Q&A Interview                                           

An interview with Joan Gittens

By JENNIFER HALPERIN

For 10 years, Joan Gittens studied Illinois' child welfare system, tracking the way it has changed since the state's creation in 1818 through the 1990s. Her book, Poor Relations, describes and analyzes some of these changes.

Most striking to Gittens is how cyclical reform efforts are. So-called "new" ways of looking at and trying to solve child welfare crises have been tried before — sometimes a century or more ago. She wishes people paid more attention to lessons from the past when pushing reforms today.

Q: Have things improved at all for children in Illinois?

A: One area where I really think the situation has improved is with handicapped children. The attitudes toward them and the way they're treated have gotten so much better, and I think the difference is having advocates who can be part of the power structure. Today, it's people like Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker and [national columnist] George Will who have handicapped people in their family. I was struck by the fact you could see genuine progress over the years for them.

With delinquent kids, the mood has swung back and forth more, from punitive to rehabilitative. And with younger, dependent kids there's been this vague sense of sympathy. But history has repeated itself with approaches to these groups.

Q: Are there effective advocates for these other groups of kids?

A: One thing I came to appreciate about reformers during the Progressive era is that they were effective advocates. I think they were genuinely caring people. Today, I think groups like the Children's Defense Fund have taken that role. These people are still out in the grassroots, and they've become credible lobbyists over the years, and they've grown networks.

I think money and power have always been a problem for people lobbying on behalf of kids. In 1935, when the Social Security law was being debated, not only the old age pension was included, but also aid for dependent children. Supporters had to lobby as hard as they could to keep that in because everyone kept saying it was the older people who voted, and therefore had the power, not the children.

Q: From what you've seen and studied, does one approach work best in dealing with "problem" kids?

A: Connecting with them one-on-one personalizes the issues a lot more than just writing a check out for a cause. We need a bridging mechanism so we can humanize these families. For example, I have a friend who does Saturday visiting at the juvenile detention center in Cook County. Her only job is to go visit kids, and nobody who knows her doesn't hear about these kids and what their lives are like. One of the things that was brilliant about settlement houses was that middle-class volunteers came and put in a lot of work. I don't think that's the only solution to social problems, but at a time when rich and poor are so separated in society, it's one way to make some headway.

Q: What types of "reforms" have come up over and over?

A: The notion of family preservation is something that's been misconstrued as relatively new. It's been made to sound like part of 1980s child welfare efforts. But in 1909 the White House conference on children had a prime goal of keeping kids at home. We really do need to understand history not as an occasional bit of information but instead as a web that intertwines the past and future.

Q: What do you think of the current discussion of orphanages?

Photo courtesy of Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield

Jane Addams established Hull House on Chicago's West Side in the 1890s. The aim of the settlement house movement was to help low-income immigrant families. Addams initially focused on the education of children. She launched a kindergarten, a day nursery and an infant care center. This photo was taken at Hull House about the turn of the century. These young boys are learning to make shoes.

24/March 1995/Illinois Issues

Joan Gittens' book. Poor Relations, was published by the University of Illinois Press.

A: In some ways I could really see it coming. The pendulum keeps swinging back and forth on the notion of institutionalizing kids, but along the way we don't synthesize past mistakes. I get very tired of hearing them invoke Boys Town as an example of orphanages. I mean, that's like saying Harvard is a good college. The truth is, I studied many orphanages and many of them were dismal from day one. The children there had no advocates at all.

I'm intrigued by the fact that people take so much comfort in the idea of a physical building — something they can see — as a way to provide stability. There's nothing visible about foster care, but an orphanage is something you can see. If we set them up, we have to take lessons from history about them. For instance, if you don't set up absolute standards, you'll have overcrowding. And I think there's a real problem with the amount of money you'll pay child care workers. We must go into it knowing we can't Shirley Temple-ize the whole thing.

The thing that's so frustrating is we've waited until things reached such a crisis that the thinking has become: "Anything would be better than the status quo." In 1984, there were population studies showing 22 percent of children lived in poverty. It should not have been a surprise that things would get worse. But now, 11 years later, we're just starting to talk about what should be done.

Q: Is too much attention paid to horrific individual cases?

A: Listen, I'm glad children are making it on the front page. When I started my book in 1984, child issues made hardly a ripple. On the other hand, one kid with a terrible situation can get sensationalized, while the fact that 25 percent of kids are living in poverty doesn't get sensationalized. We talk about the Baby Richard cases, but nobody's talking about making it possible for people to get jobs, or paying people enough to support a family. That's what's really going to help families and children in the end.

'I think money and power have always been a problem for people lobbying on behalf of kids.'

I really think you can't discuss improving the situation for children unless you discuss a reasonable living wage for people. You can't just rescue children and leave everyone else in the family behind.

Q: After all you've learned, can you still be optimistic about children in Illinois?

A: You have an obligation to be hopeful. I've been looking at the Illinois situation since 1818, and I've learned that complicated ethnicity and geographical differences have always caused big problems. It's a good sign there's so much publicity and concern about kids now.

But to be honest, I don't think we have a choice but to be absolutely focused on children's needs. The fact is, we're an aging population. It's in our absolute self-interest to care what happens to them. You don't have to be an altruist; we're going to be counting on these kids to support us. *