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Producing High-Quality Advocacy for Children and Families
By Shay Bilchik, keynote speaker
National Association of Council for Children
National Children's Law Conference
Las Vegas, Nevada, Sept. 7, 2004
Thank you, Marvin, for that kind introduction. And good evening, everybody. I'm very happy to be here for the opening of this conference and in such good company: Candace Barr, President of NACC's Board of Directors; Judge Sharon McCully, President of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges; and of course Marvin Ventrell, who has done an absolutely fantastic job as NACC's Executive Director. And last, but not least, it is an honor to be with all of you who do such a great job as advocates for this country's most vulnerable children and youth.
I'd like to begin my remarks on advocacy for our children by telling you a couple of stories. The first has to do with a visiting lecturer who was speaking, one day, to a group of businessmen and women on the subject of risk management.
To drive home one of his points, he held up a $20 bill and asked for a volunteer from the audience. He asked him the following question:
"Imagine that I have a huge steel I-beam here-25 feet long and 6 inches wide. If I put it on the floor in front of this audience, would you be willing to walk across it for $20?"
"Of course I would," said the volunteer.
"All right," said the lecturer, "now let's imagine that the I-beam is 75 feet long and has been suspended high above the ground between the two sides of a gorge, with a 300-foot drop. Would you be willing to walk across that same I-beam for $20?"
"Of course not," said the volunteer.
Raising his voice dramatically, the lecturer continued. "Now imagine," he said, "that I am on one side of the gorge and you are on the other-and I am holding one of your children over the edge. If you don't come across the I-beam and get your child, I will drop him. Now will you cross the beam?"
The volunteer hesitated for a long moment before making his reply, which was actually a question.
"Which one of my kids do you have?"
I can tell by the laughter in the room that many of you are parents who have had "one of those days" with your kids.
I tell this story to make a very important point. You are unlikely to ever meet an individual who says that he or she does not care about kids. Politicians of every stripe are famous for kissing babies and wanting to pose surrounded by children. All of us truly do want the best for children on some level. But the way people express that seems to vary a great deal.
The man in my story was being asked a very clear question: Exactly what steps are you willing to take to help a child? What kind of priority do children have for you when the going gets rough; when there are choices to be made? And his answer revealed what may be an even harder question-WHICH children are you willing to help?
The truth of the matter is that the vast, vast majority of parents would do whatever it takes to get across that I-beam to help their own child, and probably to help any child. But as a society-perhaps through our benign neglect-we are not doing what it takes to save all of our children. Today, and every day, thousands of American kids are hanging by a thread, slipping through the cracks, and to one extent or another, falling into the gorge. You know that as well as I do.
And as we gather here in Nevada, with our goal of providing justice for children, we need to serve as the bridge for others to join us in this work: all as advocates for children!
This is a great challenge, as we know that this advocacy must take place on multiple levels; within our formal and informal systems of care and across the general public. This is true whether we are fighting against the death penalty for juvenile offenders; or for strong, well-trained counsel for children in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems; or for effective community advocacy for our children.
So that being said, what about that benign neglect? How does it happen? And how can we stop it?
Part of the problem is that kids don't get into dire straits all at once. It's a gradual process. They can transition from sad kids, to mad kids, to "bad kids" while we're looking the other way and while their communities are pursuing some other legitimate priority. And most often, there isn't usually much of a point of crisis, at least a publicly-visible one, that serves as a community mobilizer-and when there is, we flog the individual worker "responsible," but don't take on the challenge of the broader system's change that is needed.
That's why CWLA has committed itself to Making Children a National Priority, one child and one community at a time.
- This means that all of our kids matter, all of the time, no matter what other priorities lay claim to our attention.
- It means that every child and family who comes to our attention deserves a competent, individualized assessment that leads to the right services, at the right time, for as long as they are needed.
- And it means starting at whatever point we are able to intervene, whether we're looking at an adorable toddler or a tough teen with gang tattoos.
Now believe me, I know how bad the "bad kids" can be. My second story is drawn from my own experience. I was a prosecutor for 16 years, and I have seen a lot of those "bad" kids.
I do know that children and young people can do terrible things.
The child who stands out indelibly in my mind, from all those years, was a 13-year-old boy in Florida who murdered his mother and his younger brother. He had a plan, concocted with all the sophistication you would expect of a barely 13-year-old, that called for murdering the mother only, but the brother came back from school earlier than expected, and the plan went from bad to worse. He ended up killing his brother to get him out of the way; hid his body; and then killed his mother when she arrived home.
This is a hideous scenario and you can imagine the outcry from the local media. They called this boy a monster. In truth, his actions were monstrous. But I knew there was more to the story and I worked with the public defender, who I had come to know fairly well, to understand what was behind this boy's actions. I talked to the father and to others in the community, and I visited the home.
This child had been adopted. Unlike most adoptive parents, this couple had taken him into their home, but never into their hearts. He was never accepted, and he was never allowed to be a child. When I went to the house I walked into his bedroom. There was nothing in his closet, and nothing in his drawers, but white shirts and long black trousers-not a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, nor anything a kid could wear to have fun, to just be a kid.
The younger brother was cast as the "good" child and this little boy as the "bad" one. So, as most children will when cast in this role, he began to live up to it. At his first serious infraction-and it wasn't terribly serious, something along the lines of truancy-he was packed off to a military-style boarding school.
He was miserable there. He begged to come home, but there was no appeal. When he came home on a vacation, he pleaded with his parents not to send him back. But they sent him back. So he ran away from the school. When he was caught and returned, he hatched his plan.
He intended to make the scene look like a break-in, and himself like a hero who tried to save his mother. He imagined that the father, who was apparently the less strict of the two parents, would welcome him home then, and they would all live happily ever after. But of course, his plans went terribly awry.
As the prosecutor, I worked with the public defender, with professionals in the mental health system, with the juvenile justice system, and with the adult correctional system to develop a balanced treatment plan that we could present to the judge.
We knew that the depth of anger in this child, not to mention the anger and outrage in the community, would require a plan that didn't necessarily end at the age of 18. To do that we would have to transfer him into the adult system to get the length of treatment and supervision that he needed.
The judge accepted our plan, started with a juvenile residential treatment program. I kept tabs on the boy as he grew, and the reports were good. He was a star. He was adopted by a worker in one of the programs he attended over a seven-year period, and he was loved. The last I heard, he was out on his own, he had a healthy relationship with a young woman-not a small accomplishment for someone with his history!-and he was headed for a successful adult life.
I don't have to draw any of you a picture of what might have become of this young man, and what his career might still be costing society, if he had been placed in a purely punitive environment. Instead, professionals in various systems were able to put their various kinds of expertise together into a holistic picture of what he needed, and to make sure he received it for as long as he needed to. Justice was served. And he was finally able to receive-and to return-the love that every human being requires.
We were able to secure this outcome because when I was a prosecutor in Miami, we began the practice of convening a staffing around every juvenile who came to our attention for a particularly serious offense. We scheduled a time to staff these cases -the public defender, a member of the social work team, and the prosecutor's office, to discuss the background of the case and to share an assessment. In this way we could make sure that every child had a face; that no matter how busy and stressed we all were, no child was reduced to the numbers on a docket and a case file.
At the same time, this practice also made sure that the people in those systems saw each other as individuals, and not as "the adversary." We on the justice side could make sure that the social workers understood the public safety concerns, while they could be sure that we understood that children are not adults, and that we saw the potential for rehabilitation that existed in almost every case. It was a way of promoting that essential balance between our duty to society and our duty to the individual young person-what justice is all about. And it allowed us to provide a greater level of collective advocacy for the offender than we could do otherwise.
I like to tell this story because I believe that there's always hope, no matter how late in the day it is for a particular young person. I also like it because it illustrates the benefits of collaboration. Now obviously, though, many opportunities for systems to work together were missed or bungled before this boy got to the absolute low point in his life. So let's review some possibilities during his life span if there had been more effective "advocacy" on his behalf.
- What if this boy's birth mother had received screening for home visiting, starting with an assessment while she was still in the hospital after he was born? Maybe her community could have surrounded her with the support she needed to be a good-enough parent, and her son would never have entered the system.
- Even if that opportunity was lost, what if a doctor or a neighbor had noticed that her child was not thriving while he was still very young and connected her with a strong family preservation program? She might have received treatment for depression or an addiction, he might have received services to address his developmental delays, and the feedback loop that bonds parents and children might have been repaired.
- Even if things did progress to the point where someone reported physical or emotional abuse or neglect, and the child entered the system, what if he had been adopted promptly, at an early age, by a family that had been carefully screened and was well suited to meet his needs? Again, we'd likely be seeing a totally different story.
- OR, what if TPR was delayed and he was adopted as an older child, but the agency had provided top-notch pre- and post-adoption services? Perhaps the family who adopted him would have had a more realistic idea of what to expect from a young boy who had a bumpy start, and some practical strategies for managing his behavior. They might have been linked to a support group of other adoptive families who got together regularly, to reinforce their new learning and just to have fun.
- Even if the parents stayed as rigid as they were, what if our young man had been matched with a Big Brother or some other mentor who provided an alternative adult role model? Someone who offered him personal affirmation, and a view of some avenues for success that were wider than those his adoptive parents envisioned? A voice of an "advocate" who believed in him?!
- Even if none of this had happened, what if the principal or the truant officer who notified the parents about his first "offense" had set up an opportunity for family counseling, and been able to engage the child and the parents at that point?
- What if all those opportunities were missed? What if everything had gone along as it did until he was 12 or even 13, but the boarding school he was sent to had a teacher or a counselor who noticed his distress, and was able to intervene?
Mind you, this was a boy who never encountered the police or the juvenile justice system before he committed his horrible crime, so the array of interventions that are possible there never came into the picture. And neither did - let's be honest - the array of possibilities for further harm that the juvenile justice system, like the child welfare system, unfortunately can at times present.
Clearly, things could have gone better for this child at a great number of points, as they do for thousands of children. But the fact remains that many, many children fare even worse. I could take my "What if's" in the opposite direction.
- What if no one in the justice system had taken it upon himself to be this child's advocate?
- What if one person had done so, but that person had not already established a good working relationship with the public defender, the mental health professionals, and the representatives of the other systems that were involved in the case? What if the judge had been adamant about a more punitive sentence?!
I won't take you in that direction. Instead, I'd like to widen my lens from one child to the 73 million children in the United States of America and see how they are faring. I'm sure you are all aware that the news is not good. We saw the statistics on poverty that were released last month. Poverty is only one of many indicators that shows how many of America's children are hanging over the gorge, over a widening chasm, right here and right now.
- Poverty increased for the third straight year in 2003, in the richest nation the world has ever known. Almost 20% (19.8%) of all families with children are now in poverty. 45 million Americans, or 15.6% of the population, are now without health insurance. [Wash. Post 8-27-04, US Census Bureau].
- Infant mortality started rising again, in 2002, for the first time in several decades. [Source: America's Children in Brief, Key National Indicators, Federal Interagency Forum on Child & Family Stats]
- Every state has failed the federally-mandated Child and Family Service Reviews - for the most part, not for lack of dedicated people and effective programs, but for lack of resources.
- A new report from the Justice Policy Institute found that prison spending grew five times as fast as education spending between 1985 and 2002.
- According to testimony Rep. Henry Waxman delivered in the U.S. Congress in July, based on extensive research by his staff, 2/3 of US juvenile justice facilities lock up mentally ill young people because there is no place else for them to go. In some places, children as young as seven years old are incarcerated because the care they need is not available.
- Finally, I cannot conclude this dismal list without pointing out that every one of these barriers to healthy growth and development is at its highest and most impenetrable in communities of color across America. Children of color are over-represented on both child welfare and juvenile justice caseloads, for reasons that are directly related to all of the above - and the racism that must be addressed as one of our many challenges.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is manifestly not a nation that makes children a priority.
So, how do we produce high quality advocacy for children and families - systemically and individually? Not by happenstance, when the personalities of a prosecutor and a public defender seem to mesh-but as a matter of course!
And how do we do this when challenges are growing, and at the same time, investments are shrinking. Our answer at CWLA, in part, is to take on the audacious goal of Making Children a National Priority.
To guide a process of re-investment and remind people of what's possible, we imagine an America where every community is equipped to meet the needs of every child before it is too late, and where meeting those needs is a top priority.
That is our vision. Now, do you know the difference between a vision and a reality, my friends? It is the same thing that makes the difference between a vision and a hallucination: the number of people who see it!
So at CWLA, we're working at the national level, and in communities across the country, to build critical mass-to grow the number of people who share our vision and commit to making it real. We are facilitating exciting, cross-systems projects in a good number of communities, including a startup in Cleveland, Ohio, the site of the nation's second juvenile court.
We have hope.
We are full of hope, in spite of all the grim statistics, because we know we are not alone. We know that those of us in child welfare are not the only ones who are passionate about our kids and who will bridge any distance to save them.
When we work together, we can add up to something far greater than the sum of our parts.
The hard times we're seeing today make it more essential than ever for everyone to pull together. Collaboration is the only way that we'll get through. That doesn't mean it becomes As a matter of fact, when the going gets rough, most of us have a natural tendency to clutch whatever we have more tightly to our chests. We all believe in collaboration and the change it can bring, but most of the time, what we really want is for somebody else to change. That's just basic human nature. As a matter of fact, I have heard collaboration defined as an unnatural act between consulting adults.
Peter Block, who is an expert on organizational change, points out that change only happens when each of the parties involved is willing to give something up in order to get something. Each has to be willing to give up a piece of a project, a piece of the budget, maybe even a piece of their identity. Each has to surrender territory, but also status, along with cherished beliefs, biases, opinions, and ways of doing things. Each party, or organization, has to yield some control. It takes trust, he says, and trust is built by telling the truth, and by acts of surrender.
That's scary, isn't it? Trust? Surrender? Maybe even transparency?
No wonder, so often, we merely rename things instead. Or we write a report describing what the people across the street have got to change.
Actually opening yourself up to change, and agreeing to give something up in order to get something, takes guts - and I hope that those of you in this room have got the guts, because we will need it!
Now to try to lighten this discussion and our burden, let me introduce the subject of teenage sex in the 60's as a way of looking at this challenge of more effectively collaborating within our work.
I was born in the early 50's, so teen sex in the late 60's was something I cared about. And from what I heard from my friends and acquaintances, everyone in my high school was having sex. As I learned later, it wasn't true; it was a myth. And do you know what? The truth of the matter was that those who were having sex weren't doing it well. Which is also the truth about collaboration - we hear that everyone is doing it and we question why we haven't been more successful; yet the bottom line is that with a few exceptions those who are doing it aren't necessarily doing it well! It takes hard work and a sustained effort. So let's keep at it - even when the going gets rough - because collaboration is absolutely essential. But, even when we professionals come out of our silos and present a united front, there are not enough of us to reach the tipping point. This is where advocacy comes in.
Child welfare and juvenile justice professionals do some of the most important work in the world, with life and death often hanging in the balance. Nevertheless, at CWLA, we tell our members that doing their jobs is not enough.
Each one of them also has to be an advocate for the children they serve and for all the nation's children, all the time. Some of our members answer that challenge better than others. But we lawyers - there are many of us here in this room, I believe-are advocates by profession. If our profession prioritizes children, we can show the rest of the world how to give voice - the root of the word advocacy.
As advocates for children, we give voice to those who are too small and too weak to speak for themselves. The legal profession generally enjoys the respect of the public in our local communities: something that social workers often do not have. Judges, in particular, enjoy a position of respect within the community. Quite a few members of both groups are using their prestige and their very real power to benefit children and young people.
Among judges who are nationally known child advocates, I would name Judges Sharon McCully, Len Edwards, Patricia Macias, James Ray, Bill Gladstone, Jim Payne and Judge Fitzgerald. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges is a great partner to CWLA and a national force in child and youth advocacy. And I recognize and applaud the fact that many of you in this room are doing splendid things at the state and local level.
Among lawyers, the NACC and the ABA Center on Children and the Law, along with the Youth Law Center and Juvenile Law Center and many other top-flight organizations, provide strong national leadership. We also have partners among foundations, corporations, and other advocacy organizations at all levels. We have partners in other professions, like education and health and mental health - some of them represented here today. I am more grateful than I can say, to all of them - to all of you.
But it still isn't enough. We have to reach the general public. In this democracy, if the people lead, the leaders will follow.
So, how do we do that? How do we turn the tide?
One important way is through the media. We can win their trust and their respect, and keep them coming back to us. Every time we have a chance, we can speak clearly and honestly not only about our concerns for our children, but also about the solutions. We can tell them that we know what works.
If we have done the assessments I spoke about earlier - evaluating both the strengths and the needs of individual children and families, and of our communities - we can be honest and clear and convincing about both, presenting a picture that balances challenge with hope and a call to action.
In presenting the national statistics I cited earlier in this speech, for example, I should also acknowledge that both teen pregnancy and juvenile crime have dropped dramatically during the last decade. None of our problems are intractable. It's a question of priorities.
At CWLA, starting in the year 2000, we began with the vision, set forth in a document we call the National Framework. Then we started developing tools called Community Implementation Guides, for prioritizing children's needs and planning to meet them at the local level. The newest Guide will focus on collaboration between child welfare and juvenile justice. You can find these, as they are released, on our web site at www.cwla.org. You'll also see our policy priorities at the national level and a wealth of other interesting materials.
We need to engage many groups and individuals within our communities, starting with nuclear families and children themselves, if we are going to meet the unmet needs and build family-friendly, child-friendly places to live and grow.
The Community Implementation Guides and the National Framework both summarize many decades of research and practice wisdom. With these tools at hand, no one should have to start from scratch in choosing the right interventions to build on their community's strengths and repair its gaps. Partners can be sure that the programs they put in place are grounded in evidence. They must be sure, because resources are scarce. And because children are priceless.
We can make sure that the programs we advocate for are rooted in accurate assessment and proven practice. We can make sure that individual services are not only networked across systems, but embedded in a solid plan that has support across the community. That's where the media can be vital allies, as well as local businesses, foundations, colleges, faith communities, and other institutions.
We can be sure that the community takes ownership of this plan to improve children's lives: that it expresses the values most important to this community at this time. Maybe, in this time of world unrest, the top value for many is security. We can assure our fellow citizens that world peace and homeland security both begin at home. No nation is safe if its children are not able to grow up safe and strong; if millions of them are hanging over the abyss.
This seems so obvious I shouldn't even have to be saying it! But I do, and we all do, as often as necessary. My friends, we must make children a national priority.
One of the really cockeyed things about our value system in this country is that, up to a point, at least, the prestige people enjoy seems to be directly related to the age of the people they serve. College teachers aren't wealthy, for the most part, but they are held in some esteem, while preschool teachers are disregarded and paid next to nothing. Yet we know that the preschool years are the most important time in any individual's development. By the same token, too often juvenile court is usually treated as a short-term assignment for rookie lawyers or judges.
This is why organizations like NACC are so important. Your Board Certification program is a strong step toward increasing the prestige, as well as the professional competence, of attorneys who represent the best interests of children and young people. The ABA's juvenile defender centers are another great effort. We need to work together in efforts like these to make the practice of "children's law" a priority within law schools and local bar associations.
We need a national commitment to prioritize training and support in juvenile law, and cross-training between child welfare and juvenile justice.
Judges have to use their power - as some already do - to elevate the importance of justice for children. This has to be a message that is sent from the bench. Judges who prioritize children have to resist being rotated in and out of family court assignments, so that many can attain the stature and the national recognition that is now accorded to a few.
We must have a system of training institutes across the country, accessible in every region, where children's advocates - lawyers and non-lawyers - could learn from the experts how to make the case for children. These could be centers for cross-training among professionals, but also places where natural advocates like parents, family members, and young people could learn facts and skills to back up their passion and their life experience. If we can build them a platform, their personal stories will have far more power than all our eloquence.
The Department of Health and Human Services should partner with organizations like NACC and others to seed and grow this network.
In this, as in everything that affects our children, there are tasks at the local level as well as the national. We have to make the political system our ally on all of these levels. And that's an audacious goal. And as I said earlier, it's a key piece of our even more audacious goal, which I know you all share: making children a national priority.
So to recap before I close - we seek:
- Well-trained, skilled counsel for our children in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
- Well-trained, dedicated judges serving in our juvenile and family courts.
- A multi-system approach and the strong collective advocacy it brings.
- Each member of a community asking how the day to day decisions they make impacts that community's children - and the will and capacity to do something about it when children are being harmed by those decisions.
- Political will building through traditional and non-traditional advocates reaching the change agents within our local communities, and at the state and national levels.
Now I know that is a lot to be seeking, but our children deserve nothing less than the highest quality of "advocacy!" And those are the elements that must be in place for that goal to be realized.
So as I close my comments - and since we're here in Las Vegas, I will provide one of you with the opportunity to walk out of here with a little extra cash. Like the lecturer in the story I started out with, I have a $20 bill here. Would anybody like to have it?
I am going to give this bill to one of you, but first I am going to crumple it up into a ball.
Who wants it now?"
Hmm. You still do. What if I drop it on the ground and grind it into the floor with my shoe; like this!
Does anybody still want it?
How about if I make a small tear in it like this?
Ok, if you sitting at the front table still wants it, it is yours!
Friends, I was making a point with that little demonstration. The children we serve may not know it, but they are like that piece of currency. No matter what has been done to them, no matter what choices they make in their immaturity, their essential value is not diminished.
They may be dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the circumstances that come their way. They may feel as though they are worthless. Society may treat them as worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, they never lose their value. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, they are still precious to those who can see their potential. They are the ones for whom we must advocate most forcefully - and produce the highest quality advocacy, on multiple levels.
The people in this room know that and how to see human potential, and to act on it. I am proud to be one of you. CWLA looks forward to working with you and I wish you a great few days in Las Vegas. Goodnight.
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