Caseworkers don’t deserve the blame

IN RESPONSE to David Bliven's letter ("Caseworkers aren't our allies") commenting on the article "Criminalizing Caregivers," I'd like to say something in defense of caseworkers, whom David argues are not our allies when it comes to reforming the child welfare system.

David argues that caseworkers cannot be considered allies just because they are unionized, and that their negligence or misconduct cannot simply be excused by the fact that they work under very stressful conditions. To illustrate his point, he says that police officers can make the same claims to unionization and stressful conditions, yet we wouldn't support cops when they commit acts of negligence or brutality.

I agree wholeheartedly with him that union membership alone is no basis for determining who might be a political ally for socialists. I also agree that we cannot make excuses for abusive or harmfully negligent behavior by individuals based on their professional group membership or the demands of their line of work.

However, I think that David is making a larger political claim about the role that social work as a profession plays in society, and I disagree with his conclusion that caseworkers are an instrument of repression on par with the police force.

I do think that it is worthwhile to do what David is doing in his argument, which is to make a political assessment about the role of a certain profession in society by abstracting from the individuals who may be "good" or "bad" examples of that profession. I don't believe that a truly political assessment of this kind is simply a matter of tallying the proportion of good to bad apples--the intended function of the work in question must be taken into account.

Without excusing or passively accepting the very real racist behavior, abuse and neglect, and incompetence due to inadequate training that David has encountered in the child welfare system and is rightfully frustrated by, I think it is important to recognize that caseworkers do have a stake in improving people's lives, even if they aren't always able to accomplish that goal within the capitalist system.

I think that most caseworkers are frustrated by their limited ability to actually protect children, too, and as I've been pursuing a career in social work, I have most often heard stories of warning from people who have worked in child welfare and were burned out by it. In general, most people who become caseworkers do so out of a desire to help some of the most vulnerable members of society, not because they think they will be well paid, well respected, or enjoy power and influence the way a police officer might.

When it becomes clear that the system itself is an obstacle to achieving a better society, many caseworkers become disgruntled or depressed--but I think the potential exists for this frustration with the shortcomings of social welfare programs to translate into radicalization instead of demoralization.

It is difficult to imagine a police officer going through this process of radicalization because we all know that, regardless of the spectrum of individual behavior between the cop who killed Oscar Grant at one end and the officers who stood with the pro-union protesters in Madison at the other, the role of police work in society is to protect property and its owners. Police are closer akin to investment bankers and CEOs whose role in society is to protect wealth and profit. When they are well trained, have all the resources they require, and are talented at their jobs, they are actively deepening the disparity between rich and poor and are tools of repression.

I don't think that you can say the same thing about teachers, nurses, public defenders or caseworkers, whose role in society is to improve the lives of ordinary people. That they very often don't actually improve people's lives demonstrates how desperately we need radical systemic change.

I understand why David is so angered by the harmfully inadequate child welfare system and, consequently, by the workers whose job it is to implement that system. I'd invite him, though, to consider the analogy with teachers more carefully.

Public school teachers, even at their best, still produce obedient workers who reproduce the conditions of capitalism--but this isn't a reason to write them off as allies. The best teachers also do what they can to inspire critical, independent thinking in their students, and they are in the best position to fight for education reform.

Caseworkers guide children through a difficult transition away from unsustainable family situations and through foster care, which is unfortunately necessary at times. The child welfare system is perhaps even more deeply in need of reform than the education system, but I do think it's possible for good caseworkers to positively influence a child's life in this process and to organize for child welfare reform.

More resources and better training for caseworkers would greatly improve the lives of children in a way that more resources and better training for police never would, in my opinion.
Alana Smith, Baltimore