and reach thousands of daily visitors
7 NOVEMBER 2008
NO 1370
Family intervention
When the child care worker has no role in the family other than substitute parent, the stage is set for a classic three-generation conflict, recognized in other families when played by the grandmother, the hopelessly inadequate mother, and the problem child (Minuchin, 1974). The child care worker merely substitutes for the grandmother, and the inadequate mother role can be played by either or both parents or other significant relative. The result is a self-perpetuating cycle:
1. At some time in the past, parents needed help
desperately and were not able to get it.
2. Family crises finally built to the point that they could no longer
cope and outside sources intervened. The child was removed from the home
because the parents themselves or some outside authority decided they
were unfit or the child's problems were beyond their ability to handle.
3. The child care workers take over and care for the child as parents
have not been able to do.
4. Parents withdraw, feeling ashamed of their inadequacies and not
wanting to face them. They may even stop or avoid frequent visiting for
this reason or because they are still overwhelmed with precipitating
crises (illness, unemployment, marital distress, etc.).
5. The child develops problems, or disturbing behavior which led to
placement intensifies.
6. The agency identifies the cause of the child's acting out as the
parents' withdrawal and begins to demand more of the parents – such as
telling them that they need to be more responsible, more involved with
the child.
7. As the parents attempt to be involved on their own terms, the agency
identifies ways they are inadequate and attempts to protect the child by
establishing rules and structures for visiting. Parents are often
unfamiliar with limits – many have had difficulty establishing limits in
their own lives and
they see the limit setting as criticism of their mode of doing things.
8. Parents withdraw from this structure that reminds them of their
inadequacy and criticizes their attempts at parenting.
9. The child acts out.
10. The agency identifies the cause as the parents' withdrawal and
protests ....
And so it goes. The more parents attempt to be involved, the more inadequate they appear, forcing the child care worker to take over as the substitute who is more effective than the parents themselves.
The child care worker as family intervention agent moves the system out of this trap, because it moves the child care worker out of a competitive role with the parents and into a role of coach, supporter, and trainer as the parents interact with their child and other children within the agency. This is quite different than the normative weekend visit in which the child goes home or out with the parent while the agency staff cross their fingers that nothing terrible happens. Nor is it like the parent visiting the child, at best awkward, since it is not clear who is the parent figure for the child – the parent "visiting" or the child care worker.
In this new model, the child care worker becomes family "therapist," although not in the sense of sitting with the family in an organized meeting and discussing their feelings or structuring communication. Instead, it is intervention which happens in the day-in, day-out interaction of the child care worker with the family, the child, and with the family and child together. It recognizes that every interaction with a child – for good or for ill – is intervention into the life of the family. This concept of a new role for the residential child care worker is increasingly being supported by professionals in child welfare (Ainsworth, 1981; Kufeldt, 1982; Zuckerman, 1983).
DIANA S. RICHMOND GARLAND
Garland, Diana S. Richmond. (1987). Residential Child
Care Workers as Primary Agents of Family Intervention. Child and
Youth Care Quarterly, 16, 1. pp.24-25.
REFERENCES
Ainsworth, F. (1981). The training of personnel for group care with children. In Ainsworth, F. and Fulcher, L.C. (Eds.). Group Care for Children. London. Tavistock Publications.
Kufeldt, K. (1982). Including natural parents in temporary foster care: An exploratory study. Children Today, 11, 2. pp. 14-16.
Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and Family Therapy. Cambridge. Harvard University Press.
Zuckerman, E. (1983). Child Welfare. New York.
Free Press.
