[LJ Idol 10: Week 9] Do I support this?
One of the most frustrating things for me to watch as our most recent major political campaigns unfolded, and something that has frustrated me before, is the continual accusation that being unable to stop a particular bad thing from happening means that the candidate somehow etiher wanted that thing to happen, or at the very least didn't care too much whether it happened or not.
I think about this, in particular, when looking at the upset a lot of people feel (and I do understand - it's upsetting) that President Obama had failed at his stated objective of closing Guantanamo Bay, but it's been relevant in other contexts as well.
In one of my previous jobs, as I've talked about here before, I was involved in setting per diem rates for foster care placements, group homes, and school-based institutions. I also had some related responsibilities involving adoption agencies and domestic violence shelters.
In a perfect world, none of these things would need to exist. That's just the start. The fact that anyone at all ends up using any of these services means that something has gone wrong somewhere. So, in some ways, I was spending my entire workday wishing that my job didn't need to exist, that the programs I supported didn't need to exist - even as I was trying to help agencies develop new programs.
Now, one of the reasons that agencies were developing new programs was in response to a law that aimed to reduce the number of children with disabilities considered "severe" being placed in residential schools out of state. And a lot of the reason behind the law was That Place. (I will not mention That Place by name because of search engines, but if you have any involvement in any kind of disability activism, you most likely know exactly what That Place is and why this is a problem. If you don't know, I'll sum up by saying that it is so notorious for the abuse of the youth in its care that Amnesty International has been involved in trying to shut it the hell down.)
So I was working on new program development, in part to get kids out of That Place. But meanwhile, we still had kids from New York in residence at That Place, and That Place was still entitled to collect its per diem for those kids, and it was my department that was setting and authorizing that per diem.
Does that mean I supported sending kids to That Place?
Technically, yes, I suppose it does. It was my department (where I was a member of the professional staff, although not one with a supervisory role) that continued to make possible the mechanism for the state and local governments to pay That Place to take kids from our state. I could have been so adamant in my refusal to support That Place that I could have quit my job over it.
Mind you, that would not have gotten the kids out of there, me quitting. I couldn't just drive there and take them home, and their parents may have been unwilling or even legally unable to accept their return, and part of the reason that kids were ending up at That Place is that other service providers were refusing to accept them for one reason or another. Besides, given that I was actively working on programming meant to prevent kids getting sent to That Place in the future, it would've probably been worse in terms of kids going there if I had left.
But leaving would have meant that I could say "I never supported this and as soon as I found out it was happening I left!"
I didn't leave. And were I to run for political office, I'm sure that could be used against me.
So could my "trying to shut down" a domestic violence shelter and a historically black family services agency.
By "trying to shut down" I mean "refusing to sign off on a fiscal viability determination because their audited financial statements express significant doubt as to their ability to continue operations." And in both of those cases, extra meetings with the agencies in question to work out a plan that would mean we gave them conditional permission to continue operating contingent on their fixing their financial problems. So actually not shutting down, going above and beyond in order to try to keep them functioning.
But, you know. Sound bites, am I right? Nuance and understanding of policy doesn't make good media.
I think about this, in particular, when looking at the upset a lot of people feel (and I do understand - it's upsetting) that President Obama had failed at his stated objective of closing Guantanamo Bay, but it's been relevant in other contexts as well.
In one of my previous jobs, as I've talked about here before, I was involved in setting per diem rates for foster care placements, group homes, and school-based institutions. I also had some related responsibilities involving adoption agencies and domestic violence shelters.
In a perfect world, none of these things would need to exist. That's just the start. The fact that anyone at all ends up using any of these services means that something has gone wrong somewhere. So, in some ways, I was spending my entire workday wishing that my job didn't need to exist, that the programs I supported didn't need to exist - even as I was trying to help agencies develop new programs.
Now, one of the reasons that agencies were developing new programs was in response to a law that aimed to reduce the number of children with disabilities considered "severe" being placed in residential schools out of state. And a lot of the reason behind the law was That Place. (I will not mention That Place by name because of search engines, but if you have any involvement in any kind of disability activism, you most likely know exactly what That Place is and why this is a problem. If you don't know, I'll sum up by saying that it is so notorious for the abuse of the youth in its care that Amnesty International has been involved in trying to shut it the hell down.)
So I was working on new program development, in part to get kids out of That Place. But meanwhile, we still had kids from New York in residence at That Place, and That Place was still entitled to collect its per diem for those kids, and it was my department that was setting and authorizing that per diem.
Does that mean I supported sending kids to That Place?
Technically, yes, I suppose it does. It was my department (where I was a member of the professional staff, although not one with a supervisory role) that continued to make possible the mechanism for the state and local governments to pay That Place to take kids from our state. I could have been so adamant in my refusal to support That Place that I could have quit my job over it.
Mind you, that would not have gotten the kids out of there, me quitting. I couldn't just drive there and take them home, and their parents may have been unwilling or even legally unable to accept their return, and part of the reason that kids were ending up at That Place is that other service providers were refusing to accept them for one reason or another. Besides, given that I was actively working on programming meant to prevent kids getting sent to That Place in the future, it would've probably been worse in terms of kids going there if I had left.
But leaving would have meant that I could say "I never supported this and as soon as I found out it was happening I left!"
I didn't leave. And were I to run for political office, I'm sure that could be used against me.
So could my "trying to shut down" a domestic violence shelter and a historically black family services agency.
By "trying to shut down" I mean "refusing to sign off on a fiscal viability determination because their audited financial statements express significant doubt as to their ability to continue operations." And in both of those cases, extra meetings with the agencies in question to work out a plan that would mean we gave them conditional permission to continue operating contingent on their fixing their financial problems. So actually not shutting down, going above and beyond in order to try to keep them functioning.
But, you know. Sound bites, am I right? Nuance and understanding of policy doesn't make good media.