Vazquez Counseling

A popular saying in many circles is, it takes a village to raise a child. While I understand the sentiment, I don’t agree with it. I understand that there are many people who may speak into a child’s life, teachers, coaches, mentors, etc. But ultimately, it is the responsibility of that child’s Family to raise him or her. Parents are a child’s first teachers, coaches, mentors, etc. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t non-familial people who will be important in a child’s life. However, the most important people in a child’s life will always be their Family. I believe the job of teachers, coaches, mentors, really, anyone in a child’s sphere of influence, is to support the child’s Family.

One of my roles when I worked at a public mental health agency was to oversee a program at our site that provided mental health services to families who had come to the attention of Child Protective Services. The goal of this program was to help preserve the family. After many years, the government had come to the conclusion that too many children were being taken from their families because of allegations of child abuse, and the end result was broken children who suffered years of anguish due to the separation from their families. This program was an attempt by the government to prevent children from ending up in foster care. The program was effective for many families, but I believe it should have been much larger, so that many more children could be spared the tremendous sadness and anxiety that results from being separated from their Parents.

In my many years of practice, I learned just how strong the parent-child bond truly is. I met many children who came from horrid conditions, yet their most basic desire was to return to their home. I understand that many times, this simply was not possible, and that many of these Parents weren’t capable of making lasting change. I believe, however, that as a society, we need to vastly expand programs that help Parents and their children preserve their families.

A village may help Parents care for their children at times, and the family preservation program is a part of that village, but families (parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.) are the best equipped to care for the children that our LORD has blessed them with, because only they can, or should, understand the full needs of the children in their Family. The first option for the Department of Children and Family Services is to place foster children with their extended Family. Perhaps this is the village to which people refer, the child’s extended Family, but we also need to understand that children do not belong to society as a whole. No, they were designed to be with their family, where they should have their basic needs met.