Who Gets to Go to the Fair? Examining Paternalism and Cash Assistance Perceptions Among Intact Family Caseworkers in Illinois

Background: As child welfare agencies try new approaches to preventing child maltreatment, particularly around meeting material needs through cash assistance and flex funds, traditional case management training may need to be augmented. Understanding caseworker perceptions of the strengths and limitations of current casework approaches and workers’ understanding of their role in meeting family material needs is essential to the development of effective interventions for families. Solutions Based Casework (SBC) is a family-centered, commonly used case management model in child welfare which includes a fundamental component of highlighting self-care and celebrating success. This study examines worker perceptions of SBC, their attitudes toward providing cash assistance to families, and identifies key concepts to address in caseworker training when implementing a cash assistance program.

Methods: Intact family caseworkers and supervisors (n=64) trained in SBC, employed at geographically diverse offices of a large child welfare agency in Illinois participated in focus groups (n=9). Inductive content analyses that was hypothesis generating was applied.

Results: Aspects of SBC, particularly the component of celebrating family successes, are conceptually difficult for workers to accept and implement and seem to challenge deeply held values of work and the deserving poor. Workers experience tension between the progress they still see families needing to make and accepting celebrations of the progress that has been made. In particular, they struggle with the allocation of resources toward any actions not directly related to the case plan. The examples workers gave were predominantly self-care, such as grooming services (hair and nail care), and some family activities, for example, going to the local fair. Workers’ judgments of these actions contradict key components of SBC. Statements such as, “...we’re going to the fair and they’ll blow it all there,” indicate worker frustration with self-care, leisure, and celebratory activities. Generally, workers feel help-seeking families should not spend their money on self-care or leisurely activities prior to achieving self-sufficiency. Another theme was the influence of worker positionality in determinations and ideas about how welfare-involved families should spend their money; analyses identified tensions between their role in supporting families and concerns about giving families “too much” aid or to prevent them from “using” systems. Across groups, the threshold between support and enabling varied across caseworkers and was not sufficiently addressed by SBC training. Caseworkers consistently expressed concerns that material support would create dependence.

Discussion: These findings raise questions about equity in service delivery: What constitutes fair implementation of evidence-based practices, and how do caseworker attitudes have the potential to influence families receiving support? In particular, they highlight a paternalistic mindset regarding which families should receive assistance and how they should use resources. This contrasts with emerging evidence-based practices that emphasize self-determination. Best practice suggests trusting individuals and families to make their own financial decisions. These findings can be used to improve the implementation of case management training and address research-to-practice gaps in child welfare casework.