When I say that I thought I knew it all, I don’t mean this in a cocky way.  I had just left an agency full of people who I really respected and thought I still had a lot to learn from, and, when I began my role working as the Juvenile Diversion Officer for the City of Struthers, I was surrounded by a lot of brilliant educators, police officers, city officials, and individuals within the county agencies with whom I worked from whom I knew I had a lot to learn.  As I look back now, it is truly amazing just how much I really did learn from all of these individuals.

When I say that I thought I knew it all, I mean that I thought that I came into this position with the right mindset about parenting.  At a minimum, I believed that parents/guardians must be held responsible for their children’s behavior, it’s their job to meet their children’s needs and there really aren’t any excuses for which one could have to not get this job right.  You had these children…now it is your job to protect, care for and provide for them.  Get your crap together and take care of them. This was my belief.  I was right.  The people I was working for and with held this belief.  They told me I was right.  They liked that I was able to take this very firm and unapologetic approach as, at this time, despite the fact that in many cases, I was younger than the parents with whom I was working, this was the way it was.  This town had a Parental Responsibility Ordinance and we were all on the same page.

If you read my article on the Parental Responsibility Ordinance, you will see that somewhere along the line, my attitude changed.  I remember one of the families that caused my awakening.  I really, really liked this family.  These children, for all they experienced at 7 and 8 years old when I met them, had creative energy and so much personality, and the father and step-mother were so dedicated to doing what was right.  I don’t know where they are now or how things worked out, so I truly want to be cautious of what and how I share.  There is so much more from their story that we could learn from, but for now, what is important is what I learned at one particular moment.

The boys had been living with their mother, but as they continued to act out at home, school, and in the community, all of us working on the case agreed that it would be in their best interest for their father to take them.  I was fairly new to this case and fairly new to this position.  When he arrived in my office with the boys, we sat down to discuss all the things that would need to be taken care of.  Sadly, we had learned that some of the things that were going on in the mother’s home were beyond depraved and these boys were acting out in ways that made this one of the worst cases I have seen in my professional career.

There was no doubt that all 3 of the boys would need individual therapy and it was recommended that the parents (Dad and Step-mom) would both see therapists as the strain of what was going on in their home was undoubtedly a lot to cope with, not to mention, for Dad, he needed to come to terms with all that his boys had been through while living with their mother.  I had a certain set of checks and balances that required full participation by the parents to help get them back on track at school.  Obviously, all that these children had lived through and witnessed would make them quite distracted daily at school and it would require a lot of patience, both during the day at school and help at home at night, to be able to get them caught up with their learning.  It had also come to our attention that the kids were missing a number of school supplies, so we needed Dad to help get them everything to be able to be successful.

Fueled by the emotions of what he’d learned his children had experienced at their mother’s and determined to take advantage of the opportunity to have his boys in his care, he set out with the plan we’d laid out to accomplish everything needed.  His wife, fortunately, was also completely onboard and supportive to help out in any way needed (I’m sure many understand that it is not every stepparent who will willingly take on the challenge of bringing 3 “at-risk” boys into their new marriage, where they have an infant of their own, and determinedly invest in the healing of these children.).

It was not long before I got a call from his wife letting me know they needed to meet with me.  None of this was going to work.  This big, tall, strong man came into my office and looked beaten.  He began by sharing that the boys’ mother had previously filed domestic violence charges against him for which he had a felony charge on his record.  I already knew this information, as she had shared it with me.  She continued to struggle with moments where, most often, she recanted the allegations and regretted having filed the charges and, at other times, claimed the charges were true (from the best of what could be constructed from what she told, and her entire history, it seems most believable that he is truly innocent), but he had already served the consequences and his record was damaged.

He explained that due to the felony DV on his record, his options for employment are quite limited and, at his current job, he makes very little and does not have the option to take any time away from work to get the children to any of the therapy sessions that were required by Diversion.  Often, he also had to work weekends and still, they didn’t make enough money. I remember as they sat and walked me through just the bare minimum bills to cover rent and utilities and basic food and then showed me his salary.  It just was not enough now that they were taking on the boys.  Unfortunately, this is a sad and frightening reality that so many have to face.

Since his new wife was not the legal guardian, most mental health agencies would not allow her to sit in the family sessions that were needed.  He and his wife explained that they barely had the bare minimum to pay their bills, but they absolutely did not have the money needed for the school supplies for the boys and would never be able to pay for therapy for all of them.  I don’t now remember if it was an issue of not having insurance and not qualifying for Medicaid, if they couldn’t cover the sliding scale fee or just couldn’t cover the co-pay.  No matter the issue, it simply wasn’t feasible for them the get the required services.

And, even knowing that he was trapped due to the felony conviction and this was caused due to the actions of his ex-wife (who was a person struggling with many demons of her own), he was a very smart man and a very loving father.  He knew and said, whatever she caused in his life, she is still the mother of these boys and they have only one mother.  He wanted them, when she was able to be appropriate and provide proper supervision, to have a relationship with her children and for them not suffer due to either his or her past actions.  He knew being angry and hateful towards her would not change his circumstances and only further harm his children.

As I sat and I listened, I came to understand the barriers for him to be able to meet the criteria laid out, to fulfill his parental responsibility, I was changed. I have learned of many programs that won’t accept any excuses for a participant’s inability to meet the expectations provided.  I see that as a failure on the part of the program.  They have failed to find effective solutions for the root problems.  We must, as program leaders, hold ourselves accountable for understanding the true issues that are contributing to the problems in the communities we serve and anything that creates a barrier to the services or interventions we prescribe is within the scope of our duties to address.  As we must hold parents responsible for the well-being and success of their children, we must be sensitive to all the circumstances to which we are not privy, which they may be coping that stand in their way as very real barriers to being able to provide the bare minimum for their children’s education and health needs.  As they are responsible for the success of their children, we are responsible for the success of our program and our community-at-large.  As we would expect them to figure out a solution, we must lead by example.

What I learned in many subsequent cases is that the humiliation and pain of not being able to provide these things causes most to hide their circumstances rather than being as brave as this father to share the details and ask for help.  Carrying this frustration and worry about how to meet these needs usually leads to parents building up frustration towards educational staff and community service providers and even resentment towards their children.  It usually makes a very painful situation so much worse.

I’m not really a reality T.V. fan, but one day, I happened to catch part of an episode of one of the Kardashian shows.  In all fairness, I don’t even know the context of the episode, but I believe that Kourtney’s husband/boyfriend may have been exploring treatment centers and the subject of the daily or monthly cost came up.  She made a really great statement about the fact that he should just be grateful because most people aren’t able to afford the help they need, or something to that effect.  I liked her words. I thought that was an important statement.  I wish more people really had this awareness…that most people truly can’t get the help they need.

So, it was in this instance, with this father, that I began to learn that you have to use discretion.  You have to be responsible for being a program leader to which a parent will come forward and disclose these struggles.

You also have to be prepared to find a way to overcome each struggle.  You can’t let a family come forward and share frustrations and then simply acknowledge that they have a valid roadblock.  The only way to truly make a difference is to know that for each challenge there is a solution and that these families need to know that someone will jump in there with them to find that answer.  You can tell them, I may not have the answer today, but I will find a solution.  This was one of several cases that led to us working with the local agencies to find a way to get counselors that could travel to the schools to work with students.  And, we found ways to utilize counseling students that were doing their internships to work around the problem of individuals that could not pay.

We also found help to get the supplies taken care of, but how to tackle these issues is a story for another day