Health
Is the Strengths Perspectives to blame?
The recent sacking of Children’s Commissioner Paul Mason must be of concern to all those interested in maintaining a healthy social welfare sector; particularly the services relating children.
The Commissioner for Children’s report into the Tasmanian Government’s systemic failure to protect a 12-year old girl from being prostituted by her mother is interesting for another reason besides the obvious one that he is very critical of Minister Lin Thorp’s Department of Health.
His report is perhaps one of the first criticisms of the world wide phenomenon known as the Strengths Perspective. Although he does not mention the Strengths Perspective specifically, his report does refer to the problem of the Department relying on the “strengths” of the family in question.
The Strengths Perspective is a belief underpinning social work practice that has developed to the point that it dominates world social service practice.
In Tasmania, and it seems, the rest of the western world, you have to believe in the Strengths Perspective or you simply do not have a career in social services.
As more and more agencies and NGOs receive state funding they have also adopted the Strengths Perspective. I have described the Strengths Perspective as a “theory” whereas it is really an attitude, a meme or a kind of global craze like Pokemon.
The theory says that as many children from abusive backgrounds survive and in fact do well then what counts is “resilience”. You will remember Lin Thorp’s comment that “the girl had proved resilient and was keen to get on with her life” This reliance on “resilience” is one of the hallmarks of the Strength Perspective at work.
The University of Kansas says at its website about the Strengths Perspective:
Most children face adversity. Some of the challenges they face have been associated with diverse negative consequences for their well-being. Nevertheless, despite negative outcomes predicted and expected, most children bounce back and have functional lives ensuring their own sense of well-being. Everybody has the capacity for resiliency.
I am sure that this concentration on “resilience” has some application in some areas of social welfare, but the Strengths Perspective has grown to the extent that it dominates all aspects of social welfare from addiction rehabilitation to treatment for those with mental illness. Not only is it sometimes applied inappropriately but it is certainly treated as if it were dogma. People who adopt the Strengths Perspective attitude tend to throw out all other theories based on negative research. They describe looking at negative aspects as “deficit reasoning”.
These assertions (Strength Perspective assertions) represent the shift from traditional research on pathology and risk to resiliency research (Fraser, Kirby, & Smokowski, 2004).
This is where the problems with the Strength Perspective arise. It is an “either-or” type of belief. It throws out looking at risk and pathology in favour of looking at the “strengths” of a situation. It is problematic because in many areas you need to look at risk and pathology, for instance in the area of child welfare.
Paul Mason even titled his Report “She will Do Everything to Make Sure She Keeps the Girls” ( HERE ) from a list of “strengths” compiled by the Department of Health to justify sending the girl back to her mother.
The title of the Report is a sentence from a list of “strengths” relied on to justify a recommendation that it was now safe to let a time-limited 12 month guardianship order lapse in October 2009.
That “strength” was a weakness.
What can happen in child welfare is that when deciding if children should be returned to the family, the Department rephrases the negative aspects of the family situation as positives. For example “daughter is having sex” would be reframed as “daughter is using contraception” – “ hangs out with negative peers” would be reframed as “ is making friends”. You can see some of this reframing here: HERE
Mason says in one of his recommendations:
That in order to correct excessive optimism about family strengths, capacity to change and actual change, the CAAG structure be formally altered to include on every occasion perspectives from outside DCYFS drawn from the following: School Social Worker, Early Intervention Police Officer, Community Youth Justice Worker, relevant Co-located Gateway Child Protection Worker, the Family Support Service Worker who most recently visited the child.
In order to appreciate how little help this suggestion is going to be you need to understand that every Department in Tasmania that is involved in any kind of social work is basically coming from the Strengths Perspective viewpoint. It is ubiquitous. Therefore except for Tasmania Police not a lot is going to change this “excessive optimism about family strengths”.
Paul Mason’s Report was tough, and he did not specifically identify the Strengths Perspective as a problem, but he referred to it and we should all be alert for global fads in social welfare practice that throws the baby out with the bathwater. This is especially the case in an internet based society where a meme can soon become regarded as authority.
I have a longer article on this problem which looks at the inappropriate use of the Strengths Perspective in mental health rehabilitation at: HERE
Find out more about the Strengths Perspective at the University of Kansas site: HERE
Maggie Maguire is a blogger who writes mainly on Tasmanian mental health issues. A born curmudgeon, she takes an insider’s view of the little known workings of the Tasmanian mental health system and the Tasmanian social welfare system in general. Her main hope is that she can engender some understanding and respect, if not awe, for the singular and different minds that comprise the community of people with mental health issues.
Her blog Stop Thrashing Around can be found: HERE
And,
Girl sold for sex wants to sue State Government
ABC Radio – The World Today
Girl sold for sex wants to sue State Government
Felicity Ogilvie reported this story on Wednesday, October 20, 2010 12:10:00
ELEANOR HALL: A Hobart girl who was sold for sex last year when she was 12 years old and under state care is trying to sue the Tasmanian Government.
The Government has admitted that key agencies including the child protection office and the police failed the girl.
But the Minister assured the public when the report into her case was released earlier this month that the child was ‘moving on’ well.
Now the girl’s efforts to sue the Government have stalled, because she can’t afford to be assessed by medical experts.
Her lawyer, Roland Browne, told our reporter Felicity Ogilvie that he’s been forced to ask for public donations to help in her case.
ROLAND BROWNE: At the moment we are looking at an action in the Supreme Court against the state of Tasmania and others and the action will be a failure by the state as the guardian and the entity with custody of her to supervise her and give her reasonable care, provide reasonable care for her and generally look after her welfare on the basis that what has happened to her and that is all notorious now was just an abject failure of care by those that were responsible.
FELICITY OGILVIE: The State Government has acknowledged that its services failed to adequately protect the girl but the Minister also said that the girl is now doing fine, that she is at school, that she even has a part-time job and that she is quite happy, that she is fine.
If the girl is fine as the Minister says, what kind of case does she have to take action against the Government?
ROLAND BROWNE: Well, look what the Minister says in relation to the girl is not going to determine what happens in relation to this litigation.
For my part, I would find it, I was just going to say, for my part I would find it a little bit difficult to accept that a girl who goes through what this girl has gone through could actually be fine and we are going to leave it to experts on child and adolescent development to tell us the extent to which her circumstances have caused her harm and that is the basis upon which the case is going to be run. Not on the basis of what the Minister says.
FELICITY OGILVIE: Now the girl is still a ward of the state at the moment. How can she mount legal action against the state when the state is her legal guardian?
ROLAND BROWNE: Well, it is not a matter of how can she mount the legal action. The real question is why shouldn’t she or what stops her and the answer is nothing.
She is entitled to commence proceedings against any person or entity that has failed in its duty of care towards her. It is no different I guess to a child who is injured in a car accident suing their parents who was the driver and that is what is going to happen here.
She is going to sue the state as the guardian and others who were responsible for her care for failure to take reasonable care to prevent her from falling into harms way.
FELICITY OGILVIE: And who are the other people who the girl is planning to sue?
ROLAND BROWNE: Well, at the moment the other person will be the secretary of the department who in fact is her statutory guardian. The other persons who will be the defendants in the action we haven’t clearly decided to (inaudible) them as defendants and we need a bit more information at this time.
FELICITY OGILVIE: Why haven’t you lodged the action in the Supreme Court yet?
ROLAND BROWNE: Well, there is no particular rush to file a writ. We need to bring the case together and we can’t do that until we get the report from the experts as to the extent to which the failure of the state to take care has caused her harm. That is why we have launched a public fund to get some help to pay for these reports.
FELICITY OGILVIE: You’ve launched a fund for this case. Why is that?
ROLAND BROWNE: Well, this girl has no money herself. She is 13. The cost of expert reports to assess the extent to which these events have harmed her is going to cost somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000 including witnesses giving evidence at trial.
She doesn’t have that money but needs those reports and without those reports we can’t advance this case so that is why there has been an approach to the public for help and for financial help.
ELEANOR HALL: That’s Tasmanian lawyer Roland Browne speaking to our Hobart reporter Felicity Ogilvie, and the Tasmanian Government is not commenting today on the potential legal action.
SMH
A plea for donations to help a 12-year-old girl who was prostituted while a guardian of the state has received worldwide attention.
Hobart lawyer Roland Browne launched the appeal yesterday so the now 13-year-old can sue the Tasmanian government.
The girl’s mother and mother’s partner, Gary John Devine, sold her for sex in Hobart to more than 100 men last year when she was subject to a care and protection order, making the state her guardian.
Mr Browne said the girl intended to sue the state and others, including the Human Services Department secretary, for failure of care.
Tasmanian education minister Lin Thorp has already admitted the state’s protection system had failed the girl.
But the case has stalled because the girl cannot afford the psychiatric and medical reports needed to prove the extent of her suffering.
Mr Browne said it could cost up to $10,000 for the expert examinations.
After just one day, Mr Browne said the public appeal had received a “fantastic and wonderful response”.
“We’ve had a large number of phone calls and emails from around Australia and there’s potentially one donation from overseas,” Mr Browne said.
“There’s a couple of people who have made very big donations and one person is going to donate a percentage of all tickets sold at their musical performance over the weekend.”
Any excess would be secured in a trust fund for the girl, Mr Browne said.
In his report into the case – which outlined the government had systematically failed the child – outgoing Children’s Commissioner Paul Mason suggested the girl wait until she was 18 before launching legal action.
Yesterday, Mr Browne, who is working pro-bono, said it was an absurd idea.