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| Defining
Child Exposure to Domestic Violence as Neglect: Minnesota’s
Difficult Experience
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(Jeffrey l. Edleson, Jenny Gassman-Pines, and Marissa B.
Hill)
Social Work (April 2006) Volume 51, Number 2
The article under consideration deals with the Minnesota state
legislature changes in revising the definition of child neglect,
speaking about child’s exposure to family violence.
In the year 1999 an extended national examination of children’s
exposure to adult domestic violence was in progress. The National
Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges took definite
measures on national level in order to ameliorate the court
response, domestic violence programs, and child maltreatment
welfare agencies against violence. The guidelines worked out
by means of joint efforts of these organizations resulted
in the National Conference of State Legislatures articles
and briefs. In half of the families where a child suffers
maltreatment domestic violence occurs. Consequently, these
efforts resulted in considerable interest among policymakers
and program planners of the country who elaborated demonstration
projects demanding financial support. The Minnesota legislators
took leadership in making changes in the state’s child
welfare system. Their goal lay in making child protective
services better within a state. State Senator Jane Ranum paid
much attention to improvements of this system. Along with
state Senator Sheila Kiscaden she visited a number of cities
to study the programs implemented across the country, she
also examined particular differential response systems of
the cities. So the child welfare reform lay in the fact that
legislature enacted state guidelines on child protection to
develop differential “alternative response” to
child maltreatment reports. The legislation involved voluntary
assessments in supporting of families with lower risk of violence
occurring than in those traditional welfare services for children.
The reform was aimed at providing differential response to
children problems at different levels of risk. Though legislation
on alternative response pilot projects was passed, they were
not put into practice until the fall of 2000. Ranum and Kiscaden
guaranteed that new alternative response programs would respond
to children exposed to domestic violence. They cooperated
in favor of changing Senate Judiciary and Health and Human
Service Committees in this respective. The definition change
into neglect was only part of changes which were planned to
be undertaken. The newly expanded definition of neglect led
to additional fund expenses which were not defrayed. The final
wording change ceased to appear in the House’s version
of the bill. And this gave rise to discussion in a conference
committee between Senate and the Minnesota House. Signing
of the new law after finding a compromise led to the official
appearance of the new category of children, but legislators
supposed that it would not have a drastic effect on child
protective services. Later it turned out they were mistaken.
Legislators did not think it necessary to lead long discussions
as they just changed the word, language but not practice.
Before 1999, data was rendered not thoroughly and consequently
child protective services were not aware of the problems in
the families until there appeared severe risk factor such
as weapon presence. Citizens were not quite aware of the changes
implemented due to the lack of hearings and timing of the
legislation. So they did not expect major changes to be made
at once, the main thing was the new alternative response effort,
but counties faces a difficult task to implement new procedures
appeared because of that neglect definition change. Before
the definitional change it was reported by child protection
service members that they knew of some children exposed to
domestic violence but had nothing to do with it as they could
not intervene as the concept of exposure to domestic violence
did not correspond to what was meant by child maltreatment.
With neglect definition changing practically every child came
to be suspected in being a witness to adult domestic violence.
Therefore, the number of annual reports of child maltreatment
grew rapidly across Minnesota. Child protection agencies suffered
because of dramatic increase of workloads and the appearance
of a new category of children according to new definition
which had to be taken care of not to be neglected. So many
county agencies faced a great number of newly identified neglected
children reported to them. There were several important concerns,
the first one dealt with the terms of responding to child
maltreatment reports, they had to be reacted to immediately.
The second concern touched upon the lack of funding as it
was provided for only in pilot counties, the rest did not
possess the specific funding. As a result of this new category
implementation there appeared necessity in additional funding
and the Minnesota Association of County Social Service Administrators
surveyed and concluded that they would need more than ten
million dollars to provide neglected children with appropriate
services. Child protection agencies could not work up all
the reports as their number continued to increase. County
agencies could not well differentiate the factors in exposure
to adult domestic violence. There appeared a possibility of
inadequate resources distribution to serve families where
children experience physical or sexual maltreatment. It turned
out that those who needed help desperately would most likely
not receive it. The legislation swept up a wide range of children:
those who required help and those who did not need it. The
fear that child protective services could more often blame
mothers for their inability to protect children from their
male partners is quite reasonable. The child protection services
conducted a deep analysis of mothers entering shelters with
children. So the county action went well beyond what was envisioned
by the definitional change and began to create fear among
women that this investigation would lead to their removal
from custody. Though only small percentage really led to that
outcome, mothers and community members were concerned and
anxious about it. This new alternative response system could
solve a number of problems people faced in the year 1999.
But his effort remained nothing but a plan, was not implemented
even in pilot counties. The matter is that county child protection
services treated all reports the same way regardless of circumstances
and experiences. The only county which successfully coped
with an increase of reports was Olmsted County, it appeared
to be an exception. The increase in reports did not frustrate
child welfare services and overwhelm child protection programs,
county board members managed to collaborate so that the resources
were well distributed. Olmsted County became a leader in this
differential response model implementation. It followed the
experience of Massachusetts and other pioneer-states who managed
to implement the model’s specific response to children
exposed to domestic violence. That is how Olmsted became a
leader in the movement. The success lay in several points,
such as development of a distinct domestic violence intervention
team in the child protection agency which consisted of social
workers. The second point is that all domestic violence cases
information was analyzed by experienced in domestic violence
prevention staff members. They worked keeping to the following
principles: mother and child safety increase, mothers’
authority and autonomy respect, victimizer identifying and
specific treatment. They worked out safety plans to support
change-orientated services and develop plans for victims,
collaborating with local organizations for necessary services.
The majority of Minnesota counties could not withstand the
increase in reported cases of neglect. County social services
administrators and women supporting communities supposed the
new language could be abandoned as it lacked in funding and
created more problems than it solved. Because the language
change defined exposed children as neglected, it implicated
the victim of the abuse as well as the trespasser. The state
considered the victim responsible for the exposed child. There
could be some misunderstanding of the notion itself, so the
child welfare started discussing the implications of the definition
change for children and female victims. They came to a decision
to develop a protocol for child protection to use it in cases
of domestic violence investigation. The Minnesota Department
of Human Services issued the guidelines which set an example
and were widely distributed and applied to in training workshops
for child protection workers. In 2000 the Minnesota legislature
abandoned changes to the definition of child neglect. The
new statutory language admitted some points on safeguards
for children, which were supported by Senators Ranum and Kiscaden.
Its purpose was to avoid negative influence of earlier definition
change. In case of adequate funding, the new definition could
be implemented only in Summer of 2001 but it was not. Without
material support, Minnesota does not consider exposed to adult
domestic violence children to be neglected children. While
in Olmsted County children exposed to domestic violence fall
under mandatory reporting requirements, and resources continue
to be provided to the children in need. Other counties which
lack the resources and were not so successful in response
to children exposed to adult domestic violence model. The
story with definition changing had two sad results. The community
reacted to the expanded definition of neglect by active reporting
which led to inability of child protective services to respond
to all of them in a proper way. Many children who were earlier
identified were no longer visible in the system and could
not receive services. Therefore, the article summarizes the
whole data given underlines that this experience makes people
draw certain lessons. Simple changes in definitions can lead
to serious consequences, legal changes may not be an ideal
solution of families’ suffering from domestic violence
problems. Changes cannot be made in isolation; population
should participate in services’ important decision-making.
The reporters provide readers with positive Alaska experience
in this sphere. Alaska’s legislation defined child exposure
to domestic violence as maltreatment if it led to substantial
risk of mental injury. But Minnesota defined all forms of
exposure as child maltreatment. Moreover, Alaska provided
child protection workers with new assessment protocols and
put substantial resources into workers’ training to
implement the changes.
In my opinion, the article under consideration contains valuable
information which is intended for a wide range of readers,
especially for those who are concerned with psychological,
political and sociological aspects of the society evolution.
The authors successfully covered and analyzed the issue of
child exposure to domestic violence definition changing and
the results of the legal change as well as enumerated lessons
which could be drawn from the situation described. The authors
focus on the issue which touched upon the Minnesota child
protection services and the ways, local authorities tried
to solve the problems and find additional funding, the efforts
of whom by the way did not move county or state governments
to provide additional resources. They underline particular
drawbacks of the system and emphasize the evident lack of
resources and at times child protection services workers’
insufficient training. Not in vain have many researchers focused
their attention on children exposed to domestic violence.
Domestic violence is a devastating social problem that affects
every segment of the population may often be an initial cause
to children’s maladjustment, hence, the issue is burning
and requires particular attention and investigation. Only
having collected accurate reliable information about the prevalence
and nature of children’s exposure to domestic violence,
prevention and intervention efforts cannot be discussed and
worked out. That is why such articles are necessary to shape
public opinion and keep people’s awareness of the problem
so that they would not feel isolated. This will be one of
the lessons we may take from Minnesota’s experience.
It is important to put services into place before the population
using those services is expanded. Though this may be hard
to achieve it is worth trying. The reporters provide readers
with valuable facts with which statistical data is logically
blended. Every event and authority action is proved with definite
resource reference so that in case of necessity and additional
interest in the issue one may turn to it. The facts prove
that though a number of discussions were held on preparatory
level, the child protection organizations neither introduced
data to population and nor examined its possible consequences,
instead the legislators issued laws on definition change and
the majority of common people were caught in surprise. The
authors of the article give readers an idea that the general
concept of definition changing was quite positive and even
rational but hoping that legislators could just change the
language but not practice was rather thoughtless. It made
a balanced system of child protection services go wrong or
malfunction, as a result the new language seemed to magnify
problems with children exposed to adult domestic violence
rather than solving them or reducing their scale. It lacked
support in funding sphere and staff workers could not cope
with workloads in the majority of Minnesota county child protection
agencies. We may notice the inversely proportional dependence
between reports and response capacity. As reports on cases
of adult domestic violence occurrence increased, the response
capacity in the majority of child protection agencies accept
Olmset County’s agencies lowered. It is obvious that
Minnesota’s experience is instructive and shows the
way a system may go wrong when something is irrationally changed.
The legislators were primarily concerned with the plight of
children exposed to adult domestic violence but rushed to
change the laws without adequately considering possible consequences
and a wide range of perspectives the changes could cause.
Although Minnesota has not found a way to support a comprehensive
implementation of ideas introduced, as Alaska managed to do,
it provides an instructive pattern which may serve a vivid
demonstration of interrelation of agencies involved in various
programs, projects, different child protection services collaboration.
This way it is possible by means of close collaboration of
researchers and competent child protection workers to work
out a practical and optimal solution of issues which arise
in this sphere not to trigger a backflash.
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