Councilmember C. Virginia Fields views City issues
through "social work prism"
New York City Councilmember C. Virginia Fields, MSW, brings her social work background to every discussion on budget, policy and legislation with fellow Councilmembers and other City officials, and social work values inform every decision she makes as a legislator.
"I look at legislation and budget issues through a prism--'How is this going to affect people?'--These are my social work lenses: Once a social worker, always a social worker," noted the Councilmember in a recent interview at the Chapter office.
Ms. Fields, who represents the 9th Council District in Manhattan, an area that encompasses Central Harlem, Morningside Heights, and the Upper West Side, became the first African American woman elected to the Council from Manhattan. She has held her seat since 1989. In her five years in office, she has advocated strongly for children's health issues and has helped local groups to have a stronger voice in the development of their neighborhoods. She is a member of the Council's Finance, Land Use and Zoning; Standards and Ethics; Youth Services; and Health Committees. In addition to her Council work, Ms. Fields serves on the boards of the Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, the New York Urban League, the 125th Street Business Improvement District, and the Harlem Urban Development Corporation.
A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Ms. Fields came of age with the then-fledgling Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, when she was 17, she was arrested for civil disobedience, along with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and spent seven days in jail.
"That experience helped set the stage for my present day involvement," said Ms. Fields, "It gave me the will to use my voice and my presence to make a difference."
She has an undergraduate degree in sociology and an MSW from Indiana University. She has worked in child welfare and has recently approached the Chapter with the idea of working with NASW to improve the City's foster care system.
As a social worker, the Councilmember feels she is well-equipped to help various factions in the City focus on more than the monetary bottom line, to assure that the human factor is considered when the Giuliani administration puts forth cuts in AIDS services, day care, and food pantries.
Herewith are her views on the current state of the City:
Given the current political climate and budget cuts, how do you see your own community and constituency faring? Can you generalize from what is happening in your district to the rest of the City?
We are already seeing the impacts of the FY '95 budget, especially in the cutbacks of social workers who provide services. I'm very aware of the impacts on people going to Income Maintenance Centers. My district office on 125th Street is across the street from an IM Center. We've seen a three to four fold increase in the number of people who visit our office asking for intervention because they can't see a worker at IM or because they're not receiving their benefits. We've had to restructure the hours we can see constituents, because otherwise they're there all day, five days a week. We've had to cut constituent hours to four hours a day, Monday through Thursday. We get weekly reports from our office about the kinds of problems people are having.
Based on demographics, Central Harlem has a sizeable number of people on public assistance. Their Section Eight Housing and other needs are not being addressed on a timely basis. The proposals for workfare will affect a large number of people in my district. They'll be receiving less than minimum wage and will have no training to help them move out of dependency.
And we're going to see that throughout the city. There will definitely be more people on public assistance--the numbers are already increasing. You lay people off, and when their unemployment runs out and there are no jobs, they end up on public assistance. We're seeing an increase in people at Emergency Assistance Units looking for shelter--young moms with kids...we'll see a great increase in the number of people going to homeless shelters.
My concern is that these budget cuts are coming at a time when social needs are increasing. The need won't disappear when the funding does. We're not planning appropriately to address that.
This month there will be an additional $800 million in expense/service cuts, without a competent analysis of the impact of the cuts we've already seen in the adopted budget. What does this mean in the Human Resources Administration (HRA) and the Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC)? There's no oversight in terms of showing what impact these service cuts have had. It doesn't take a genius to say that there's something happening here that will affect people negatively.
I'm very concerned. I understand deficits. I understand that there is a $1.4 billion deficit. People should ask themselves: 'If we had a balanced budget, why did a gap appear so quickly?' The revenue estimates [which the Giuliani Administration factored into the budget adopted in the spring] were risky.
The Council's General Welfare Committee has been holding hearings on the budget cuts and their effects on service delivery by HRA. What can the City Council do to prevent a further erosion of services?
The role of the City Council in the budgetary year is restrictive. In the adoption phase of the budget we can have a much bigger role: The process of negotiation is stronger. After it's adopted, we can't do much about budget modifications. We can only make suggestions, then vote the budget up or down.
What we can do is provide oversight to the agencies. The Council can raise issues and awareness in the City as to what we see as the impacts of the cuts on the areas for which we have oversight. Oversight is a powerful weapon. We can call in commissioners and other officials to testify and can create public awareness and public support. For example, on the youth services contracts, we called in Deputy Mayor Ninfa Segarra, because with the current RFPs (Requests for Proposals), the process of rating and evaluating...the contracting was highly questionable. Over 100 agencies were defunded. We learned that there were some very questionable practices--contracts had no dates; things were whited-out with no signatures, etc.
We uncovered all of this. This oversight process creates awareness and encourages constituency groups to get involved. It sparks attention that the City budget process is in business all year round and that advocates should stay on top of issues all through this next year.
As one of the "City Council Eight", you voted against the Mayor's budget. What repercussion have you felt? Given the cuts that are currently being announced, what do you see as your role in this next round?
I voted the view of my constituents. I've had no changes as far as committee assignments, but, because of my vote, I did have my budget for community projects reduced. As a result, the YWCA Harlem Women's Resource Center had to close.
As far as my role in the budget modification process, I'm approaching it with an open mind. I'm pushing for an analysis of impacts. I'm meeting with groups of advocates and constituents and looking at areas where the cuts have been proposed, keeping in mind what's already happened as a result of the adopted budget. We need to know the impacts of the adopted budget before we can consider voting on the budget modifications.
Given the hostile political climate in the City, how do you see social work's role? Are there common interests that the profession and the Giuliani Administration share? Do you see any meeting of the minds here?
So far, most of the areas that have been cut are areas that are important to social workers. This has set up a conflictual relationship. For example, homelessness, food service programs, income maintenance--these are all services for groups of people we're interested in working for, and they're being hit the hardest. City officials have made decisions with little contact with the people who have a good understanding of what is needed. Take workfare, for example: How might the goals be achieved--self-sufficiency? How do people do that with less than minimum wages and no training? There are ways we can help people achieve self-sufficiency, and the people who can help the most in guiding policy are social workers.
Unfortunately, the Administration has no relationship with advocacy groups, and this sets up an adversarial relationship.
Social workers have expertise in the fields of social policy and service delivery, on how resources and systems can and should be developed to support individual, family and community emotional and social well-being. Yet, the administration fails to recognize us as a source of knowledge. How would you recommend we build greater recognition of social workers as experts in these areas?
Social workers can request more input from HRA and other agencies to develop responses to what we see as the impact on services. We should ask for meetings with officials and make recommendations, moving from a reactive to a proactive stance. We need to suggest what should be, while recognizing that we're dealing with the current financial picture. Things need to be done differently, and social workers need to offer their expertise.
Social workers need to be at the forefront now more than ever before. I can't think of anyone who knows better than social workers what's going on. Look at the people working on the front lines at HRA. Are they trained social workers? There are a myriad of problems here that are too great for inexperienced workers to handle.
If social workers don't get involved, we miss the opportunity to translate what we need to be doing--practice--into sound social policy.
Following the interview, Councilmember Fields attended a meeting of the Chapter's Committee on Families and Children's Services. She had requested a meeting with Chapter leadership to gather information from child welfare experts on foster care issues. The meeting was also attended by Chapter President Barbara Brenner.
"The feelings and thoughts in the City are that we can do more about the policy issues surrounding foster care. Should we make different decisions directed by members of NASW [who are leaders in the field]? What do we need to make sure kids get the best services?," the Councilmember asked.
"There are bureaucratic stumbling blocks to be addressed. I will work on foster care as a major issue within the City Council and I'd like to work with NASW to take one or two issues and really make a difference for children," she added.
Barbara Bear, a social worker and adoptive mother of a child who was formerly in foster care, accompanied the Councilmember to the meeting.
"This system is not understood by the public," said Ms. Bear, adding that the City's foster care budget is "bigger than the total budgets of some foreign countries...As a foster parent and advocate, I cast a saddened eye at what isn't available. It's not just budget cuts and training, and not just what we don't know about what goes on in agencies...We need a longer, systemic plan...We need to ask the questions: How do foster care agencies relate to the schools [the children attend]? What happens to the quality of life of kids in foster care?"
Committee members had a number of suggestions for Councilmember Fields, including a City Council endorsement of accessing available Federal funds; a demand from the Administration for the open sharing of information on what happens to the City's children and families as a result of the cutbacks in HRA and HHC; addressing the endemic longterm problem of the lack of computerized records in CWA; demanding information on the child care standards of CWA leadership; directing research over time to see if services are, in fact, being delivered; and asking CWA what they need in order to help them do the job they want to do in protecting children.
And there were other questions Committee members would like the City Council to ask: Why does the number of children in foster care seem to be going down, while the length of stay is rising? What's happening in terms of adoption and permanency planning?
One committee member spoke about the success of a Home Rebuilders program in the City, in which 120 children out of 300 in the program have been reunited with their biological or extended families. This program involves the agencies in three years of follow up for the families. Ms. Fields, who is working with fellow Councilmember Stephen DiBrienza on the foster care issue, expressed an interest in exploring Home Rebuilders and similar programs: "The City Council will look into what's working and will support those programs," she said.
She also expressed a desire to continue the dialogue with NASW members and involve the Chapter in the City Council's quest to improve the system.