Interview with Toni Miner, Family Support Partner
When the child welfare system first came into Toni Miner’s life, she felt shamed and blamed and not supported. For many years, Miner hid her problems—and that led child welfare to come back into her life.
Today, as a family support partner in Jefferson County, Colorado, and a member of the Birth Parent National Network, Miner believes it’s still too hard for parents to be open about their struggles, but she also sees that families do better when parents and workers are able to build that trust.
Here Miner shares her thoughts on why it can be so hard for parents and workers to trust each other, and what both sides can do about it.
Q: How did you get involved with the child welfare system?
A: Back in the early 1990s, when my oldest daughter was about 5, she was sexually abused by a trusted non-relative. Social services came into my life and told me that I was not a protective parent. They did nothing to help or help me help my child cope with what had just happened to her.
I took everything and swept it under the rug. When my daughter tried to bring it up, I’d say, “We don’t talk about that kind of stuff. It’s dirty.” She became a very troubled kid.
When she was 8, I started getting into drugs. I used meth every day for 6 years. I put my two daughters in some very dangerous situations throughout my drug use. Then child welfare came into my life again.
But I was lucky to have a truly amazing caseworker. He even came to criminal court to beg for me not to be put in jail because he saw something in me that I did not see in myself.
Now I work as a family support partner in Jefferson County, Colorado. My purpose is to help other parents succeed.
Q: A lot of parents don’t feel like their worker sees the good in them. They feel their worker knows nothing about them, or sees them as a monster, and they’re afraid that if they talk honestly, it’ll be used against them.
How can parents make a relationship with their worker without putting themselves at greater risk?
A: I’ve seen the dangers of both approaches too many times.
On the one hand, a parent has an open case but the children are still at home. Then a parent opens up, and the next thing you know, the worker is removing those children because of what the parent said. When a worker says one thing and then turns around and does the opposite, there’s no way a parent will even think about engaging with them.
At the same time, your worker provides information about you to your agency and in court, so you have to work with that person whether you like them or not. When parents go blindly through the system just to get through it, they’re also less likely to get their needs met and more likely to wind up back in the system.
The burden shouldn’t be on parents to build that trust. But there are things parents can do.
To read more of Toni Miner's interview in Rise Magazine, please click here.
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