Tomorrow, a conference at The New School, organized by Graham Windham and other major child welfare agencies, weighs the legacy and future of their work. 

Urban Matters: The conference title – “The Reckoning”– echoes language used four years ago during protests against the police homicides of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Is that deliberate? 

Kimberly Watson: The term “reckoning” seemed so appropriate for what this conference was intended to accomplish. In a practical sense, it is really about “settling up” or coming to terms with harm that has gone on for too long for poor, and Black and Brown families impacted by the child welfare system. But it also speaks to the deep woundings to the soul and psyche that someone has to account for. A system is comprised of human members, and human beings have to acknowledge the pain and hurt they’ve created, caused, or perpetuated, in order for transformation to occur.

UM: Many activists, scholars, and litigators maintain that the child welfare status quo is so irredeemably discriminatory, coercive, and harmful that it can’t be reformed and must be abolished. They will be heard at the conference. Are they right? Or can they and reformers find common ground?

Watson: An important step to driving change is to build consensus among us in this sector. Those of us doing this work must observe and acknowledge the harm—albeit unintended – that has happened to children and families because of our unjust practices and punitive policies. 

Personally, I believe the gap between reformers and abolitionists is much narrower than the gap between status quo and abolition. Starting from a place of agreement, reformers and abolitionists alike know that discriminatory, coercive, and harmful practices must stop. The frustration for all of us is when the solutions are too complicated and unwieldy to implement or when the implementation process is fragmented or protracted. 

UM: So, to follow up on that last question: What would you like this conference to accomplish? What should happen now to make practices and policies less harmful and more helpful to families in distress?

Watson: In February 2023, a group of us from Graham Windham attended the launch of the Racial & Civil Justice Clinic at the Carey Penn Law School (University of Pennsylvania). We heard panel discussions about reform and abolition in an environment where we didn’t need to defend our work. We listened, learned, and found that so much of what we heard resonated with us. There was another opportunity several months ago when the Narrowing the Front Door Work Group sponsored a similar event. 

This conference was designed to give the folks who are closest to the work at Good Shepherd Services, Graham Windham, and The New York Foundling the opportunity to get information and have discussions in an open environment. Our staff do this work because they care about children and families. All good changes start with the shared understanding that the status quo is problematic. Feedback from children, youth, families, and the staff who are closest to them is essential to making meaningful change. Understanding that we have done much good, and we have also caused or contributed to harm, is a painful process. It is worthwhile, in that it leads to the realization that we must do better and differently for children and families. 

UM: New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services, which will turn 30 next year, was established after a particularly horrific murder of a small girl by her mother.  So, here’s the inevitable question: How do you both protect such vulnerable children while also preventing the harms children often suffer in foster care or from intrusive family surveillance?

Watson: The harm and death of children at the hands of people who are supposed to love and protect them is horrific. This is undeniable. The way to protect those children, and to preventing the harm that happens to children that enter foster care, is to proactively and intentionally attend to factors that add stress to families and exacerbate fragile conditions.

Families need access to the basics like quality food, childcare, education, health, and housing supports and resources. When there is scarcity or lack of those resources, or they are blocked because of unwieldy bureaucracies, the stress mounts. Add to this the racial stress and microaggressions they routinely experience. 

Communities of color and poor communities need to be fortified with funds and resources so that they have agency to care for people who live within their confines. Families are expert on their own situations and, most often, know what they need to be successful and thrive. Likewise, communities understand the issues that challenge their members and typically know what the solutions are.

UM: Final question. Kym, you’ve long been upfront about how childhood placements in foster care affected you and your siblings. How does that inform the work you do now, and how does it influence your views on the direction child welfare should take?

Watson: In truth, I only began sharing my personal experience with foster care about 11 years ago. Graham was the first place that I felt psychologically safe enough to tell my story. Until very recently, people with lived experience of this and other systems were discouraged from sharing their experience because we were seen as broken or damaged people who couldn’t be impartial but would be overly empathetic to others going through the same and similar experiences. 

In 1971, the circumstances surrounding my family’s situation warranted a respite or brief “out of home” arrangement. If there were family members or close neighbors to give my mother the break she needed, that would have worked, for her and us. But we didn’t have that, and my 24-year-old mother, separated from her husband, with four “stair-step” children, was extremely overwhelmed. Her decision to voluntarily place us, so that she could stabilize herself, was because she understood that her deep depression and alcohol dependency were getting in the way of her ability to attend to us and respond to our needs. 

My sister and I were placed with a foster family who were very caring and who remained connected to my mother and us for years after we were discharged. But my younger brother and sister were placed with another family who abused them, and they are troubled by those memories all these years later. 

In the work I have done over the years I have held both truths. Foster care might be a haven for some children. It might also be a horror for many others. The commitment of practitioners in the medical field is to “do no harm.” The same should be true of interventions for children and families. Child welfare policies and practices must be humane and place a high value on child safety AND family preservation. This is critically important. These two factors are interconnected.

Kimberly Watson is president and CEO of Graham Windham.

Photo by: upendmovement.org