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Recent Posts by Amy L. Dalton |
Women's Self-Help Group Challenges DHS in honor of International Women's Day
by
Amy L. Dalton | 03.12.2009
Event also marks the 10th anniversary of the Global Women's Strike On Friday March 6, several dozen mothers, grandmothers, children, and their supporters gathered in front of the Department of Human Services (DHS) office in downtown Philadelphia to challenge the agency's priorities and practices. The women say the DHS has a pattern of mistaking poverty for neglect, and trauma caused by domestic violence as evidence of poor mothering. Several spoke at length about their experience trying to get their children back from the state foster care system, or encountering abuse, neglect and racism within what are supposed to be solutions. The group then marched down the street to the Arch Street United Methodist Church, where a teach-in was held. Read More & Pics | globalwomenstrike.net | Related: Philadelphia Activists Attend International Gathering         Facing the Man Together "No one should have to go meet the man alone," said community organizer Phoebe Jones. Coordinated by the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network (EMWMN), the "DHS, Give Us Back Our Children" group is run on a mutual aid, self-help basis. Anyone can come, share their story and obtain the advisement and aid of their peers. Each person also is expected to donate their time to advising others. Participants keep tabs on each case, accompany each other to hearings and meetings, and plan together on how to change the system. Jones says that their group has helped to reunite four women with their children, and prevented the separation of families while many cases are still being fought. No paid staff are involved in the project, though some of the women used to be social workers themselves. One mother and support group member, who recently won a precedent-setting case involving the privacy rights of domestic violence victims, explained how when going to the hospital after she was abused by her husband, she was told that Child Protective Services was a group that would "protect her children." Based on this, she gladly agreed that they should be involved. But she now says this was the biggest mistake of her life as she then had to fight the state as well as her husband. She also had to fight being forced to take prescription drugs that go against her convictions. Support group members say money should be redirected toward children and mothers' immediate monetary needs, within the existing family structure, rather than spent on a bureaucracy that too often does harm in the name of help. It is estimated that DHS spends $34,000 a year per child. “What a mother could do with that money!” said Pamela Timmons, whose daughter was taken when she asked DHS for help. The tragic effect of providing help in a misguided manner spreads to many parts of life. Jeanne Schmolze, a former social worker who has also worked in the mental health and substance abuse services field, spoke about how poor women often experience a lose-lose decision between whether or not to pursue the assistance they need from the state, knowing that it could put them in danger of having their kids placed in DHS care. "Mothers would rather deal with an addiction than risk having their children taken from them," she said. The statement was met with enraged cries of "shame!" at a system that would create such a trap. Welfare Reform — Or: "How We Got Into this Mess" The EMWM Network evolved out of the fight to oppose welfare reform which ended welfare as a right for the work of raising children. EMWM perceived that this was possible because people did not respect the work that the women did — birthing and raising children. Out of this disrespect grows the myth of the "welfare queen," which underlines people's stereotypes that mothers — and especially women of color — who don't have paid jobs do nothing. "When you disrespect the work of caregiving, you disrespect the people being cared for, as well as for those doing the work," said Pat Albright. "Nothing is more important than the care of people and we want our society to represent this." She said that the whole premise of welfare reform — forcing the poorest women to take on no pay or low pay jobs — should be opposed, not just time limits and sanctions. "Now is our chance to put it all on the table," she said. "You don't know what you can accomplish unless you try." Tim Kearney, the former legislative aid for Philadelphia Councilman David Cohen, concurred. "We should never let anyone tell us that there isn't enough money to take care of every one of our children as many ways as is necessary," he said. He went on to draw connections between the supposed lack of money for mothers and children, and decisions to spend millions of dollars on sports stadiums and wars. "The Philadelphia taxpayers pay 30 million dollars a year on debt to finance our stadiums!" he said. "That means as taxpayers we're paying twice. Our governments have so much money, but we the people don't demand it!" The event was co-sponsored by the Global Women's Strike, which marks its ten year anniversary this year. Also in attendance were members of the Payday Men's Network and the Philadelphia Childcare Collective, who provided support. Anita Colon of Fight for Lifers also spoke, drawing connections between the lack of support for mothers and children, and the monetary incentives toward longer prison sentences, even life sentences, for juveniles. In the aftermath of the exposure of corruption in the sentencing of minors in Luzerne County PA, F4L is ratcheting up its organizing against the prison industrial complex, and will be planning a protest in Camp Hill, PA within the next few months. |
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