HOW THE STORY IS TOLD: Part 2 – Voices from the Conference

Transcript:

Cassie Gillespie (00:03):

Welcome to part two of our three part series, how The Story Is Told of Vermont four E Conference.

Cassie Gillespie (00:13):

Before we jump in, I wanna tell you that we recorded all these interviews. You’ll hear today back in May of 2024. And obviously the landscape in our country has changed in significant ways since then. And in some ways, it makes the story and the participant reactions that we’re gonna bring you today even more dramatic. And while we tease all these various incredible speakers and panelists and bring you people’s reactions to their talks, I also wanna name and own that it’s kind of weird to talk about their reactions without giving you all of the talks, but we didn’t have enough space in these episodes to bring you all of the talks. So I do wanna share a little bit of good news. Many of the speakers that we’re talking about have already done podcasts with us here at the social work lens. And you can go back and listen to them and their content if you’d like to hear from them directly. So, for example, two of our speakers on mandated reporting, Jill, Richard, and Dr. James Metz already did an episode with us on that topic. You’ll also hear many speakers referenced the work of Corey B Best. Corey was not only a keynote speaker, but also facilitated a panel at this conference. And as you’ll hear in this episode, he really influenced and shaped the experience of the conference attendees. Now, Corey has done multiple podcasts with us here at the social work lens, and he also has his own podcast Audio Nuggets. We’ll link to all of these episodes in our show notes, but I wanna really encourage you to go straight to the source and check him and his workout directly if you’re interested. Okay. I think it’s time to jump back into the story. This next part, part two Voices from the Conference is produced by Chynah Rae Boise.

Chynah Rae Boise (02:00):

I’m Chynah Boise, and I produce this next section that you’ll hear, focusing more on the experiences of conference attendees and starting to consider the question what comes next. A little about me. I’m a training and coaching specialist for the child welfare training partnership and a licensed clinician in the state of Vermont. I’m an adopted adult, and I have been working closely with foster kinship and adoptive families for about a decade. Despite my early interest in activism as a teen and a vague knowledge that something wasn’t quite right, like oppression, it has only been in the last five or so years that I’ve begun digging into anti-racism and anti-oppression work and able to make the connection between systems of oppression and the work that I was doing in mental health as well as the work that we continue to do in child welfare. This is why I found the premise of this conference so compelling and so important, and I’m excited to share some of the stories and the feelings that we heard from other attendees with you in this episode. In these first clips, we hear from attendees who reflect on differences that they have felt in coming from various geographic locations and how Vermont is both similar and dissimilar in terms of change and progress.

Conference Participant (03:15):

When I came to Vermont, I actually was like impressed at how quickly our system, like how agile our system was.

Chynah Rae Boise (03:22):

Oh, that’s so nice to hear. But that makes sense because it’s a small State, but it still feels inadequate sometimes.

Elizabeth (03:27):

Well, because there’s so many big changes that need to be made, and there still are so many systemic pressures and barriers to making those changes. And so it always feels like it’s too slow.

Conference Participant (03:37):

And we experience it really differently even in the places we live. I live in Tennessee, Elizabeth can can tell you that she lives in Kentucky. It stood out to us as being a place where you could just have a conversation that I think we would be a little more guarded about in different contexts.

Conference Participant (03:51):

YeahI mean, I would echo that completely. And yeah, not, not just the words that you’re able to use, but also the topics talking really overtly about the failings of systems due to things like systemic racism and oppression. And that’s been very much, it, it is certainly, a big theme in our work, but I think the ease at which you’re able to discuss it in a space like this just feels really different. And the level at which I think we might be used to sort of monitoring ourselves and monitoring the words that we use in the way that we talk is just really different.

Cassie Gillespie (04:22):

Why do you think there’s more of an ease around the conversation here? What’s your best guess or your Intuition about that?

Conference Participant (04:29):

I don’t know. I, by way of an example, you know, in some states we can discuss these issues and they’re, they’re leaning into it. It’s a, an initiative in a place like Connecticut where they’re you know, there’s, it’s very public facing. So at all levels, people know if they want to lean into a an issue like this, they’re gonna have support. In some states, governors are, are, and legislatures are passing laws getting rid of DEI and universities. And so it’s a very different prospect for people, you know, in the middle of an organization we might be talking to how successful they can be. Even acting on the stuff that we’re talking about, you know, can become a little defeating you know, talking about things that, you know, you’re not gonna have success pushing.

Cassie Gillespie (05:10):

Yeah. Do you think psychological safety is playing into it at all?

Conference Participant (05:14):

<Laugh> Absolutely. I mean, I don’t think it could be a bigger topic in a place like this. And I also think that there’s just a really important environment being at a conference where you’re coming together for a very specific purpose and around a specific theme. Then I think there’s this presumption of alignment on a lot of these pieces that may not be so true in other places that you don’t know someone’s values or where they stand or what they’re thinking. Whereas here, it’s a it’s more over

Chynah Rae Boise (05:43):

With such a variety of roles, experience in child welfare and experience in anti-oppression work. There was also a wide variety of emotions. There were attendees who expressed excitement and energy around the topic.

Conference Participant (05:57):

I loved it. I, I love being challenged in my thing as a cisgendered white woman.

Cassie Gillespie (06:04):

Yeah. <Laugh> right here. Same

Conference Participant (06:06):

From, you know, from Louisiana <laugh>.

Cassie Gillespie (06:09):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (06:10):

I just like, I love like that challenge, and I just think

Cassie Gillespie (06:15):

What was some of the challenge, like, if you don’t mind sharing what,

Conference Participant (06:18):

Challenging how I’m thinking.

Cassie Gillespie (06:19):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (06:20):

You know, like people say, recognize your privilege. Recognize your privilige.

Cassie Gillespie (06:25):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (06:26):

And you know, that’s, I mean, I guess from a social work perspective, like it’s like, it’s easy to say that.

Cassie Gillespie (06:34):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (06:34):

But

Cassie Gillespie (06:35):

It’s hard to do it.

Conference Participant (06:36):

It’s hard to do it, like to recognize And then, and then I come from a poor community in a rural area of Louisiana.

Cassie Gillespie (06:43):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (06:44):

And I have a deaf father and two deaf sisters and <laugh>. Like,

Cassie Gillespie (06:48):

You could have a whole narrative about how there’s no privilege, is that…

Conference Participant (06:51):

Yes. Like, you can have that, but it’s not true. And then it just really resonated at the end when he says, how has racism, you know, what has racism taken from you?

Cassie Gillespie (07:04):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (07:05):

I need to think about that more. Like…

Cassie Gillespie (07:07):

Is this the first time you heard him talk?

Conference Participant (07:10):

I Went to Courageous Conversations,

Cassie Gillespie (07:13):

Uhhuh,

Conference Participant (07:13):

but I’ve never heard him personally.

Cassie Gillespie (07:17):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (07:18):

Like, So it was pretty great <laugh> so

Cassie Gillespie (07:22):

Well, and so yeah. I, I just wanna sit around and listen to him, you know, like I …

Conference Participant (07:29):

And I, I really like the idea of, I, I do think like cisgender white women, like, I think that sometimes when you hear speakers that are talking about the anti-racism, equality and equity and inclusion

Cassie Gillespie (07:45):

Yeah, the DEI stuff.

Conference Participant (07:46):

Yeah. All of that. It can feel like very like, you did this me.

Cassie Gillespie (07:56):

Yeah. yeah. yeah.

Conference Participant (07:56):

And I don’t feel that way. Like in discussion, you know, in hearing him talk, I feel more like,

Cassie Gillespie (08:02):

yeah.

Conference Participant (08:02):

We are all in this together and what do we do to move this forward so that we can live in that world.

Conference Participant (08:09):

Yeah. So I think that for our program, we are really thinking about how to bring an anti-racist, anti-oppressive lens to the work that we’re doing. Recognizing that the child welfare system and social services in general has a very long history of harming families, especially families of color. And so one of the sessions we went to yesterday were actually kind of adjacent colleagues of ours on the Sharp model.

Cassie Gillespie (08:38):

Oh, I heard a little bit about this.

Conference Participant (08:39):

It’s awesome. So it is a framework for anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices. It’s really a way of just looking at yourself and the system differently and thinking about what are the structural factors that are impacting the families that we’re working with. And so the example that we give a lot is you know, on court reports all the time, we say like, the family needs to find safe and affordable housing. Okay. Well, where are they finding it when there is no safe and affordable housing? So recognizing what we’re asking about families and what the structural impact of that is, and how we’re maybe setting families up for failure, but also thinking about our own relationship. I am a white cisgender female. So, I bring something into that relationship. And so what am I bringing in? How are the families seeing me? How am I seeing them? So really hoping that that framework gets expanded and brought to more jurisdictions. ’cause I think it’s just so important and isn’t a one size fits all. Everyone kind of utilizes that framework so differently. So that is something that we are all trained in as part of our program. And then also that we are training our students in that we are using in clinical supervision with students to really think through their work with families. So that’s definitely kind of the route that we’re going and that I hope to see more social services agencies and universities explore further. Yeah.

Chynah Rae Boise (10:08):

Other attendees felt the weight of the material they were being presented with and their own personal and professional experiences. And they experienced some cognitive dissonance around their role within the system. A topic that often comes up when discussing the systems of oppression and racism that are embedded within the child welfare system is that child welfare workers as a general rule, do not go into child welfare or child protection to oppress, surveil or police families. These are people who, for whatever reason, entered into the work to help families and protect children. So then how does an individual reconcile those two realities? Often the answer is to not look at those hard, sharp edges so that we can continue to do the work. But that dissonance, that uncomfortable feeling that something isn’t quite right, often remains

Conference Participant (11:02):

Vermont is not ready to look at racism. And yes, we keep having these things and we keep having these conversations.

Cassie Gillespie (11:09):

Little steps. Little steps, yes.

Conference Participant (11:11):

But it, it doesn’t change anything. And how do I, how do I sort of you know, I don’t know what that word is that I’m looking for, but how do I, how do I sort of like keep the lens of we need to be doing better at what we’re doing and get my staff to a place where they can recognize that their practice and the, and the system that we work within is racist. And also, this is a hard one for me to reconcile, is that I am being paid by a racist entity. Right. And yet I will stay in this work because I want to, I want to make change. I want child protection not to be like this. I don’t wanna police parents. But it’s also not just about race, it’s about the way that we protect children.

Chynah Rae Boise (12:03):

Some attendees were hearing the terms family policing and carceral system being used in this context for the first time. And we got to hear from one attendee who shared some of her processing with us.

Conference Participant (12:16):

I’m learning more about how serious the work is.

Cassie Gillespie (12:20):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (12:21):

From the outside, you know, I would say, oh, that’s some serious work they’re doing. But now being in the middle of it and listening to the panel, they said, listen to the keynote speakers.

Cassie Gillespie (12:32):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (12:33):

I realize what we have on our hands with our children and our families and the racial bias.

Cassie Gillespie (12:42):

It’s crazy.

Conference Participant (12:42):

It is crazy. It is real crazy. Yeah. I did have an experience with my daughter, had a foster child, Uhhuh years back in,

Cassie Gillespie (12:52):

Were you living in Louisiana?

Conference Participant (12:53):

In Louisiana,

Cassie Gillespie (12:53):

yeah.

Conference Participant (12:53):

And different perspectives now that I’m on the other side of it.

Cassie Gillespie (12:57):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (12:58):

I see how much work is being done.

Cassie Gillespie (13:00):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (13:00):

And I see the heart of the people that are doing the work. At

Cassie Gillespie (13:04):

The time, when you were on the other side of it, you know, like if I had interviewed you, then what would you have said about the system? Would you say, I know you’re guessing now, but

Conference Participant (13:13):

Yeah, I probably would’ve said they’re not doing enough. Yeah. What’s taking so long? Why are there, so why are there, why are there not as many people doing this? And..

Cassie Gillespie (13:24):

Right. Frustrated.

Conference Participant (13:27):

Yes. I would’ve, I would’ve been frustrated because the timeframe, the timeline of things that my daughter needed or something, I’m kinda like, so why couldn’t that happen before now? You know. But I do see now on this side, you have the hands on.

Cassie Gillespie (13:42):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (13:43):

But their workload is just overwhelming.

Conference Participant (13:46):

It’s overwhelming.

Cassie Gillespie (13:47):

It’s overwhelming.

Cassie Gillespie (13:49):

Before you came to this conference, have you heard the terms like family policing system and abolition used in relation to child welfare?

Conference Participant (13:57):

Never. And what

Cassie Gillespie (13:58):

Are your initial reactions to that?

Conference Participant (14:01):

How does it connect?

Cassie Gillespie (14:02):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (14:03):

Because I’m sitting there listening to

Conference Participant (14:05):

Corey.

Cassie Gillespie (14:05):

Corey, yeah.

Conference Participant (14:06):

And I’m kind of like, what does this have to do with

Conference Participant (14:08):

This?

Cassie Gillespie (14:09):

Right. Yeah.

Conference Participant (14:10):

And I still don’t really quite understand the connection.

Cassie Gillespie (14:15):

Sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Conference Participant (14:16):

<Laugh>, I don’t, And I know he had said, well, come to me and get an understanding or whatever, whatever.

Cassie Gillespie (14:23):

He does mean it, but that’s like,

Conference Participant (14:25):

yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (14:25):

That takes like, I don’t know, to walk up to the speaker and be like, can you explain that to me?

Conference Participant (14:30):

I mean, I listened to him. Yeah. Yeah. And I would have to go back and assess the connection.

Chynah Rae Boise (14:35):

As you heard in part one, we were lucky enough to sit down after the conference with one of the panel facilitators, Dr. Tabitha Moore. We wanted to know what her experience facilitating the panel was like, and her experience of receiving feedback about her facilitation

Dr. Tabitha Moore (14:50):

Cultivating the folks to be on that, on that panel. I tried to look across systems and institutions and, and you know, I think folks tend to paint activists with a single brush as though we’re all the same or are fighting for the same sort of things with the same techniques. And I picked people who intentionally kind of had different approaches so that folks could see that activism can look different ways, and that the way that each of us kind of understands what that might look like is, is different. And so we heard from folks who one person who had been moved so much in, in her experiences that she opened her life and, and began adopting black and brown kids so that they would have more opportunities to interact with folks who looked like them. Yeah. another who did a lot of policy work someone else who had been a former legislator. So it was, and we were all people of color, which especially here in Vermont, is a really, there aren’t many, many times where there’s more than four of us in a room, let alone on a panel. So getting the group of folks together was really exciting. And wanted to make sure that we have folks that could speak to an about a variety of different approaches to child welfare and abolition and liberation. You know, and, and everybody was excited at the end of the day, but I felt as the person facilitating that I needed to make sure that I was setting the conversation up for success. And so I spent a lot of time, if you remember, on our community agreements. I do remember,

Dr. Tabitha Moore (16:24):

I’d like to call into the room a few agreements, which are really just some assumptions that I want to, there’s a lot of assumptions we’re making, right. But these are ones that to me, seem really important and really relevant to this conversation. Number one is pronoun use. I was really pleased to see the little pronoun ribbons that you can choose to use or not use. I was a little sad that there is no, she, they, because that is my pronoun pronouns. The second thing I ask is that you take the learning and leave the story, except where we’re concerned, somebody in the room may share something that’s deep and that’s important. One of the things I noticed with identity based justice movements particularly in organizations, is that they tend to rely on the subjugated people as the rationale behind the movement. And so we’re all in some weird Sally Stru commercial, and you’re like, well, I mean, would you really say that instead of Tabitha? How would Tabitha feel if you don’t do that? Do not invoke my name or my queen as the justification.

Dr. Tabitha Moore (17:27):

Yeah. Because I think that that’s often missing. And I think for any panelist or anyone who’s going to be presenting, there’s always a way in which you expect folks to learn from you. But I think when you’re talking about something as deeply personal as race and identity in child welfare, there’s a way that it can be particularly extracting.

Cassie Gillespie (17:46):

Yeah.

Dr. Tabitha Moore (17:46):

Because like, I, like I said, if you’re talking about your personal experience and how that lent to your activist position, so we spent a lot of time doing that. And, you know, afterward debriefing with the folks everyone felt really good about it the, the, the presenters did. But I think you remember, you and I were discussing afterward, you know, it’s, it’s kind of hard in a, not just in a state like Vermont, but I think in child welfare that is so white dominated to know how that’s going to land for folks. You know, I regularly say that I’m going into the lion’s den in my work, because that’s what I do is, you know, I’m trying to go in and say, okay, well, where are the places that we’re sticking? What are the mindsets that are keeping us stuck? And so I’m, you know, fairly used to it, but at the same time, you never know what somebody’s taking away. And I think when we got my feedback, you and I were like, okay, well, you know, we can see where, where some folks are. And in my work with folks, I tend to use this approach know thyself, grow thyself and expose thyself. And what that means is that if we are going to be more equitable or to work toward liberatory frameworks or do things differently within our systems, the first thing that we have to do is know who we are so that we can be grounded and rooted in that.

Cassie Gillespie (19:02):

Yeah.

Dr. Tabitha Moore (19:03):

And then by doing that, we know what our boundaries are and where our growing edges are, and then that gives us an opportunity to explore those. And in that exploration, it becomes a matter of whether we’re willing to expose ourselves to ideas, beliefs, ways of knowing, doing, and thinking that are different from our own.

Cassie Gillespie (19:21):

Yeah.

Dr. Tabitha Moore (19:22):

And so that’s, that was the way that we set up the the panel and what we found in the feedback from a couple of folks, I think there’s like, you know, only a handful out of the however many were attendance that were really uncomfortable.

Cassie Gillespie (19:37):

Yeah.

Dr. Tabitha Moore (19:37):

. Hearing what we had to say, and in particular me and my, my initial setting of boundaries so that I would be protecting everybody in the room.

Cassie Gillespie (19:49):

Yeah.

Dr. Tabitha Moore (19:49):

From racial harm or identity based harm. And, you know, so what that told me was that some folks haven’t gotten through the know and grow part or aren’t yet ready to expose themselves to ways of knowing, doing, being, thinking, or presenting even at a conference in arguably an extremely safe environment.

Cassie Gillespie (20:10):

Yeah.

Dr. Tabitha Moore (20:11):

to be able to hear beyond their own position. The reason I got so into this work professionally is because I have to do it no matter what. And I figure if I’m gonna have to do something all the time anyway, I might as well get really good at it and get paid. And so I see that as kind of my contribution to trying to offset the black and brown tax that folks that are still in this system have to pay every day. Just, you know, I I, I was talking to somebody recently in one of our state systems who was saying, you know, I, I don’t have a choice. I have to talk to all the kids. It was, it was a person who is Indian. And she was saying like, I talk to every kid of color that comes through these doors because if I don’t they don’t have anybody. And so that’s what I mean when I say the black or the brown tax is that there’s an additional kind of heightened awareness and yes that’s kind of why I do this is ’cause we don’t have a choice.

Chynah Rae Boise (21:18):

As mentioned, the conference brought to the surface many challenging thoughts and feelings for workers, particularly those who had faced blatant cases of racism and oppression with harmful and sometimes devastating outcomes. Let’s listen to the stories of one worker who shares a couple of cases. You’ll hear me pop in and out. And that is because we wanted to protect any identifying information for the worker and the families she’s referencing.

Conference Participant (21:48):

I wanted to talk about sort of the, the way race plays a role in child protection and how there’s a certain judge in our district who sort of repeatedly chooses to place to take children that are black or indigenous or non-white children and place them with white grandparents. And it’s, it’s just happened repeatedly.

Chynah Rae Boise (22:22):

This worker goes on to describe that there was a specific case in which a bipoc mother with substance use disorder and a white incarcerated father had a young child. The white paternal grandparents were petitioning for custody of that young child.

Conference Participant (22:37):

The judge did not ask me. I was not invited to the, to the case because it’s, it was in civil court and not in family court, which is where child protection usually is. And so I wasn’t invited to the hearing. The judge did not ask my opinion, even though I had an open case. I didn’t approve the guardianship. I wanted mom to be able to parent. I thought that with supports in place she would, she could successfully parent. And that removing the child would be really detrimental to her and the child.

Chynah Rae Boise (23:09):

Ultimately, the judge granted guardianship to the grandparents. And shortly after the mother died by suicide,

Conference Participant (23:17):

Which is what I which is what I was afraid was going to happen.

Conference Participant (23:33):

And then in the second case with the same judge there was a family they were, they were white grandparents who had adopted a black child. This black child now had a child who had an open case with child protection. The mom was, the black mom was having some pretty significant sub, I mean, not substance use on mental health stuff going on. And I did put a safety plan in place where the grandparents and the mom and the baby all lived together and the grandparents were the safety and they were supporting baby and mom. And so in the process of all of this, the grandparents who again were white requested guardianship of this black grandchild. And this time I was invited to the court hearing, and the judge did ask my opinion, in which I said, I don’t support this guardianship. I think that they have natural supports in place and it would be disruptive to the family and the judge when the mom, the black mom said, I, you know, I, I’m not sure I understand what this means. Does that mean I won’t have rights to my child? The judge basically bullied her and said like, if you don’t agree to this guardianship, then it’s gonna be a really long process. We’re gonna have to come back. You’re gonna have to get a lawyer and really just put up some pretty clear barriers for this mom. And so she agreed.

Chynah Rae Boise (25:01):

Cassie surprises the worker by asking. And how has this impacted you?

Conference Participant (25:08):

I just had a long conversation with Corey about how I really wanted to quit my job. Sorry, but he convinced me that, you know, quitting my job is not gonna change things. It’s not gonna help families. And that I need to stay in it and be, have abolitionist behavior and call out the racism when I see it, which I do. And it’s really hard to work in a system that is not set up for that and is not ready to handle or grapple with the racism that we have in our, in our, in our society, but also in this, in this business of child protection. And that I don’t agree with tprs and I don’t agree with child removing children from families. I mean, obviously there are cases where you have to, but for the most part, I don’t think we do. And I think we’re doing it wrong.

Chynah Rae Boise (26:27):

So how do we move forward? We’re learning more about where we’ve been and we’re opening our eyes to where we are now. What is the future we want for children and families, and how do we get there? We’re going to close out this second part hearing from some attendees who set their intentions.

Conference Participant (26:49):

If we stop challenging the system and we quiet our voices to speak for those in need, then we’re a part of the problem.

Cassie Gillespie (26:55):

Yeah.

Conference Participant (26:57):

And you know, the good thing about my conversation with Corey was all around, like, if you look at a family and you like, say, this family has, has come into, you know, has had three or four reports and has been involved with the district for a a while. Right? So all of these things that we imposed on the family are not working. So like we have to look at it from a different lens and like, what is the end goal? If the end goal is child safety, which is that is what it’s supposed to be, then we’re, we need to do more to bolster these families and, and, and allow them to create the safety that they need in a way that is not disruptive and is not destroying families. ’cause That’s what we’re doing.

Conference Participant (27:40):

We’re gonna open a four bed secure facility for youth. And if we don’t talk about it, I think it is expected that we will continue to see four times the number of children of color in that program. Because that is what we experienced when we had the Woodside program. So I, I feel that I want to have a call to action that we have a conversation about that and we talk about what we can do differently.

Conference Participant (28:14):

How do we all become vulnerable enough and open-minded enough to truly like be able to explore this within ourselves as humans and as social workers and like accepting the fact that we are part of an oppressive system. Yeah. And that just is going to take a lot of transformational leadership. Both within like the sort of more formal leadership teams, if you will. And also in every family services worker has to be able to see themselves as somebody that actually, actually is powerful in order to like, be able to use that power well.

Cassie Gillespie (28:58):

Yeah. Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (29:02):

Part two was produced by Chynah Rae Boise and mixed by Egan Media Productions. Join us next time for part three, our final part in this series when we bring you a talk about what child welfare could be from Dr. Brenda Solomon.