Career choice is nothing short of an "epic adventure," BSW students are told

Jan. 12, 2009 - The setting and trappings of the retreat for the social work students was typical, even down to the pizza they had for lunch.

The sobering and inspirational talk they had from the James Payne, the director of the Indiana Department of Child Services and Michael Patchner, the Dean of the Indiana University School of Social Work, wasn’t.

James Payne

 

While many students can only wonder what they might be doing after they graduate, the group of 20 or so students who piled into the Lecture Hall on the IUPUI campus Thursday know they are a semester away from joining what can only be described as a challenging endeavor.

The students are part of the Child Welfare Education and Training Partnership overseen by the IU School of Social Work. For a commitment to work at the Child Services agency after their graduation, their tuition and other fees are paid during their senior year.

Payne and Patchner explained the state is undergoing a massive change from how it once served children and families and that the challenges and rewards of these soon-to-be case managers will be great.

Michael Patchner

“We are so thrilled that you have chosen us, that you have committed yourself to this venture, this heroic and epic adventure that we have engaged in with unprecedented and unparalleled support from the highest level in our state,” Payne said.

They are being trained to come into a field “that is challenging beyond expectation, “ said Payne, a former juvenile court judge in Marion County before he was selected by Gov. Mitch Daniels to head the DCS four years ago. He spoke of the “challenging proposition” they will face as they go into “homes beyond the realization of many people, where they will see and address the kinds of damage many children suffer, “ and “to work with people who don’t want to be worked with, who have no intention or desire  initially to change their behavior and lifestyle.”

But Payne said, because of students like them, the state has a cadre of people prepared “to do that thing which is the greatest blessing we have – and that is influence the life of another human being.”

To explain the changes now taking place in Indiana, Patchner said when he came to IU in 2000, the partnership between DCS and the state that led to the training the students are now receiving did not exist.

“I knew in my heart that if we were going to make a difference with children and families in Indiana, we would need social workers to do that.” It isn’t that other folks can’t do some of the work, “but I know we can do it better,” he added.

In 2004, the dean served as chairperson of a state commission that looked for ways to improve the services provided to children and their families. Simply put the commission was needed, Patchner told the students.

At the time, Indiana was in the bottom tier of states in terms of its child welfare services, its reputation and the plight of the children it was trying to help.

“You know yourself – many of you are in field placements now – you want to keep the child safe,” Patchner said. The situation facing case managers previously was untenable, he noted.

“If you have a large caseload, you can’t manage what you are going to do. You are going to get that child out of the family, out of danger ….whatever you have to do to keep that child safe.”

Then, because of their large case loads, they didn’t have time to get back and work on getting the child and family together again. “They were dealing with one crisis after another,” Patchner said.

Payne noted it wasn’t unusual for new case managers to start with a caseload of 30, 40 or 50 or more their first day and then over the course of year receive some training.

“Today that's completely reversed,” Patchner explained. Gov. Daniels sized on the report the child abuse commission issued, including a recommendation to hire additional case managers. He added his own innovations to create a system that is now viewed as a model around the country.

“I congratulate every one of you for being selected for this program, for the commitment you have to the children of Indiana for the work you are going to do,” Patchner told the students. “I can’t think of anything in social work that can be more rewarding than knowing that every day you are out there, you are significantly impacting the lives of children and their families.”

Among the governor’s decisions to improve child services was to establish the Department of Child Services, whose director reports directly to the governor. “We are one of seven departments in the country that report directly to the governor,” Payne explained. “That is how important our system is to this administration.”

And even in tough economic times, the governor remains committed to the agency, Payne noted. The governor has vowed that child services will remain protected from cutbacks other agencies are facing.

The state has greatly increased its number of case managers, reduced caseloads, added office space and has acquired needed technology, but the key to ongoing changes is its practice reform – “the way we do our business,” Payne said.

No longer are case managers removing children from homes because it is the easiest and simplest thing and “safer,” Payne noted. “As you know or will find out, almost every kid that is removed wants to stay at home, wants to go home in the most unimaginable circumstances. That’s where they want to go.”

He told a story of how he recently receiving a letter from a woman who as a child appeared in his courtroom when he was serving as a judge. “You don’t remember me, but I was in your court and I hated you,” the letter started off. “But,” she continued, “You saved my life.”

At the crux of her story is an issue Payne still worries about – that the system does not move fast enough to provide a permanent fix for children, doesn’t take care of children well enough by continuing to place them in situations where they are continuing to be in harms way.

The state’s approach now is to keep safety in mind, but to find ways to keep kids at home and failing that how to get them into a familiar home-like environment with a relative or if needed a foster home with a loving family who understands their responsibility and are prepared to provide safety and love for this child for this hopefully temporary period of time, Payne explained.

Payne told the students he hoped this semester they would get a chance to observe the team meetings where DCS staff “are pushing harder and harder to engage people, as many as possible in this transformation from one where we are assessing what we need to provide, to one that we can close out because they are capable of standing on their own.”

The rewards for doing it right are immense, Payne noted. The judge noted he was only part of a group of people that helped the woman who wrote to him as there were case managers, counselors, and teachers, involved her life as well. She went on to graduate from IU with a double major in education and social work.

Many of the decisions the students will have to make could well result in them receiving letters of their own, thanking them for saving lives, Payne said.

“Can you imagine anything better?”