eeka1313

Have you written anything about the involvement of the child welfare/family policing system in mental health coercion? I feel like this often gets missed, particularly in the age of "send social workers rather than cops" and would love your take on it.

To be clear, I am not referring to cases in which this system is employed to assist minors with reluctant parents in accessing services; I am referring to cases in which a child's or parent's providers call in reports when there is not true abuse or neglect essentially to get someone involved who has a lot of power over the family.

Where I am a court clinician in Massachusetts, which is one of the states with the highest rates of CPS overreach, providers seeing minors with MH issues and supportive parents will frequently call DCF, often stating they are not alleging abuse or neglect but "want to make sure appropriate services are in place." Of course, DCF doesn't provide any such thing, but will typically rubber-stamp concerns from professionals and will make a neglect finding stating "well, a provider was concerned." I also see things like ER providers seeing that MH providers have a long waitlist but DCF comes within 24-72 hours, so they call DCF when they send the kid home so that someone is following up rather than no one, honestly believing they are doing the right thing (by sending cops and cop-adjacent folks to visit a supportive family). I have had a few where the ER believes that DCF reports are "making a referral since they're the ones who will come to the home and do safety planning" when there is nothing suggesting the family can't remove medications from the home on their own. I have also seen cases where a child's ongoing team doesn't believe hospitalization is necessary and an ER physician who always hospitalizes in the event of suicidal ideation calls DCF to "let them decide."

Some of this I see from programs that have statements about not using police/crisis team except as an absolute last resort, but for whatever reason they see the family police as something different. Thoughts?

And yes, I see the angle with parents as well. Typically DCF’s take is that any parent who has any history or signs of any mental health issue must be engaged in extensive medical-model treatment all their life. It’s disproportionately applied to Black and brown parents and poorer parents for sure.

Trans Lifeline as well. They have a great section on their page about the dangers of nonconsensual rescue and a pledge never to enact it.

Awesome. I look forward to reading it.

Yes, I know the article you’re talking about. Good stuff.

Happy to DM you and speak on these things. Thanks for being here and shining light on these important issues.