365 Day Journal Challenge

Dec 13 - don't mistake changing headlines for changes

Day 13 – 31 Day Journal Challenge

"don't mistake changing headlines for changes"    d.a. levy


In my job as a social worker, I am in the position to ask for, help facilitate and witness change (or a lack thereof depending on the client).  These changes encompass everything we think of as defining our daily existence-housing, transportation, parenting, family, sobriety, among other things.  I am gullible in some ways-I like to think that people actually want to get better.  I give them credit for being human and at least the respect to assume they are trying.  Therefore, I am sometimes surprised and frustrated when a client jumps through the hoops (grad parenting class, get the home, pass a few drug tests) but hasn’t really changed.  I see it both ways, some change inside a great deal and have little to show for it.  They are more mature, make less mistakes, but they are still dirt poor and still don’t have transportation and still live with their parents but does that mean they can’t get their kid back?-Sometimes, unfortunately.  Then there are some who complete the courses, check off the things we ask them to do, and still have a severe lack of judgment, still don’t really want to forego their childhood to raise their kids but guess who gets the kid back.  The one who jumps through the hoops.  Because after all, how can we quantify maturity.  How can put a number on judgment.  You can count classes, not ideas. You can get paid for counseling sessions, not necessarily life changing moments.  You can test the urine for drugs but can you test low self esteem, loneliness, lack of support or can you test motivation for being sober, the desire to stay clean and be around sober people, the faith to know they can do it if they follow the program and do the steps? 

Every month, social workers are asked to write court reports showing mother’s and father’s situations (employment, housing, # of visits, completion of classes, # of counseling sessions, income, drug testing results, etc), child’s situation,  permanency plan (return to family, placement with relatives, termination of parental rights and adoption).  Where on that list is motivation, inner change, level of self esteem, outlook on life, etc.  Okay, I try to since I can’t write something short and to the point to save my life.  Obviously you know this if you’ve read my journal entries.  So, I get to writing about what is really going on in the case (including that I think the person has shown significant change) and my court report comes back with red lines across most of it (I spell great but my supervisor is not very imaginative, gets confused easily, is worried about law suits, and isn’t so enlightened (for lack of a better word).  So, suffice it to say, if the court report is the headline, we shouldn’t mistake what it says for real change.  We can all jump through the hoops, we can advertise that a product can make you lose 50 lbs without exercise or diet but do we really believe this?  Are the people in the before and after pictures really the same people? 

On a positive note, I have returned kids before when the agency still had a shadow of a doubt because the person hasn’t jumped through all the hoops fast enough, but the parents have managed to learn by doing and have not had their kids picked up again.  Some are really doing just fine, some are struggling but making it.  I also have had kids returned where the parents jumped through all the hoops and guess what, we got the kids back w/in a year sometimes.  Jumping through hoops doesn’t mean real change any more than headlines do.  We will continue to misjudge change if we don’t learn to look at a person through subjective eyes in addition to objective ones, look at patterns of the past but also their current situation and their hopes for the future, actually talk to them and see how they see themselves. 

I believe people can change but only if they have a desire to act differently, they have support to do so and feel that support is positive, and others around them have a little faith they can do it.  Desire, quality of support, the clients ability to accept the support, and faith-none of these will make the headlines, we can’t count this stuff, we can’t pay for it, or sell it, we can’t contract it out, we can't force it or stop it, we have no control over this. It just is or is not there.  And more than any hoop they can jump through, this is what they have to have to make it. 

By the way, I don’t mean to understate the “hoops” as they are important.  Counseling, parenting classes, independence, drug tests, they are all outward agents of inner change and are good for those who need them.  I’m just saying that accomplishing them doesn’t make you ready to parent any more than not doing as many as expected truly shows a person is not ready.  A parent can be a class parent or model citizen in public and hit their spouse or kid, drink till they pass out, or gamble away the family paycheck in their private lives.  We don’t know the whole story just from the headline. 

Sorry, yet another long one.
SWPoet




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