In New Jersey, the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN) and Parents Anonymous are working together to create the state’s first Family Council—a group of parents with experience with the state’s child welfare system who will give feedback and recommendations to the state’s commissioner of the Department of Children and Families and other senior staff. Diana Autin, co-executive director of SPAN, explains how the Family Council will shape the system.

Q: How did the Family Council get started?

A: SPAN and Parents Anonymouse are both concerned about preventing child abuse and improving the child welfare system. At SPAN, we give information and support to families who are having any kind of trouble with any government agency—health, juvenile justice, education. We get calls from lots of families involved in the child welfare system. Our big focus is on leadership development, so once families are through their crisis, we tell the parents about trainings they can attend to get involved in public policy advocacy or become resource parents. Our Parent to Parent program hooks up any parent experiencing a crisis with a resource parent who was in the same situation.

Parents Anonymous runs parent-led support groups and a 24-hour hotline staffed by trained volunteers. Parents who are stressed can call anytime and talk to someone so they don’t abuse their child, and can attend support groups to strengthen their parenting.

Together we reached out to Commissioner Kevin Ryan. Our idea was to form the Family Council to meet with the commissioner and his senior staff to give them the parents’ perspective of how the system needs to improve. Our larger goal is to have an advisory council in every county and to create a leadership development institute for parents involved in the child welfare system. Commissioner Ryan said he was interested in hearing from parents and provided funds to form the Family Council.

For the Family Council, we’ll reach out to 15 families from around the state who have been involved with the system. They will come up with issues to speak to the commissioner about.

Q: What issues are parents in New Jersey likely to discuss with the commissioner?

A: We’ve heard from parents over and over again that it’s a problem that the systems serving children and families in New Jersey don’t know enough about each other and don’t work together.

I also think the commissioner is going to hear that when you call the child welfare system for support, you don’t get help. Then, two years later when you’ve been struggling on your own, the system wants to come take your child away.

We hear that family-serving systems are not family friendly. Too often, workers are not respectful to parents, they talk down, they focus on a family’s problems exclusively and don’t build on the family’s strengths.

They’ll probably say there aren’t not enough services for kids who are at the greatest risk to prevent them from entering care. For instance, a lot of research says that kids with disabilities are more likely to be raised in single parent households, and if you’re a single parent with a child with a disability, there’s a lot of stress on you. So where are the supports to help keep the dads from leaving?

Finally, the parents will probably say there’s discrimination. Whether your child goes into foster care often depends on your access to money and on where you live.

Q: How will the Family Council address those concerns?

A: At SPAN, our goal is to fill in the gaps between what agencies provide and what parents need. Through surveys and conversations with parents, we hear about their unmet needs. Concerns about the child welfare system have been coming up a lot over the last five years.

We hope—and the commissioner hopes—that if he and his senior team can hear from parents directly involved in child welfare, they can change practice to support families.