Social work and child protection agencies remain inextricably linked. Schools of social work continue to carve out curriculum to prepare future practitioners, who will eventually remove children from their homes for unspecified time frames. This is framed as not only necessary, but virtuous. Personally, I taught coursework on family violence for years, walking students through my state’s jurisdictional laws regarding abuse and neglect, and what legally constitutes the separation of children from homes.
As an educator, I submit that Alan Dettlaff’s new book, Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System: The Case for Abolition, should be required reading. It adds to the growing body of literature about the profession of social work and its history of dangerous benevolence. The book is concise and essential.
One of the premises of the book is how social workers identify and engage in social change, but do not apply those same critiques and actions to the profession itself. For example, during the Trump administration, the U.S. government notoriously and publicly used the threat and practice of separating families to deter immigration at the Southern U.S. border, with children essentially disappearing into the larger U.S. population. Of course, this is dangerous and illegal. Trump says he’ll do this again as a form of deterrence. And for the record, the current administration has continued some of the same border policies as its predecessor.
Any social worker should be outraged and working to fight against this sanctioned violence. Yet, child welfare systems, in which social workers routinely engage, separate 200,000 children from their homes every year. The author notes this statistic disproportionately impacts Black families. Dettlaff effectively describes how the history of chattel slavery relates to this practice; the author provides a researched overview of how we came to have the system of family separations that we now support across the country. This is a thorough and clear overview.
Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System focuses not only on the history of violence committed against families, but also how, despite claims of reform, the system as it functions has always operated as intended. This is rooted in the pervasive nature of white supremacy, which welcomes notions of “reform” that are pre-determined to fail.
I greatly appreciated Dettlaff’s discussion on abolition. The use of the term “dismantling” when describing the elimination of oppressive systems is so common, it risks obscuring or missing the larger intent of abolition. The final passage of the text focuses on this important shift in focus. For those readers asking, “Well, where are the alternatives?” I recommend not skipping this final section.
It bears repeating that this work may be controversial, particularly for social workers who work in child welfare and protection. It shouldn’t be. No area of our collective social work identity should stand without critique. The practice of child welfare has been embraced as essential, under the guise of benevolence, and supported by government bodies seeking to codify continued violence.
Put another way: if we are truly outraged by the recent enactment of abusive laws in Texas and elsewhere, where “child abuse” is redefined to include children seeking gender-affirming care, then we should dig deep to truly protect the vulnerable people we claim to help.
Reviewed by Stephen Cummings, MSW, ACSW, LISW, a clinical associate professor with more than 20 years of practice in social service fields, including 10 years as a licensed social worker in a Trauma I level hospital setting. His areas of interest include ethical use of technology in social work practice, clinical supervision, and preparing students for the social work licensure exam.