that a need is not met. And so putting them in truancy, are we actually mandated supporting in that or we then again, reporting and following a compliance in the law. So we then started to work with the county around really shifting the mindset of truancy, to chronic absenteeism, and that attendance is a signal and this is just branched off to even more partnerships that are working really well. So it started with the school district and Dane County and the county collaborating around moving from truancy to chronic absenteeism because of this mandated supporting practice and mindset shift, which then we then added multiple different offices from the county. So housing, preventative work, mental health, the collaboration of that wraparound approach for families, which then brought us all together and starting to talk about this shift and how attendance is a signal that needs not met. Not that families just don't want their kids to go to school, which then created collaboration with local nonprofits. So nonprofits and community agencies that are serving families with basic needs, so we all then started to collaborate around chronic absenteeism. And so we're because of the collaboration with the county, with multiple offices in the county with local organizations, we are now seeing school look at attendance differently because of our collaboration. So now we have all schools having chronic absenteeism goals, a team around chronic absenteeism, rather than it's just the social worker, and they will report or they will surveillance this family to make sure they start going to school. No, it's now it's a conversation of what's missing in the school. Are we, is the school welcoming to the family? Do they feel like they're belonging? Is their actual relationship in the school? What organizations are missing? So that schools are looking at like, what do we need, we need to understand our communities, housing resources, our food resources. And so there's, it's creating this collaboration, this wraparound approach that I feel school should be, you know, there is a law that students have to go to school. But that is not the main reason we want our students to go to school, we want our students to go to school so that they can succeed, so that they can get the resources that they deserve. So our community can be more rich in the talents that they have, and the talents that their families provided to them their brilliance. And so it's created this mindset shift of collaboration, that it's not because of compliance, or because of laws, but because we want our community to thrive, all students thrive, and especially our students who have been historically excluded, get the resources that they deserve, so they can have the life that they want. So that's what we're kind of seeing, and there's so much more work to do. But I think that first awareness, and now we're in action steps is what's occurring right now.
Luke Waldo 57:25
So that's a perfect introduction to the work that is being done. We all know Julie Incitti at the Department for Public Instruction, which has been doing its own exploration in this space, acknowledging that the mandated reporting system has not always worked the way that maybe we thought it would or should. And, and then, through Julie, I met the three of you and learned more about your kind of efforts to advance this work. And so if you could share some of the efforts that you and your team have been kind of implementing or designing over the last many years.
Julie Ahnen 58:10
So we've always had a basic template for providing mandated reporter training that was really more like a how to, you know, these are the laws. This is how you make a report. This is the information we're going to need from you when you make a report. This is what the basics of what happens when you report. But what we have done in trying to implement this, this mind shift into mandated supporting is to incorporate elements of implicit bias and systemic racism. Within our system. We show statistics that are very similar to what Marc talked about earlier, where we talk about the fact that over a two year period of time X number of reports were made, but less than 4% of those reports resulted in a finding of maltreatment. And I think we're saying out loud what we've known for years that you know, that this pattern has existed. And I think there's been this false sense of security on the part of mandated reporters that I've done something by calling Child Protective Services. And so we're emphasizing the fact that most of the reports get screened out, meaning that the family receives no intervention from Child Protective Services. So therefore, we need our mandated reporters to continue on in their supportive role with the family. So we talk about, you know, implicit bias and just being very explicit about the statistics. And we also, Marc mentioned this earlier, we're really asking people, challenging people to engage in a critical thinking process around whether the information that they have the concerns that they have meets, gives them a reasonable cause to suspect maltreatment. So we're asking them, we're, we're having a discussion about what does reasonable cause to suspect mean, we're really talking about the law and their role under the law. And then we're asking them to hold up their concerns to the legal definitions of maltreatment. So we're saying, if you're reporting based on your initial gut reaction of some, some information that you've heard or seen, that is when you could be reporting based on your stereotype, your personal values or beliefs about parenting and about how children should be raised. And then we're, we're letting people know that any of the services that Child Protective Services can, can connect a family with anybody in the community can connect a family with those services, that we do not have access to any magical, different kinds of services than what already exists in the community. So those are some of the points that we have added to our old mandated reporter training template. The other thing that we've made a shift in, as I kind of alluded to earlier, is that we've opened up our reporting line for consultations. And we feel like that is a responsibility that we have to further this education of the community. We, people can call us and they can initiate a consultation. And then they can, then it's up to them whether or not they want to officially make a report or not. And our staff are asking people, would you like to consult about this? Can we have a conversation about whether or not you think that your concerns meet the legal definition of maltreatment? So those are some of the major changes that we've made. And as I said, by and large, we are receiving a lot of positive feedback from people who have been calling us.
Luke Waldo 1:03:11
Thank you, Julie, I'm glad to hear that the response has been positive. I'm just listening to you and I'm thinking, imagine if in Dane County and Brown County, the 1000s of families that were reported to CPS that never received any sort of support because it didn't rise to the level where CPS can actually provide that support. What if those 1000s of families and when we're looking at the state of Wisconsin 10s of 1000s of families that were reported to CPS never received the support that they need were reported to a system that is designed to support them? Right, and how different our communities might look right? Or, or, you know, the old fashioned way, if the person that reported them, instead of reporting, went over, knocked on their door and said, Hey, I see you're struggling, How can I help? Right? You know, it's a hard question. At some level it, you know, for I think a lot of us doesn't sound that hard. But it's one that we clearly have to, we have to find a solution to because some things are just not working for too many families. Go ahead, Laura.
Laura Glaub 1:04:19
Well, I was gonna say the reason I appreciate the updated training as a school staff to the mandated supporting is because it really centers families as a solution. I've never met a family or caregiver who didn't know what they needed. They just needed support getting it or figuring out. I mean, we have so many stipulations to access community resources. And so what I really appreciate about the mandated supporting it, it really centers in that training, that families are the solution. And so if you're not getting that education and other places as a school staff, this really highlights in the new training and so I just think a couple years ago, Julie was just training the social workers mandated supporting and now this year, all of MMSD even if they just did the mandated reporting last year, all of MMSD had to take the mandated supporting training. And so what ripple effect will we see with new staff coming into schools or I'm a new teacher hearing that like families are the solution? Here's the support, discuss concerns, early teaming collaboration, instead of saying, When in doubt, report, right? Just a huge ripple effect in a shift with this training this awareness already.
Luke Waldo 1:05:37
Oh, that's great, Laura, and for all our listeners MMSD, in this case is Madison Metropolitan School District. Because in Milwaukee, that's a very different thing. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Of course, of course. All right, Marc, what's happening in Brown County, that is giving you hope for change towards more of a supporting model?
Marc Seidl 1:05:59
In Brown County, it's, we have, in many of the same ways that Julie mentioned in Dane County adapted the mandated reporter training that we provide to those who ask. It used to be very, it was a how to guide, almost, like Julie said, and what we've really focused on in the last two years, especially with the Green Bay School District, but also with the other districts in the county is that idea of holding the information that you have, looking at the definitions of maltreatment and reasonable suspicion, does it meet that burden? And that's been, you know, well received. You know, we have talked about gathering just some minimal information, minimal facts. And I also I often equate it to, it's not an interview, it's, it's sometimes it's just asking the next logical question. You know, if a child comes to school with an injury, it's okay to ask them what happened, even if it would be where we historically said, it's a very concerning location, maybe it's on the face or something like that. But asking the child, Oh, what happened? That's okay. Because that's going to help you as a reporter. If that does need to be reported, it's going to make your report much stronger. It's going to allow our staff to know what's going on immediately. But in turn, it's also going to help you know, was it an accident? Does it have to be something that's reported? And, again, similar to Dane County, we've opened up you know, where, if they want to call to consult, what do you think about this without giving anybody's names. And what we what we have also done is given permission to reporters that if you get that feedback letter from, you know, myself or one of the other supervisors, that your report was screened out, and you, you're not sure why, my phone number is on there, give me a call. Because of confidentiality, we might not be able to get into the weeds on it. But we can talk in general terms about what does what, what do our Wisconsin standards say about screening decisions and information? And how do I make my decisions? We can have those conversations. And it's happened, it doesn't happen a lot. But I absolutely do get those phone calls on and they're not angry phone calls. They're like, Oh, help me understand this. And that's been, I think, for a long time, reporters didn't think they had that ability, you know, to have those conversations. And I think what that has then created, or what helped that would help to foster that is if the two entities are not communicating with one another, they're just forming all of these thoughts that may or may not even be true. So the more that we communicate, the more that we collaborate. We are not then these nameless and just faceless entities. You know, it's Oh, I know. I know, Laura, at the Madison School District, I'll give her a call. You know, I've talked with her before that those types of things just naturally form when you have those ongoing conversations, and you know, we've worked really hard here in Brown County to have those open lines of communication.
Luke Waldo 1:09:56
So what I've heard from each of you, and this isn't just now it's throughout much of our conversation is that there are really kind of two levers, systems change levers that I've heard frequently. One is a mindset, our mindsets, right? Our mental models, right that that in many ways are going to impact how we behave in these oftentimes very difficult moments. Right? Marc, you just gave an example of a kid coming to school with a bruise on his face, right? Or a black eye, right? Those are hard conversations, oftentimes to have. But our mindset, right, if my mindset is that parents are reckless or abusive, right, then my behavior is going to follow that with a report. If my mindset is, you know, parents are doing the best they can, and you know, this, this kid just had an accident, then I'm going to, you know, approach that child and that family with probably a more inquisitive and supportive approach, right. The second is this idea, right, of relationships, right? The second, that's relationships with the families, but it's also relationships between the many different systems, organizations that are, right, in our communities there to ideally support families. Right. So I, you know, what, we haven't gotten to a lot. And we've talked a little bit about, of course, you know, obviously, practice change when it comes to your trainings, policy change that kind of, you know, inform, in some ways, right, how you deliver those trainings, and so on. But I want to kind of round out our conversation today with what is still needed, right? Whether it's practice change, policy change, more resources, is it better relationships? And if so, with whom, right? Is it more emphasis on mindset shift, right? These mental model shifts? What is it? And I'm going to start us off the way we did at the beginning with Julie. And then we'll go to Marc and finish with Laura. And then I've got one last question for each of you. And we'll say goodbye for the day.
Julie Ahnen 1:12:09
Yeah, I think that we all need to continue to work on the mind shifts, myself included. I think with as many years as I've been on this planet I've been in, I've had messages ingrained. And we all need to work on those. But I certainly think that there are gaps in our continuum of care in our communities. And for many years, I've been thinking that our communities have come to rely on institutions or organizations to provide care for families. And I, I think that we need to rally neighborhoods to provide more support within their neighborhoods, so that the care that is needed is right there for a family. And one of the things that's challenging is engaging families who are struggling, but they don't have insight into the fact that they're struggling, and how do and so they're not going to initiate outreach to an agency and ask for help. And how do we reach those families before it gets to the point where a formal intervention is needed? That, you know, I don't have a ready solution for that. But I think that's a missing piece in the puzzle. So neighborhood based support, more of an awareness that we are all in this together. And that it's not just up to institutions to address societal issues. And the idea of how do we reach those families that aren't walking into an office and asking for help?
Luke Waldo 1:14:28
Thank you, Julie. Marc?
Marc Seidl 1:14:30
You know, we've been talking about the training for mandated reporters and the changes that our communities have been making. I think that is that is an incredibly important and can have very real impacts for the overloaded families that we work with, as well as our staff. But I also think from a larger systems perspective, you know, we talked earlier in conversation about families who are living in poverty who do make up the majority of the families that we work with in child welfare. And, again, ensuring that families have that ability to meet their basic needs. Without that worry of where am I going to get my next paycheck from where am I going to lay my head down at night. If from a systems perspective, we were able to get the families without, if we were able to get the families that assistance, that help without the child welfare system, those referrals would go away, and, or certainly be lessened. And I think of you know, the research that Julie talked about earlier out of New York, with the pandemic, and that concept of neighbor helping neighbor. But also we saw during the pandemic, there were the stimulus payments that were made directly to families, no strings attached. And what that research showed is, families who were living in poverty, 87% of them used that to meet their basic needs. And what we also know during COVID, is that those referral numbers were down. So families were able, with assistance to meet those basic needs. There was the eviction moratorium that was in place for a period of time. And we also saw, coupled with that removal numbers going down, which it doesn't match up perfectly with that with those two graphs. But it's, again, it's a very interesting correlation. You know, so when I, when I think of the answer to this question, mandated reporter training and changes are a critical piece of it. But if we only fix that piece of it, there's still this, how are we going to? What are the systems? What are the supports that mandated supporters are going to be able to connect that family with?
Luke Waldo 1:17:23
Marc, you just answered the question the way I've been thinking about it a lot recently. I saw another report today, a really troubling report that one of our billionaires that I will not name, just bought up $500 million worth of housing in this country. I'm unfortunately led to assume that that will not be turned into affordable housing. But we have a poverty crisis in this country, in this very wealthy country. So there needs to be upward pressure, as you've mentioned, the systems that are designed to support families struggling with economic instability, as you've mentioned, right, and you're not the first person on this podcast to have mentioned this social experiment that we had with the pandemic because of the stimulus payments. They also had downward pressure on these systems, like housing, rising housing costs, or evictions where those things were suddenly at least frozen. And lo and behold, families suddenly had greater stability right there. We had less families living in poverty, we had less families coming into the child welfare system. Now it's a small sample size. But it's an interesting one and one that we should explain, yeah, we should explore. Right? So how do we put downward pressure on all of those things? At the same time, right. So really, really great examples here. I appreciate it. All right, Laura. So we've got mental models in Julie's corner, we've got some kind of policies and kind of resource flow or funding in Marc’s corner. Where do you want to take us when it comes to what's still needed to support overloaded families?
Laura Glaub 1:19:00
Well, I was connecting to everything Julie and Marc said, because what I was thinking is that shift of moving from the student and the family, the children, child and the family are the problem, that our systems are creating the problems. So when I'm calling, I'm a mandated reporter, I'm calling on this parent or this caregiver, when really there's a transportation issue. There's a food issue, there's a housing issue, and I'm not, I am calling and making this report and creating surveillance, when where's my accountability and in the surveillance of us as a school system, how we are dismantling our harmful policies, and then all the other systems that our families are involved in that are creating these harmful situations that our families are occurring in. So I'm thinking one shifting that problem from student and family over to our systems. I'm thinking about access to basic needs and not having to navigate a system or multiple systems to figure that access to basic needs, it should be a human right to have access to basic needs. And beyond basic needs an actual wraparound approach from our community, you know, our families, everyone deserves access to basic needs. And actually, and they deserve more. If you if you want to participate in after school programming, where's the resource for that? If you're a parent, and you want to go back to school, so that you can have an entrepreneur career or be part of this, where's the resource for that? It's not just food, housing, mental health, transportation, our families deserve a wraparound approach and for what they say they want in their life and their resource so that they can have what's best for them. And I'm just thinking about the resources we provide just what Marc was saying right away, I was thinking, redistributing community wealth. Where is the support in families, for families and so that they can stay in our community, and we can all thrive? And we can all strive in our community, not just here, here you are, so that you can stay in your housing for the next month. Now, here are the resources so that you can own your own house, you can send your students to post-secondary support, where's that community collaboration? And just coming from a school, a lot of our Black and Brown families don't trust school employees for the range of reasons of mandated reporting, but a lot more policing goes on in schools. And so where are we actually, school is a hub for students to explore themselves, to learn about themselves. So where are we bringing community in the schools, not just staff that look like our students and families? But where are, where does the county show up in the schools? Where does the city show up in the schools? Where do our local nonprofits or our neighborhood organizations, and I think as school employees, we could do a lot better at collaborating and bringing the community into our school and working with our students and families.
Luke Waldo 1:22:08
Thanks, Laura. And I'm gonna stay with you and finish with a real high note. So what makes you optimistic about the future of this work as it relates to community collaboration and supporting overloaded families?
Laura Glaub 1:22:25
I think what well, first, students and families make me optimistic. Students and families know what they need. They see their brilliance in themselves, within their communities. And so continuing to partner with students and families and bringing families to the table to actually make the decisions, I think is really bring, brought a lot of optimism to me that has actually created the partnership with us with the county, with organizations, is families and students advocating for what they need and what they deserve. And then I think people who are doing the work right now, right now, across the nation, there's so many and has for decades, done awareness and provided information so that we can dismantle. And so I think, the people who are doing the work so that we can actually take action steps to change policies and practices with keeping me going and continuing to do this work together.
Luke Waldo 1:23:22
Thanks, Laura. I'll ask the same question to you, Marc. And then we'll finish with Julie.
Marc Seidl 1:23:26
I think what makes me hopeful, not what I think, what I know what makes me hopeful with this work is that we are having these conversations, and that at each stage where the where the conversations have gotten challenging, there has been the permission to keep having the conversations. You know, a couple of years ago, I would have never imagined being in this virtual space, you know, having this conversation on how do we look at overloaded families? How do we look at how do they impact or how do they, how do they intersect with the child welfare system? So just having these conversations and that many of the most of the audiences you know, the folks that I've had these conversations with, have been receptive. And even if it's like, oh, this is this is new for me, I have to think on this. It has always been receptive. I can't, I cannot think of anyone whom I've talked to who's a mandated reporter that when I've talked about reimagining this or changing this mindset has said I don't want to hear this. I don't want to have this conversation. For me, it hasn't happened. And that's incredible, that makes me very hopeful.
Luke Waldo 1:24:53
Thanks, Marc. I think there's oftentimes frustration or maybe that we talk about issues too much. And therefore, there's not the action that is needed. And a lot of the work that I've done over the last half decade or so is particularly when it comes to systems change, is that systems change does not happen without changing hearts and minds first, and you don't change hearts and minds unless, unless you're having these hard conversations. And you're doing it in a way that allows people the space to make mistakes, right to share their own experience, their own fears, and so on. I value having these hard conversations in a way that I might not have a half decade, I might have been impatient and said, change needs to happen now. And it does. That unless we can really change hearts and minds, and that starts with having these conversations. So thank you, Marc, for that. All right, Julie, what makes you optimistic about this work?
Julie Ahnen 1:25:51
Similarly to what Marc has said, just the fact that these conversations about change, making these kinds of shifts are happening on so many different levels right now, at the same time, within my organization and Dane County, at a regional level. And at a state level. And then around the country, there's work being done around economic and concrete supports for families, and how that impacts neglect. So that makes me hopeful that there's a lot of momentum around this that things could possibly change. One of the, as I've been reflecting on this, in preparation for today, a quote by Maya Angelou popped up in like two or three times. Do the best you can until you know better. And then when you know better, do better. And that really has resonated with me, as someone who's been doing this work for a long time. It can feel discouraging that I'm just now, you know, having these conversations. But I would I want to end by saying what makes me really hopeful is that we have young people in their 20s who are entering the Child Welfare workforce with this knowledge and with this passion, and are starting right off the bat wanting, looking at families in different ways, looking at the system in different ways. I had the privilege of seeing Dorothy Roberts at the Color of Child Welfare conference in May of this year. And, you know, she just reiterated the messaging that she's been sharing for, you know, over 20 years. And she encouraged us to be Trojan horses in the system, to be disruptors of the old models of doing things. And I just I loved that. And so those are some things that make me hopeful right now.
Luke Waldo 1:28:13
That's a really powerful way to end. Julie, I appreciate you sharing your experience at the Color of Child Welfare conference. Jermaine Reed, who is the brain trust behind that conference is another one of our guests on this podcast. So we're in good company. So I want to finish with the question that I've been asking everybody which has stumped many. So I would love it if you would share a book, or an author that you feel has shaped or represents your thinking around this work. And I'll start with you, Julie, and then we'll go to you, Laura, and then finish with you today, Marc?
Julie Ahnen 1:28:53
Well, I think I've named Dorothy Robert several times. So Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, and then her new are both Torn Apart, which talks about the roots of family policing. Very, very impactful. I also, there's an attorney and law professor by the name of Shanta Trivedi, who wrote an article about that the harm caused by removal, and that was really impactful for me as well.
Luke Waldo 1:29:32
Thanks, Julie. Laura, what about you?
Laura Glaub 1:29:35
Well, I think I have to like shout out an educator in this space. So I think I will shout out Dr. Bettina Love and We Want to Do More than Survive. I think that is a really good book to look at systems and how they impact our children but it really centers what mandate supporting is, that our children and families are the experts of their own lives. And so how do we bring that brilliance. And then last year when Julie and I were doing this work, I was listening to your season Overloaded as well, at the same time as UpEnd podcast, which I loved comparing those and connecting what you were saying and what your guests were saying to the up end podcast, I recommend listening to this season while doing that season as well.
Luke Waldo 1:30:20
Awesome, thanks. It’s always nice getting another podcast plug. And yes, the UpEnd folks do some really great work, so I appreciate that. Alright Marc, what about you?
Marc Seidl 1:30:30
For me there’s two, and I’ve referenced them multiple times as I’ve talked. Two research articles that have really influenced the way that I think about this, and really helped with having the conversations. One is Closing the Front Door of Child Protection: Rethinking Mandated Reporting. And the other is An Unintended Abolition: Family Regulation During the COVID Crisis. Because these are really thought-provoking articles and provides the research and some of the statistics that have helped shaped the way that I am thinking about this now.
Luke Waldo 1:31:28
Awesome. I’m going to have to check those out. I’m not familiar with either of those. They sound like really compelling reading. So thank you, Marc. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Marc, for this really rich conversation today, and for spending the last hour and half with me, and really more importantly for your partnership and collaboration on this journey we’re all on in seeking new and impactful ways to support overloaded families, to keep them together, and to reduce family separations for reasons of neglect. Thank you all, I really enjoyed my time today with you, and I look forward to many more conversations with you in the future.
Luke Waldo 1:32:34
I want to thank Julie, Laura and Marc again for having this insightful conversation with me. I hope that today’s episode has you thinking more about how we might confront our mental models and the policies and practices that have historically led to reporting families rather than supporting them, so that we might achieve the shift that my guests discussed that may lead to a better today and tomorrow for overloaded families. As always, I want to highlight three key takeaways to reflect on before we finish this season with a bonus episode next week.
Luke Waldo 1:35:21
Thank you for joining us for this final Critical Pathway episode of the season. We hope that you will come back and listen to our bonus episode next week as we discuss some promising research that my Institute colleague, Josh Mersky, has conducted for years on the impacts of Family Resource Centers and protective factors on child and family well-being.
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To learn more about the experts that you heard today, visit the Show Notes, which is where you will also find links to sources or information that were mentioned in today’s episode.
Thank you again for joining us. See you next week.
This podcast would not have been possible without the support and talents of Carrie Wade, who is responsible for our technical production and original music composition. I can't express my gratitude enough to Carrie for all she has given to this project. I'm also grateful to my team at the Institute for Child and Family Well-being at Children’s Wisconsin, who drive the Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities initiative and contributed to the ideas behind this podcast. Finally, I would like to thank all of our speakers that you have heard today and throughout the podcast for their partnership, their willingness to share their stories and expertise with me and all of you and their commitment to improving the lives of children and families. I'm Luke Waldo, your Host and Executive Editor. Thanks again for listening and see you next time.