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(Alliance News Service) —
Broad Context and Measurable
Value from Research
Interview covers important issues
of human services

As one of the most respected research institutions in the country, Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago focuses on building knowledge to improve the health and well-being of children. The Alliance for Children and Families has forged a partnership with Chapin Hall to provide new and innovative learning opportunities for Alliance members.

Martin Sinnott, president and CEO of Alliance member Kids Hope United, Chicago, met with Matthew Stagner, executive director of Chapin Hall and a personal friend, to discuss Chapin Hall’s research and how it can assist and impact Alliance members, as well as Stagner’s views on several issues facing nonprofit human service organizations.

The first part of the discussion between Sinnott and Stagner was published in the summer 2007 issue of the Alliance for Children & Families Magazine. This second part details the public perception of child welfare, technology in human services, and issues related to child well-being.

Sinnott: The public perception of human services, and especially child welfare, is pretty much at an all-time low.
You read the data and surveys that are taken and generally speaking, most providers of child welfare related services are seen as an extension of government. There is not a lot of trust or confidence in those organizations. Look at charitable giving. Roughly 12 cents on the dollar goes to human services. I think that is not coincidental. If you look at some of the workforce issues that we are struggling with now I think it shows young professionals’ poor perception of our field and the lack of a strong workforce is a reflection of that. Why do you think it is, we occupy such a low spot, so to speak, in terms of the public’s perception of what we do?

Stagner: That is interesting, especially coming from the head of a center that has embraced children as its focus. I would actually like us not to look at those children outside of the context of their families. Families are where kids exist. But the family, I feel, is the root of most of the ambivalence you refer to. Most people care a lot about children; you can make the “next generation” argument, and understand that your social security will be supported by the children of today. But people become very ambivalent about families who they worry are not behaving well or that don’t look like their own family. So the diversity of our society is one of those issues.

I am always a “glass is half full” type of person, even at the worst of times. I think some of the changes that have been made have set the stage for better attention to this set of issues. In particular, I think that as much as the dismantling of the welfare system has created a lot of challenges, it is better not to have the old welfare system. The prevailing attitude is “I am not going to give money to help ‘those’ people.” Now that we have many more people working and “playing by the rules,” the challenge is, I think, how to broaden the focus so that the public understands that the types of struggling families who end up in these systems are not necessarily very different from those who are struggling and just making it.

For example, public programs such as EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) and food stamps are being made available to people with higher levels of income. If we broaden the safety net to include more working families—many of whom feel stressed even if they are above poverty—there may be more sympathy for those who aren’t quite making it for a variety of reasons.

That is the optimistic view. The pessimistic issues are related to the increasing diversity of our society and the fact that the people in need aren’t going to look like those who are making it—which raises other types of challenges. I worry about isolating kids by trying to play up sympathy for them and for supports that are provided outside of the context of their families. Because ultimately helping the kids means helping those families. It is a bit of a Catch-22 as to how to generate sympathy from the public without distorting the real issues.

Leveraging the struggles of the working poor is one way to help the nonworking poor as well. If we build up a set of supports for people who receive more public sympathy because they are playing by the rules and doing the things we expect them to do, and if we build those safety nets in the right way, they will catch the people who aren’t in that position as well.

Sinnott: The whole issue of well-being ... One could say we couldn’t get a handle on safety and risk, so therefore we had to change it to well-being. I absolutely agree that there is a broader context of which you are speaking. But at the same time, you can say that from a safety and risk perspective both in terms of practice and policy—and it seems like there is a lot of attention to practice and policy and yet we’re not quite there and then we don’t agree on it. You can also look at all the disparity that exists throughout this country just on safety and risk. One could argue that maybe we went to well-being a little too quickly. If not that, then let’s make sure that we circle back and after we have established this broader concept then the fundamental issues of safety and risk get addressed.

Stagner: I don’t think I disagree with that. I think that the devil is in the details of how you get there. We have made great progress in permanency through guardianship and adoption and moving children and youth out of care faster. But we have to, as you say, circle back and ask whether those kids are really better off. That is a well-being question. Or, on the risk side, are we just pushing them back into families where we will see a return to care or repeat incidence of abuse; it is balancing those trends and decisions.

Which brings us to another role of Chapin Hall: to remind each field of the many balancing factors. When policy and practice initiatives drive in one direction, the field decides which one to go after. But usually that comes with some tradeoff for other things we care about. We need the data to understand if we are improving. That’s where, I think, those outcome systems we discussed earlier are not necessarily a bad thing, although they can be very tricky. Because you need to have the full range of outcomes—so you can see whether improvement in one area is coming at the expense of another. The field needs to be able to measure alternative systems and then debate their merits.

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