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Some Reflections on Strengthening Epistemic Justice and Psychosocial Well-Being in the US Child Welfare System
Wendy Haight, Linda Kingery ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This is a reflective piece drawing on comparative ethnographic research with parents, professionals and young people in child welfare systems. It describes how child welfare systems are shaped by culture. It argues that epistemic injustice in the US system can cause moral injury, a psychosocial and spiritual harm. The authors say that popular ideas about why maltreatment happens, who deserves help and who is responsible for helping often conflict with supportive policies. They conclude that such conflict makes it hard to implement and sustain those policies.
Key points
- The research used a comparative ethnographic approach set within particular times and places.
- Child welfare systems are culturally embedded.
- Epistemic injustice in the US child welfare system can cause psychosocial-spiritual harm, specifically moral injury.
- Cultural ideas about the causes of child maltreatment, who is worthy of help and who should help are misaligned with many progressive US policies and programs.
- Cultural notions that criminalize struggling parents and devalue poor and historically oppressed groups can undermine supportive policies and public backing for them.
Limitations
Only the abstract is available, so the methods, sample, data and specific examples cannot be assessed. It is a reflective, argument-based piece and does not test an intervention or measure outcomes for children.
Abstract
Abstract Some reflections on strengthening epistemic justice and psychosocial well-being in the US child welfare system describes implications of our comparative ethnographic research beginning with the experiences of parents, professionals, and young people within child welfare systems using a comparative, ethnographic approach embedded within time and place. This approach revealed the cultural embeddedness of child welfare systems, as well as the psychosocial-spiritual harm, specifically moral injury, that can occur as a result of epistemic injustice within the US child welfare system. We argue that barriers to creating a more compassionate, epistemically just and effective child welfare system include a misalignment of cultural notions of child maltreatment—why it occurs, who is worthy of help, and who is responsible for helping—with those notions underlying many progressive policies and programs implemented in the United States over the decades. When progressive laws, policies, and programs that support families conflict with widespread cultural notions that criminalize struggling parents and devalue those who are impoverished and from historically oppressed groups, then implementing them and sustaining support from the general public and those in positions of power will falter.