In this report, while acknowledging all the many problems of caseworkers, including poor training and heavy caseloads, the jury members emphasized a problem that is prevalent but rarely mentioned. They referred to it as a bias of trust and complacency.
The bias of trust stressed by the grand jury report is the assumption on the part of the social work profession that adoptive parents are by definition good people, and that they cannot be the source of harm to the children in their care. Without wishing to accuse an entire professional group, I must agree strongly that this belief characterizes many adoption caseworkers and the staffs of adoption agencies. All adoptive homes are described as loving and nurturing, as if adoption were synonymous with excellent child-rearing. Adoption-oriented web sites describe adoptive parents as “awesome moms”. When adoptive families are functioning poorly, there is haste to say that someone, somewhere, did not tell the truth about the children, who are considered the causes of any trouble. These common beliefs may be the basis for the caseworkers’ bias of trust in adoptive parents which the grand jury report points to so explicitly.
CHILDMYTHS: Adoption, Trust, Complacency, and the Barahona Case
