Thirty Years of ReCentering Authority: CSC Core Practices

“We need to understand that families in crisis are very similar to families in recovery. It is the constant support, the constant reinforcement, it is the connection to the community, a connection to a larger group…. maybe, just maybe, we won’t have another child falling through the cracks, through the safety net, and into our child protection system. Public systems don’t do that. Local communities can.”

Ralph Smith, 1997 “Why Building a Community-Based System of Family and Neighborhood Support is Necessary: A National Perspective.”

“When systems fail, social workers don’t look away. We listen, we stand beside people, and we work to change the policies and structures causing harm. Real change happens when we do it with people, not just on their behalf.” 

Jennifer Lemmerman, National Executive Director, Health Care for All, “How Accompaniment Empowers Others.”

This is the second of three articles discussing the evolution of Washington, DC's City-Wide, Neighborhood-Based Collaboratives and the Collaborative Solutions for Communities, previously known as the Columbia Heights/Shaw Family Support Collaborative. 

As highlighted in the first article, Expressions from the Beginning, the late 1980s and 1990s were especially difficult for many children and families in Washington, DC, who were already in or at risk of entering the child welfare and other human services systems. For many, contact with a system meant to help was almost as traumatizing as the dangers in their neighborhoods. The failure of these systems led to many heartbreaking stories. Here is just one. 

Kevin

“Kevin was 10 days old when he entered Department custody after his teenaged mother signed him into emergency care. By the age of nine, Kevin had lived in at least 11 different placements, including an institutional setting, five foster homes, a group home, several hospitals, and a residential care facility. He had at least 17 different caseworkers. The Department returned Kevin to his mother’s care on at least two occasions over the years, once because its custody had lapsed due to carelessness. During both placements with his mother, Kevin suffered physical and emotional abuse. As a result of a childhood ruled by neglect, Kevin had developed extreme oppositional behaviors, resulting in him being institutionalized. The Department put him on powerful psychotropic medications since at least the age of six, instead of providing him with the appropriate treatment and attention. It seemed likely that he will suffer from mental problems for the remainder of his life. At age eight, Kevin put himself into a garbage can in a psychiatric hospital and asked to be thrown away.” 

Source: https://www.abetterchildhood.org/washington-dc

Stories like Kevin’s led the American Civil Liberties Union in 1989 to file a lawsuit in the US federal court, charging that the District of Columbia’s foster care system was in total disarray. In February, 1991, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan wrote in LaShawn A. vs Marion Barry, that evidence had shown that, “District children relegated to entire childhoods spent in foster care drift…A lost generation of children whose tragic plight is being repeated every day.” Judge Hogan ordered an overhaul of the District’s child welfare system. However, four years later, the District had still not taken action. And in 1995, Judge Hogan held the District in contempt of court and appointed a Receiver to run the agency. At the time, the District became the only child welfare system in the country to be taken over by a federal court.

On page 56 of the 84 page LaShawn lawsuit Judge Hogan issued the following directive,“In developing decentralized community-based services, the Department shall move toward ensuring the availability of needed resources in each Ward of the District to assure that the needs of children and families are met within their own neighborhoods.  To the extent possible, new resources should be located in agencies and organizations which are accessible to parents.” 

With the directive to "decentralize," the Healthy Families/Thriving Communities Collaboratives were established. 

In November 1998, one year after the establishment of the Collaboratives, the Center for the Study of Social Policy published a case study titled “The Development of Neighborhood-Based Child Welfare Services in the District of Columbia.” Special thanks go to Judy Meltzer, the former Executive Director of the Center, for making the paper available.

The case study outlines the initial steps of the Healthy Families/Thriving Communities Collaboratives Council (HFTCCC), the umbrella organization comprising of community leaders and stakeholders responsible for organizing and supporting the individual and collective efforts of each of the Collaboratives. It provides details of the programs each of the individual Collaboratives were implementing one year into their existence. Even after 30 years, the paper remains an engaging and insightful read and can be accessed on the CSC website. 

In its Practice Standards Manual, HFTCCC highlighted some key differences between the Traditional Child Welfare Model and the emerging Collaborative Model. The Collaboratives were intentionally decentralized from the traditional system and designed to transform the planning and delivery of services from a ground-up approach. The Collaborative Model underscores the belief that communities—similar to families—have the capability to address child abuse and neglect effectively when they are equipped with adequate resources. By investing in these communities we can create meaningful change.

Traditional Public Agency Model	Collaborative Model
Workers and services are centralized and physically distant from families.	Workers and services are located where at-risk families live.
Services are defined in categorical terms.	Family and child needs are assessed comprehensively with flexible supports and services to meet those needs.
Communities mistrust services and providers.	Communities becomes partners in service delivery.
No common agreement exists on success standards.	Communities agree to outcomes that measure success.
No one is accountable for positive results.	Communities hold themselves and all other providers accountable for results.
System is dominated by public funds and agency staff.	Community agencies are primary service providers in collaboration with informal support and public and private support.

ReCentering Authority: The Origin of CSC’s Core Practices

Marian Urquilla, CSC’s first Executive Director (1996 – 2008) reflects, “I came into the Collaborative work straight out of working on Stand for Children, graduate school in comparative literature, and working on NGO Conference on Women in Beijing. So my mind was pretty wide open to ideas of social change, advocacy, gender justice. I think the framework that was foremost in my mind was indeed liberatory practice, whether as embodied by the work of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Popular Education, or by the work of Myles Horton at the Highlander Center.”

These philosophies and practices are most commonly used in community and political organizing strategies. This aligns with Marian’s background and is well-suited for the Collaborative’s community capacity-building mandate. The challenge and opportunity were to align them with the Collaborative’s direct service mandate to prevent children and families from entering the child welfare system and to positively assist families transition out of the system. 

The central mission of the Collaboratives was to establish a robust and interconnected network of community-based supports and services dedicated to ensuring that families and young people to stay safe and thrive. By organizing and connecting these essential resources, the Collaboratives could help prevent unnecessary involvement with child welfare and other systems, allowing families to flourish in their communities. 

Marian shares, “It was clear that we needed a practice model that would guide our direct service work, and be congruent with the liberatory/empowerment frame of the community building and partnership development mandate. The family support movement was in motion and we joined those convenings, learned the strengths-based framework and tried to move from there. I stumbled into Family Group Conferencing, in particular the Maori/New Zealand model, and thought it was an extraordinary embodiment of the vision we were holding. I read about solutions-focused brief therapy and thought it also embodied what we were trying to build, and out of that curiosity, Penny (Griffith) started going to Milwaukee for training. That connection was such a catalyst...it felt like a game-changer for us.”

The partnership between Marian and Penny Griffith, who was the Director of Family Services and is now the current Executive Director of CSC, was remarkable in envisioning and building out the practice model. Both brought brilliant minds to the work, with diverse backgrounds and focuses, yet they shared a strong commitment to innovation, the well-being of children and families, and community-driven systems change.

Popular Education Spiral of Change of Model

Below is a diagram of the Popular Education Spiral Model, inspired by Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The model emphasizes that learning starts with participants’ own experience and knowledge. After participants share their experiences—either from before or during an activity—they look for patterns and analyze what they have learned and shared. New information and theories can then be developed through facilitated discussions or introduced by resource people. Once an issue is analyzed, it is important to practice new skills and plan for action.

Diagram from Educating for Change

Thirty years later, it is exciting to see the continued alignment of Freire’s values and practice model with CSC’s core practices in family services and community building

Start with people’s experience and look for emerging patterns. 

Creating a trusting environment where individuals feel safe to share their personal stories is a powerful and effective way to foster personal and social change. To ensure that this safe space is established, staff members must be committed to ongoing personal growth and skill development. To support this goal, CSC staff are encouraged to create their own genograms. 

Genograms are tools that help deepen our understanding of family backgrounds, including strengths, challenges, and patterns that may have been passed down through generations. They also illuminate identities related to gender, ethnicity, culture, religion, and social class. Through continuous personal reflection, we can gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and the social context of our lives, which can be highly informative for our work with families and communities. 

In the early days of CSC’ work and Collaborative’s throughout the District of Columbia, it became clear that parents and community leaders with direct experience with CFSA and other agencies had accumulated insights, resilience, and strength that could not be matched by a person with formal social work or community organizing training. Their “lived experience” was integral to helping families embrace change as well as identifying the structural reforms that could help agencies become more accessible and effective in working with families. The person with a “lived experience” who also happens to live in the neighborhood is a huge resource and asset to the work. Now, not only is the organization based in the community, but staff working for the organization are also present in the neighborhood around the clock. As Ralph Smith states above, the chances of “a child falling through the cracks” is less likely when there are eyes and ears, formal and informal, in the neighborhoods every day. In most cases, with staff who live in and who are familiar with the nuances of a particular neighborhood, the critical foundations of trust and legitimacy are often established quicker and can be more effective. Soon after they were established, the Collaboratives throughout the District created teams consisting of persons with lived experiences and licensed social workers to work together on community cases. It is an effective model that continues today, although gentrification and rising housing costs make it very difficult for persons with lived experiences to remain living in the neighborhoods where they can be most effective.

Add New Information and Theory

CSC has made a long-term commitment to developing expertise in four core Evidence-Based practices that are integral and interrelated throughout their work with youth, families, and communities. CSC staff are encouraged to utilize the skill sets of each practice in their work in the neighborhood, with colleagues, and at home - - they are an essential part of the CSC work culture. Acquiring the skills needed to implement each of these practices requires extensive training, often necessitating the unlearning of ingrained aspects of Western culture and language. The differences can be subtle, and the benefits may not be evident for years after the training is completed. However, as Marian noted, “They were a game changer.” One former front-line CSC employee, now a manager with a different community organization, recently said, “Trainings, trainings, trainings… grew me into the person I am today.” 

Strength – based Approach focuses on inherent strengths, resources, and resilience replacing the deficit mindset that is all too often ingrained into children and adults facing economic challenges and/or racial/cultural biases. A strength-based outlook emphasizes the capacity to change, and while acknowledging problems, the training helps the participant remain focused on what’s working and not what’s wrong. A formerly incarcerated CSC employee said once, “I spent the first part of my life tearing this community down. Now, I have the skills and opportunity to help rebuild it.”

Solution Focused Brief Therapy focuses on the family as the “expert” in their own lives and reminds them that just because things may not be going well now, no problem happens all of the time. The family is encouraged to think about “positive differences” when the problem could have happened, but didn’t. This reminds the family that solutions already exist! … and can be re-discovered through  conversation and their own innovation. “Problem talk creates problems, solutions talk creates solutions.” Steve de Sazer

Family Group Conferencing (FGC) originated with the Māori Indigenous people of New Zealand. It is a lengthy and deliberate process that focuses on a community of individuals directly affected by harm caused by an individual or event. The FGC emphasizes healing, developing solutions, and creating a specific plan identified solely by the participants. By placing the family, community, and even members of opposing gangs at the center of the decision-making process, the FGC serves as an extraordinary extension and culmination of strength-based and solution-focused approaches. 

Healing Circles are a specific type of family group conferencing for persons seeking reunification with their families during or after incarceration. In the Circle, participants and facilitators create a safe and supportive space to acknowledge harm and seek forgiveness and allows participants to process their experiences, build resilience, and strengthen meaningful connections with each other.

Trauma-informed Care (TIC) reminds us that, “Hurt people, hurt people” and through a variety of interventions attempt to transform pain and trauma, before it is transmitted. CSC has recently adopted a TAMAR (Traumas, Addictions Mental Health, and Recovery) which emphasizes the following principles: ensuring physical and emotional safety throughout the organization for participants and staff; building trust through open decision-making and consistency; integrating persons with lived experiences into the healing process; leveling power dynamics to foster shared decision-making; validating strengths and restoring control for individuals who have direct experience with trauma; and actively address biases and recognize the impact of collective and historical trauma. trustworthiness, peer support, collaboration, empowerment, and cultural/historical responsiveness.

These skill sets are the foundation and cornerstone of CSC's work. The staff utilize as pathways to assist clients in navigating meaningful change. A significant and lasting shift in authority occurs when children, families, and community members begin to recognize their own strength and understand that they are the experts in solving their own challenges. With this recentering of authority comes a new awareness, a step toward discovering their capacity to make a difference, and a beginning to lead themselves toward the future they envision. 

Conclusion

Structural inequities in housing, wealth, the judicial system, employment, education, and health have impacted District families for generations. Programs aimed at providing relief were often designed by government agencies that lacked a connection to the communities they intended to serve. As a result, many initiatives frequently fell short of their goals. 

Thirty years ago, this was also the case for DC’s child welfare agency. In response to a judge’s mandate to decentralize services and programs, the agency took a courageous step by shifting resources and decision-making authority into the communities it served. By recentering authority and restoring legitimacy with children, families, and the communities most affected by the system, the District began to create a more just and supportive environment for children and families.