Letter From Families with Lived Experience

Lived experience voice is critical to all of the work that’s being done at the state and local level to transform the child welfare system. One of the areas lived experts have shared their thoughts on and experiences with is case planning. The following open letter reflects their feedback.

Dear Child Welfare Professionals,

We see how hard you work to support our families. We are grateful for the times we’ve felt heard and were treated with care. From our experience, we want to share a few hopes for how the journey could be smoother for other families like ours.

When reviewing documentation, it can feel as if a stranger is narrating a story about the worst moments of our lives. Without our voices, the story only focuses on what we did wrong while ignoring the love and strengths we provide to our families. Sometimes services we needed were not always available or had barriers to accessing. There were times when the goals felt unclear or kept changing, and the steps to achieve success were not always explained.

What helped most was when the case plan was built with us, not for us. We felt empowered to make the change when we knew what we were working toward. When we experienced a shared understanding of why the agency was involved (even if we disagreed), and had goals that were broken into clear, manageable steps, we knew what was expected of us. We also know that including both parents in a youth’s life, and involving our support system, is part of the solution for us and our families, because they will still be there after the services and professionals are no longer involved.   

We share this with respect and hope. By working together with compassion and clarity, we can build paths that keep our youth safe and strengthen our families.

With gratitude,

Families with Lived Experience