Friday’s Press Herald reports on the review of Maine’s child protective programs by Casey Family Programs, which reports some disappointment by both state Sen. Bill Diamond, a long-time advocate for Maine’s at risk children, and Dan Despard, a director of the Casey Programs. We can all be disappointed since the issues are longstanding and do not lend themselves to easy resolution.

For example, one of the observations made in the report is that it is difficult for workers to engage with potentially abusive families because that engagement is largely voluntary. And, that engagement, I suggest, is similar to the engagement we expect from much of our policing. The dilemma is that it takes a very special person to engage people who exhibit negative behaviors in a way that they can use that engagement more constructively. As a person in middle management for 10 years in the Portland DHS office, I was impressed at how natural it was for some workers to effectively engage these families and how difficult it was to teach that skill to all workers. In addition, we don’t have any way to honor that capacity in the exceptional worker partly because their work is sheltered in confidentiality.

Some way of honoring the exceptional work done by both the police and child protective workers in such situations might be a way to help others follow their lead.

James Tierney
Brownfield

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