Ousting Abusive Parent, Not Child, Urged

The nation’s largest social workers’ organization, responding to the increasing incidence of child abuse, Wednesday opened a campaign to remove abusive parents from their homes instead of removing the abused children.

Officials of the 112,000-member National Assn. of Social Workers said that they will work at the state and federal levels to establish a new uniform policy covering the millions of abuse and neglect cases that occur across the nation each year.

The proposal to remove offending parents is among several policies the association will decide during a four-day meeting in Washington. The strategy session begins today. There are similar meetings every three years. The association is considered an influential advisory group to federal and local governments in matters of social policy.

Remove Perpetrator

In a statement, the association vowed to “work for legislation . . . promoting removal of a perpetrator from the home rather than the victim.”

The group’s campaign coincides with heightened awareness of the problem of child abuse and rising numbers of cases. A recent report by the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, said that the 1.9 million cases reported in 1985 represented a 55% increase over the number reported four years earlier.

Several experts agreed with the social workers’ proposal, while others cited the potential for myriad legal challenges and the need to try rehabilitating offending parents.

Currently, state and local government policies vary in such cases, but experts said that most abused children are placed in foster homes.

This means that “the child is victimized twice” because he loses his other parent, said Joan Levy Zlotnik, of the social workers’ group. “In the effort to save the child, it’s been the practice to uproot the child.”

To change this practice, the association will try to persuade federal lawmakers to attach conditions to federal grants that go to states. Currently, states share a $2.7-billion social services block grant, using their discretion in funding programs on child abuse prevention.

The association will also pressure state and local officials to change their interpretation of current statutes. Many state laws already allow judges to order an abusive parent out of the house, Zlotnik said, but it “hasn’t been the practice” to do so.

She said that abusive parents would be required to continue supporting their families, just as parents are required to pay child support in divorce cases.

Linda Canfield Blick, president of the Chesapeake Institute in Wheaton, Md., helps courts and parole officers evaluate people who sexually abuse children. Getting offenders out of the home “does work,” she said, adding that removing the children “punishes them for something they didn’t do.”

Blick said that abusive parents who are ordered to leave usually do not have problems finding a place to live, but children’s lives often are disrupted because they usually are placed in homes outside their school districts.

Gary Bauer, President Reagan’s chief adviser on domestic affairs, said: “This approach makes a lot more sense than taking the child away from both parents when only one may be involved in the abuse.”

In Denver, Nancy McDaniel of the American Assn. for Protecting Children, warned that removal of a parent “can’t substitute for thorough, concrete services such as crisis day care and counseling.”