Child Welfare Quotes

“As helpers, we often feel the need to see our impact in tangible, measurable ways. We allow negative language into our head about the “broken system;” we look through a lens of “it doesn’t matter, I can’t make a difference”. These ideas are surely contributing to our burnout.”
― Jenn Bruer, Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Inspiration and Healing

“Helping a child today will help prevent a broken adult tomorrow.”
― Kathleen Paydo

“...child welfare officials deem it inappropriate for a brother and sister to sleep in the same bedroom once they reach a certain age. At some point, if the authorities were to find out that Kaitlin and Cole were sharing a room, Jennifer would be at risk of losing custody due to "neglect." By today's standards of child well-being, Jennifer can't move into a studio apartment to help balance her family's budget.”
― Kathryn Edin, $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America

“Light-touch government works more efficiently in the presence of social capital. Police close more cases when citizens monitor neighborhood comings and goings. Child welfare departments do a better job of “family preservation” when neighbors and relatives provide social support to troubled parents. Public schools teach better when parents volunteer in classrooms and ensure that kids do their homework. When community involvement is lacking, the burdens on government employees—bureaucrats, social workers, teachers, and so forth—are that much greater and success that much more elusive.”
― Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

“Everyone who dealt with disadvantaged kids, from therapists to college admissions officers, treated us as if we could overcome any abuse or neglect with sheer force of will.”
― Emi Nietfeld, Acceptance: A Memoir

“Adults viewed suicidal ideation as a pathology. But for me it was logic. Weighing the bad against the good, projecting forward to decide if life was worth sticking around for.”
― Emi Nietfeld, Acceptance: A Memoir

“It is inappropriate to call child protection "care" when experiences of the system are not "care"-like for everyone. "Care" essentializes the softening of a system that has a violent colonial history of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and has continued to feed its children into pipelines of homelessness and housing instability, poverty, prison and other problematic and violent systems. It fails to acknowledge that it is a system, one of which is plagued with the overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black children and families, a system built on white colonial racist values. "Care" as a word minimizes and erases the inequitable realities children, young people, families, and communities face across, not only the province of Ontario, but across the Nation. Child Protection System.”
― Cheyanne Ratnam

“Most males are thinking that half of a child the made belongs to them. But that's just wrong. Because they give only half of a plan for building the baby, and all the rest is done by mama alone. So, guys: think twice before saying "The half of this child is mine."

Die meisten Männer denken, dass ein halbes Kind, das sie gemacht haben, ihnen gehört. Aber das ist einfach falsch. Weil sie nur einen halben Plan für den Bau des Babys geben und der Rest von Mama alleine erledigt wird. Also, Leute: Überlegen Sie zweimal, bevor Sie sagen: "Die Hälfte dieses Kindes gehört mir.”
― Vivian Schey

“Most males are thinking that half of a child they've made belongs to them. But that's just wrong. Because they give only half of a plan for building the baby, and all the rest is done by mama alone. So, guys: think twice before saying "The half of this child is mine.”
― Vivian Schey

“Any exclusive system is a system of exclusion.”
― Emi Nietfeld, Acceptance: A Memoir