The Child Welfare Administration, The Chapter, and the Press:
Media turns to NASW for expertise
It took the death of a six-year-old, allegedly at the hands of her mother, to finally fix the attention of the media and the public on what Chapter leadership, NASW members who work with children and families, and other child advocates have been saying for years: New York City's Child Welfare Administration is in desperate need of repair.
And when the media did zero in on this indisputable fact, it turned to the New York City Chapter to enumerate exactly what was wrong with the system and what was needed to insure that the agency that is supposed to protect the City's most vulnerable children is equipped to do its job.
When newspaper, television and radio reporters asked: "What went wrong?" in the case of Elisa Izquierdo, NASW members provided not only answers, but the kinds of questions public officials and the press needed to ask as well.
A November 30 letter from Chapter Executive Director Robert Schachter to the media and relevant government leaders read: "The people of the City are understandably shocked and upset about the death of Elisa Izquierdo, especially since the Child Welfare Administration and others responsible for addressing child abuse had information about her situation. What is important at this time is whether the likely investigations into the case will result in necessary change.
"It has been difficult to get systematic information from CWA, but perhaps with the public focused on child abuse, several questions will now be answered:
"The experience of our members suggest negative and troublesome answers to these questions. If Elisa's death allows us to get accurate information about how the City deals with child abuse, perhaps government will invest in meaningful reform.
"We hope that you will do everything that you can to get the needed information about the child welfare system and then use the information to bring about the needed change."
Three weeks of phone calls from the media followed. Chapter staff provided reporters with information, referred callers to members with expertise in the area of child welfare, appeared on television (Dr. Schachter on CBS-TV's Sunday Edition; Assistant Director Deborah Shepherd on Channel 13's Informed Sources), participated in a radio broadcast (WCBS-Radio's Access), and were quoted in several articles by writers Sheila Feeney and Russ Buettner in The Daily News. Chapter members who aided the media included Third Vice President Julie Levine, who appeared on WOR-Radio's Barry Gray Show; Jason Kanter (who formerly worked for CWA), Dr. Louis Levitt, and Dr. Meghan McLaughlin, who were interviewed by Adam Fifield for The Village Voice. Dr. Levitt and former Chapter Policy Consultant Dianne Metzger had letters published in The New York Times.
Requests for information also came from The Mark Walberg Show; Newstalk TV; America's Talking; Good Day New York; and 48 Hours; as well as from journalists Katha Pollitt (The Nation) and Jim Traub (The New Yorker).
Chapter staff also met with Public Advocate Mark Green and Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger to discuss proposed improvements to the child welfare system. On December 19, NASW was one of only three advocacy organizations invited to testify in front of the City Council's General Welfare Committee.
The focus of the testimony was the same as the information conveyed to the media: the dearth of professional social workers in supervisory positions at CWA; the quality of the training provided to caseworkers by a training academy whose staffing has been cut to shreds; programs that might have been available to Elisa's family and might have prevented this tragedy, had these programs not fallen victim to the Mayor's budget axe; and the need to insure that not one cent more is taken away from programs that are in place to protect the City's most vulnerable children.