Racial Disproportionality & Disparate Outcomes in the Child Welfare System... Reflections and Future Possibilities Oronde A. Miller Casey Family Programs

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Racial Disproportionality Disparate Outcomesin
the Child Welfare System...Reflections and
Future PossibilitiesOronde A. MillerCasey
Family Programs
DMC Resource Center Fifth Annual
Conference November 30 December 1, 2006
Holiday Inn Downtown Des Moines, Iowa
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Our Personal Story

• Rural Ohio, 1970
• Ultimatum and coercion
• Khari Miller
• Struggle, determination, aloneness, confusion
• Oronde Miller
• Foster care
• Separation
• Adoption Part 1
• Disruption Emergency placement
• Adoption Part 2, 1974

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Our Personal Story Fast Forward

• Cancer Hodgkin's Lymphoma, 2000
• Diagnosis Treatment
• Coordinating hospice
• Assumptions and questions
• Keeping siblings together
• Medical records and family history
• Re-introduction to child welfare
• National Center on Permanency for African
  American Children, 2000
• Teen Mothers Program, 2002
• Child Welfare League of America, 2003
• Institute for Family Child Well-Being, 2004
• Casey Family Programs, 2005/2006

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Public Agencys Success Failure

• Children
• Permanency for children
• Commitment to siblings
• Can we be thankful, reflective and critical
  simultaneously?
• Parents
• Voluntary relinquishment
• Turned away
• Guilt, Regret, Powerlessness
• Further exploration of this notion of long-term
  spiritual, psychological, economic
  sociopolitical impact of child welfare
  involvement on individuals and communities

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Role of Structural Racism

• Definition of Structural Racism
• the complex ways in which historical
  oppression, culture, ideology, political economy,
  public policy and institutional practices
  interact to produce forms of racial sorting that
  reproduce and reinforce a hierarchy of color that
  privileges whiteness and marginalizes blackness.
• Definition developed by The Aspen Institute.
  Retrieved online at
• http//www.aspeninstitute.org/site/c.huLWJeMRKpH/
  b.613731/k.DD53/Project_on_Structural_Racism_and_C
  ommunity_Revitalization.htm

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Role of Structural Racism (cont.)

• The Structural Racism lens allows us to see and
  understand
• the racial legacy of our past
• What is the historical context?
• how racism persists in our national policies,
  institutional practices, and cultural
  representations
• What is the present-day manifestation?
• how racism is transmitted and either amplified
  or mitigated through public, private, and
  community institutions
• What is the role of institutions?
• how individuals internalize and respond to
  racialized structures.
• What is the response of individuals?
• Based on ideas shared in the publication
  Structural Racism and Community Building
  published by The Aspen Institute Roundtable on
  Community Change. June 2004. p.12.

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Critical Issues Related to Eliminating Racial
Disproportionality Disparate Outcomes

• Child Protection vs. Family Preservation
• Role of child welfare punitive action vs. family
  support
• Resolving the tension Is it a choice or a
  balance?
• Involvement of Elders, Parents, Youth and
  Communities
• Case planning and decision-making process
• Ongoing systems improvement efforts practice,
  policy, legislation
• Termination of Parental Rights
• Cultural / ethical / moral legitimacy of a
  concept
• Implications for family preservation efforts and
  permanency considerations
• Critical Role of Judges
• I dont think its my place to second-guess the
  recommendations of the child welfare
  professionals they are the experts and they know
  whats best.

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The Work Moving Forward

• Organizational Culture and Values
• Worldview of the agency
• Assumptions about families and communities
• Subjective nature of our work?
• How much support and assistance is enough? Who
  decides?
• Child Welfare Practice and Policy
• Working with families and communities Practice
  and policy
• Internal system improvements... Coordination and
  policy
• Alternatives to formal child welfare intervention
• Nature of support before, during and after formal
  intervention
• Multi-Systems Coordination
• Child welfare juvenile justice education
  comprehensive health care etc.
• Shared worldview and values?

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The Work Moving Forward

• Starting somewhere
• Moving forward
• Consensus is not needed.
• What can you do by next Tuesday?
• Did it work?
• Build the case.
• Share it with others.

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Tenets of Courageous Conversations

• Speak your truth.
• Expect and accept non-closure.
• Experience discomfort.
• Stay engaged.
• Tenets of Courageous Conversations
• taken from Knowing Who You Are E-Learning
• Casey Family Programs

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Courageous ConversationsImportant Considerations

• Understanding the role of a facilitator
• Understanding how to deal with conflict
• Creating a safe space for people to address their
  issues
• Developing an ability to read dynamics in the
  room
• Recognizing conflict and addressing it in a
  timely fashion
• Taking care of yourself, the facilitator

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We Can All Make a Difference!

• Birth families can make a difference!
• Youth in care can make a difference!
• Foster care alum can make a difference!
• Our communities can make a difference!
• Resource families can make a difference!
• Human service professionals can make a difference!

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Are we satisfied?

• We can create an equitable just system of
• family and child well-being.
• It can happen
• in this country and in our lifetime!
• It must begin and continue with us as
  individuals
• committing to work with one another!
• Its Healing Time!

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Contact Information

• Oronde A. Miller
• Director, General Systems Improvement
• Casey Family Programs
• 1808 Eye Street, NW Fifth Floor
• Washington, DC 20006
• Phone [phone]
• Email omiller_at_casey.org

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Casey Family Programs