“They’re not bad parents. They’ve just made bad choices.”: Mental health clinicians’ perspectives of parents involved with child protective services

Abstract

Although psychotherapeutic treatment (e.g., counseling and therapy) is often offered to clients involved with child protective services (CPS), the existing literature includes few voices of mental health clinicians regarding their work and clients in the child welfare system. The current study seeks to address this gap by exploring clinicians’ views on the issue of child maltreatment and CPS-involved parents’ parenting. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews revealed that clinicians acknowledged the strengths of CPS-involved parents as well as the challenges that may have made their parenting difficult. For strengths, clinicians identified parents’ desire to care for their child, motivation to improve their parenting, and commitment to their child. Identified challenges included a lack of parenting knowledge, substance use, and limited resources and support. Overall, clinicians in this study presented a balanced perspective that attended to both the “good” and the “bad” in their clients’ parenting. They viewed CPS-involved parents as more than the sum of their problematic parenting behaviors and understood incidents of child maltreatment within the parents’ contexts. At the same time, their interviews noted that a variety of individual and sociostructural challenges faced by CPS-involved parents must be addressed in order to resolve child maltreatment and prevent parents’ repeated involvement in the child protection system.

At the Edge of Care: A Systematic Review and Thematic Synthesis of Parent and Practitioner Views and Experiences of Support for Parents with Mental Health Needs and Children’s Social Service Involvement

“…I don't believe that parents go into parenting wanting to mess up, wanting to inefectively parent and harm their children." (mental health clinician) [84] "It's still following me. It's like they see these things of who I used to be and they're not talking to who I am now.…”

“…I've had people come in (when) there're horrible rainstorms, waiting outside for the bus or having to walk to get to therapy, because they want to get their child back." (mental health clinician) [84] Statements such as "We're not going to change the borderline personality disorder and were not going to change the bipolar' (Mary: OT social worker) construct the problem as intractable and undercut any faith in clients' ability to recover and eventually regain care of their children." [79] Te importance of transparency "Some felt decisions were made before meetings started.…”

“…I have no help." I had one (mother) who would leave her children locked in her apartment because she had to go work midnights because she had no options, no childcare" (mental health clinician) [84] "Te fact that I was unemployed at that time. I was very proud.…”

“…At the same time, adopting a "trauma-informed" label did not necessarily indicate that parents' difculties were grounded empathically within an understanding of their past experiences and wider circumstances. For example, the title of a study focused on trauma-informed care reads "they're not bad parents, they've just made bad choices" [84], arguably suggesting these parents have "chosen" to be in their difcult situations, rather than these choices themselves being understood also as rooted in a wider context of adversity and inequity.…”

Development and Validation of the Adolescent and Children in Risk of Abuse and Maltreatment Protective Factors Scale (ACRAM-PFS)

“…Without resorting to other strategies, based on the qualities (Crescenza et al, 2021 ) or the positive disposition of the individual, which could strengthen both the individual and collective sphere, and thus generate new potentialities. Despite these advantages, the assessment of child well-being still focuses on identifying gaps and risks in order to address and modify them (Yoo et al, 2022 ), or on identifying protective factors as mere absences of risks rather than as targets and possibilities for intervention (Liel et al, 2022 ; Soderstrom et al, 2020 ).…”