Broken : transforming Child Protective Services : notes of a former caseworker

Title:

Author:

Pryce, Jessica, author.

ISBN:

9780063036192

9780063036208

Personal Author:

Pryce, Jessica, author.

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

xiii, 283 pages ; 24 cm

General Note:

Source of cataloging data: WCP

Abstract:

"Dr. Jessica Pryce knows the child welfare system firsthand and, in this long overdue book, breaks it down from the inside out, sharing her professional journey and offering the crucial perspectives of caseworkers and Black women impacted by the system. It is a groundbreaking and eye-opening confrontation of the inherent and systemic racism deeply entrenched within the child welfare system. Pryce started her social work career with an internship where she was committed to helping keep children safe. In the book, she walks alongside her close friends and even her family as they navigate the system, while sharing her own reckoning with the requirements of her job and her role in the systemic harm. Through poignant narratives and introspection, readers witness the harrowing effects of a well-intentioned workforce that has lost its way, demonstrating how separations are often not in a child's best interests. With a renewed commitment to strengthening families in her role as activist, Pryce invites the child welfare workforce to embark on a journey of self-reflection and radical growth. At once a framework for transforming child protective services and an intimate, stunning first-hand account of the system as it currently operates, Broken takes everyday scenarios as its focus rather than extreme child welfare cases, challenging readers to critically examine their own mindsets and biases in order to reimagine how we help families in need"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction : it starts with us -- Prologue : what I know for sure -- Do better -- Evicted -- The life changing magic of tidying up -- Atlas of The heart -- All about love -- The new Jim Crow -- No way to treat a child -- My sister's keeper -- The color purple -- The three mothers -- The audacity of hope -- Twice as hard -- The great alone -- The will to change -- A little life -- The impossible imperative -- Torn apart -- White fragility -- The fire next time -- The fire this time -- Epilogue : what we carry -- Conclusion : it ends with us.

Subject Term:

Child welfare -- United States.

African American families.

Family services -- United States.

Social work with African Americans.

Family social work -- United States.

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Library	Material Type	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
Searching... Sugar Grove - Todd Library	Book	HV741 .P79 2024	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

Joining the ranks of Evicted and The New Jim Crow, a former caseworker's searing, clear-eyed investigation of the child welfare system--from foster care to incarceration--that exposes the deep-rooted biases shaping the system, witnessed through the lives of several Black families.

Dr. Jessica Pryce knows the child welfare system firsthand and, in this long overdue book, breaks it down from the inside out, sharing her professional journey and offering the crucial perspectives of caseworkers and Black women impacted by the system. It is a groundbreaking and eye-opening confrontation of the inherent and systemic racism deeply entrenched within the child welfare system.

Pryce started her social work career with an internship where she was committed to helping keep children safe. In the book, she walks alongside her close friends and even her family as they navigate the system, while sharing her own reckoning with the requirements of her job and her role in the systemic harm. Through poignant narratives and introspection, readers witness the harrowing effects of a well-intentioned workforce that has lost its way, demonstrating how separations are often not in a child's best interests.

With a renewed commitment to strengthening families in her role as activist, Pryce invites the child welfare workforce to embark on a journey of self-reflection and radical growth. At once a framework for transforming child protective services and an intimate, stunning first-hand account of the system as it currently operates, Broken takes everyday scenarios as its focus rather than extreme child welfare cases, challenging readers to critically examine their own mindsets and biases in order to reimagine how we help families in need.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Pryce debuts with a harrowing memoir of her former career as an investigator for Child Protective Services and her eventual reckoning with the system's structural inequities. As a CPS investigator in Tallahassee, Fla., Pryce responded to anonymous reports of child abuse and neglect. At first trusting in the process, she later came to see the system as geared toward hasty child removal rather than careful consideration of each case. After a close friend was investigated by CPS, Pryce came to believe that families being separated were disproportionately poor and Black, and that it would be better to provide more support to struggling families before resorting to child removal. She eventually left the department and became an advocate for reform. While Pryce's initial naivety almost beggars belief--she recalls being so unattuned to problems with the system that she reported her own sister to CPS, shocking even her coworkers--the narrative is all the more riveting for her total immersion in the ideology. Readers will be troubled and enthralled by Pryce's detailed reconstructions of disturbing scenes in which she and other investigators entered messy and dysfunctional homes for confrontations with clearly neglectful but also desperate and ill-equipped parents. Equally noteworthy is Pryce's careful spelling out of how workplace camaraderie provides cover for the persistence of bad policy. It's an invaluable insider account of a pressing social issue. (Mar.)

Kirkus Review

A child welfare activist tells the story of how she went from working with Child Protective Services to advocating for a complete overhaul. Pryce began interning at CPS shortly after enrolling in a social work master's degree program at Florida State. At first, she believed her job would simply entail "making sure that kids [were] safe." When she transitioned into a full-time role as a CPS investigator, however, recurring nightmares hinted that her work was far more problematic than she'd realized. Trauma seemed a built-in part of every case she worked on--and not just because of the parent/child separations CPS often enforced. Families, most of whom were Black, found themselves subjected to processes and procedures that never took into account individual circumstances and sometimes did more harm than good. Determined to find ways to speak on behalf of struggling parents rather than being part of a system that punished them, Pryce went into academia. During that time, she was asked to give expert witness testimony in a CPS court case, where she observed how systemic racism worked against an (ultimately innocent) Black mother named Jatoia. An episode of public domestic violence had caused Jatoia and her husband, Lawrence, to be charged with felony child abuse. Jatoia was fully exonerated after Lawrence confessed to dropping their infant son while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Yet CPS still legally terminated Jatoia's parental rights. "A realization hit me with nauseating force: The system had more power than I ever knew," writes the author, who began to work directly with community activists to support parents "reeling" from a white supremacist system bent on policing families rather than helping to rehabilitate them. As compelling as it is humane, Pryce's book offers timely insight into a racist institution in desperate need of reform. An illuminating, necessary sociological report. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Pryce began her career in child protective services as an intern, then spent years serving as a CPS caseworker before ultimately leaving the profession to pursue a career as a researcher and activist. During her time at CPS, she began to recognize how she and her fellow caseworkers were complicit in a system that victimized Black mothers and families, failed to rectify the underlying systemic failures that led to CPS involvement, and worst of all, created new and lasting trauma in the lives of the children they served. Broken is a deeply personal, vulnerable story of Pryce's journey into activism, as she began to witness CPS' failings, both as a caseworker and as a close friend to Black mothers whose children had been taken away. Pryce argues that we must advocate for revolutionary change that more effectively protects children from abuse and neglect but prioritizes keeping families together. This book will appeal to readers interested in social reform and the abolition of the carceral state, and it makes a strong pairing with Dorothy Roberts' Torn Apart (2022).

Library Journal Review

Pryce (social work, Florida State Univ.) reveals what it's like to work as a child protective services (CPS) investigator, the differences that parents' race and class make in outcomes, and the effects of CPS investigations on Black women. The book recounts Pryce's three years as a Florida CPS investigator before she became an academic and an advocate for reform. While written for professionals in the social work industry, her accessible book presents case studies of wrenching decisions made under intense time constraints. She cites rigid policies, the pressure to remove children from their families, and the different standards employed for Black families and white families. CPS, Pryce argues, is ill-equipped to deal with the racist foundations of child welfare, the housing crisis, and mental-illness stigmas. The book concludes with discussion questions regarding the featured case studies, which challenge readers to consider how CPS could have handled the situations differently. VERDICT Parents and child-welfare professionals will benefit from this excellent work that gives an insider's view of child protective services. Pair with We Were Once a Family by Roxanna Asgarian.--Harry Charles

Author's Note	xi
Introduction It Starts With Us	1
Prologue What I Know for Sure	11
Chapter 1 Do Better	17
Chapter 2 Evicted	29
Chapter 3 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up	41
Chapter 4 Atlas of the Heart	52
Chapter 5 All About Love	59
Chapter 6 The New Jim Crow	69
Chapter 7 No Way to Treat a Child	80
Chapter 8 My Sister's Keeper	89
Chapter 9 The Color Purple	105
Chapter 10 The Three Mothers	114
Chapter 11 The Audacity of Hope	124
Chapter 12 Twice as Hard	134
Chapter 13 The Great Alone	146
Chapter 14 The Will to Change	155
Chapter 15 A Little Life	163
Chapter 16 The Impossible Imperative	173
Chapter 17 Torn Apart	182
Chapter Ia White Fragility	190
Chapter 19 The Fire Next Time	200
Chapter 20 The Fire This Time	209
Epilogue What We Carry	218
Conclusion It Ends With Us	229
Acknowledgments	239
Resources:
Developmental Framework For Child Welfare Professionals and Community Partners	241
Case-Based Discussion Questions and Conversation Prompts	243
Tools for Mandated Reporters	253
Considerations Before Reporting to CPS	255
Notes	257
Index	271

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents