if a society values its children, it must cherish their parents

If a society values its children, it must cherish their parents.* | Juvenile Justice BlogJuvenile Justice Blog: "The film reminded me of the basic facts that I had learned years ago: that every county in the United States has a government agency that investigates allegations of child abuse and neglect, that anyone can make a call reporting suspicion of maltreatment, and that no substantiation is needed—the report can be based on hearsay or an unverified hunch. As Michael Arsham, Executive Director of New York City’s Child Welfare Organizing Project, explains:

“The unfortunate reality is that in certain communities, it’s a near certainty that if you have children who are a range of ages, if you live in public housing, if they go to public schools, if you use publicly-subsidized day care or a public child health clinics, it’s not even a matter of are you going to come to the attention of ACS, it’s closer to a matter of when are you going to come to the attention of ACS.”"

To move away from the factory model in mass education , Child Protective Services will need to change. Moving to a learning services model where families choose services (unbundled but networked) will never happen if we rely on social services, including schools, that use primarily punitive methods to interact with families, making jobs out of truancies, divorces, foreclosures, and drug use: jobs that often depend on breaking families.

However well-intentioned, helping children without helping their families is like trying to educate a child without caring whether the child feels loved and safe. You don't need a specific ideology of the family, whatever its form, to grasp that social stability, economic health, and flexibility in times of change require accomodating our basic human need for relationships.

An expanded safety net/basic income/pay for carework and equitable funding could provide the hardware, attachment theory provides an operating system, and a learning services school model, that allows families real choices, could be the software families use to design and shape better lives and communities.

 A Life Changing Visitor: When Children's Services Knocks from Alison Greer on Vimeo.