David Tobis Thesis

David, Tobis provides an account of how parents and their allies organized to reform one of the most troubled child welfare systems. After years of rising foster care caseloads and many class actions lawsuits, New York City experienced significant declines in caseloads, improved legal representation for child welfare involved parents and a shift toward preventive services to help helpless children remain safely in their homes. Although similar changed were seen throughout the US, Tobis argues these changes were more profound and enduring in NY. Tobis attributes these changes to the efforts of parent focused organization that mobilized to change the system. In the introductory chapter one Tobis takes the reader though NY City’s troubled child

First they empowered parents to become their own advocates and to advocate for others by creating and funding grassroots organizations that taught parents about their rights and trained. Second, CWF needed to change how the public viewed parents with a child welfare history through the creation and funding child-welfare focused publications and merit awards that challenged conventional portrayals of abusive and neglectful parents. Third, CWF attempted to show, through placement of parent advocates in government and nonprofit child welfare agencies, that inclusion of parents in the child welfare system could benefit families and improve service

In Chapter four it focuses on the CWF backed advocacy group, The Child Welfare Organizing Project, which in Tobis view became the nation’s preeminent organization for training and organizing parents with child welfare histories. Then Chapter five, Tobis turns his attention to four grassroots parent organizations that agitated for reform from outside and inside the system. In both chapter he outlines the lessons learned in the building and sustaining a social movement. The need for “collective efficacy” (Sampson, Radenbush& Earls, 1997: p.918) the importance of identifying and cultivating different sources of power: and the need for skilled administrators to help organizations move their missions forward. According to Tobis, these groups experienced both success and failures, but all contributed to the parent movement that improved the New York City child welfare system over time. In the final three chapters, Tobis examines the growing influence of parents in child welfare systems across the nation, the effect of child welfare reforms in New York City and the ongoing need for parents to advocate for the child welfare reform. In his concluding chapter, he looks back on the lessons learned, calls for an expansion of parent