The Agency of Human Services is in need of major reform. Namely, toward a culture of kindness in the words of the Council on Pathways From Poverty; a team appointed by the governor to recommend actions that would reduce poverty in Vermont.
The need for change is clear. Eighty-four thousand Vermonters are food-insecure. Twenty-five thousand of them are children. More than 18,000 children live in poverty as defined by the laughably low federal poverty threshold.
And this past year, Vermonters lost two children at the hands of adults that were ill-equipped for the responsibility of parenting. These are signs of an eroded social contract; one in which government has dropped the ball. The answer to this problem is not simple, but can be found in the culture of the Agency of Human Services.
Culture is, by far, the most difficult change to affect in an organization. And to think more training is a cure-all is a mistake.
As a child protection worker, I’ve engaged in no less than 400 hours of training following my graduate degree and I still made plenty of mistakes. And while there may still be plenty of training deficits, especially with regards to substance abuse, I urge lawmakers and Agency leaders to think of training as a strategy to achieve culture change.
The oft-quoted Peter Drucker said “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. And you can’t train culture. You model it.
So if only one reform were possible this year, I hope it will be the creation of an office of the child advocate. 38 other states have some version of this important protector of children. The individual assigned this critical responsibility is independent, impartial, and empowered to ensure children are receiving the basic rights entitled to them - including a safe, nurturing home.
But in addition to holding the human services system accountable; this office could also provide the much-needed service of collecting and disseminating data analysis on the wellbeing of Vermont’s children.
The recent report by the Citizens Advisory Board looked closely at the systemic problems that led to the deaths of two young Vermonters. Unfortunately, this level of oversight and accountability occurred amidst tragedy and not as a part of a continuous self-improvement process.
But an office of the child advocate could examine this system during good times as well as bad to find opportunities to prevent tragedy – instead of just responding to it.
And when it comes to the wellbeing of our children, I think it’s safe to presume that all Vermonters would agree that an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.
