The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives

by Richard J. Gelles

Using the true story of a murdered child as a point of departure, a leading expert on family violence argues that society's first priority must be protecting children rather than preserving families.Richard Gelles was once one of the most widely published and vocal defenders of family preservation: the social policy of keeping troubles families together as a primary goal. He then ran into the true and tragic case of David Edwards, an infant who was murdered by his mother after falling through the chasms in the child welfare system.David's story convinced Gelles that the system must change. Nearly half the children who are killed by their parents each year are killed after they have come to the attention of child welfare agencies. These children must be protected by getting them out of harm's way. That means a radically new child welfare system must be developed. The first priority must be to protect children rather than preserve families. This hard-hitting book critically examines family preservation programs and argues that they do not work. Gelles goes beyond mere criticism of the child welfare system to suggest specific ways the system should be changed, such as eliminating mandatory reporting of abuse, giving better training to caseworkers, and separating the investigation of abuse from case management.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology

218 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 1996

About the author

Dr. Richard J. Gelles is Former Dean (2001–2014) of the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also holds the Joanne T. and Raymond H. Welsh Chair of Child Welfare and Family Violence. He is Director for the Center for Research on Youth & Social Policy; Co-Faculty Director of the Field Center for Children's Policy, Practice, and Research; and Founding Director of the Evelyn Jacobs Ortner Center on Family Violence.

Dr. Gelles is an internationally known expert in domestic violence and child welfare and was influential in the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. His first book, The Violent Home (1974), was the first systematic investigation to provide empirical data on domestic violence. More recent books, such as The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives and Intimate Violence in Families, Third Edition, have also made a significant impact in the study of child welfare and family violence. He is the author of 24 books and more than 100 articles, chapters, and papers.

Reviews

[Billie Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up as I have several friends with foster or adopted foster kids and I was curious about what happens before kids find their forever families. I found the book interesting from a historic prospective and maddening that many of his concerns from 20 years ago are still major issues in Child welfare services. Unfortunately the book was not very well organized and while the author made his points clear, it took a lot of rambling and repetition to get there. His evidence was hard to follow at points where he would use a survey to 'prove' something but then say both his point was true and untrue making it hard to find the take away message.

Finally, I found particularly disturbing his note that 'it is only mildly exaggeration to state that the system as it stands depends on poorly paid twenty-three-year-olds who majored in art history to make life and death decisions about child safety.' As I had a friend who went into Child Services about the time this book came out and it was a tough job to get even as a sociology major with a minor in criminal justice. I think the this particular line illustrates how his own opinion is presented along with researched facts leaving the reading wondering what is fact and what is the author's view as there isn't a clear distinction.

[Nicole Luttrell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a garbage pile of a book.

[Hannah M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Gelles is a well known scholar within the area of family and child welfare, a scholar who, up until David’s case came to his attention was pro-family reunification. This book is something that I had to read this semester for my Domestic Violence class, however it brings so many important factors to the forefront regarding America’s child welfare system that it is worth dicussing here – and truly, everywhere.

After responding to a call from mother Darlene Edwards, the EMTs found fifteen month old baby David in his crib not breathing. The medical personnel tried to revive him, but to no avail. Meanwhile mother Darlene stood by, she made no attempts to hold her child, she did not cry or scream, she just stood there, waiting. Following the protocol of the state, an investigation was launched. The information that came up during this investigation sits less than kosher.

The father Donald is understood to be a drinker and probable that he abused his wife. Darlene worked as a prostitute out of the apartment she shared with her family, she would bring customers in while leaving her child in the other room. The part of this whole situation that pisses me off the most; David’s older sister Marie had been removed from the family due to an investigation into abuse against her.

There a lot of bones to pick with the system when you read The Book of David. The constant switching of personnel through each phase of going through the child welfare system and the laziness shown on the part of each person through failure to communicate with each other is a major problem. It left one child vulnerable to abuse from her mother for far too long. Another issue is the blinders that those employees of the system have. They treat each child as a seperate case. If a mother fails to change her attitude toward abusing her first child, what makes an individual - one IN THE FIELD SEEING THIS REGULARLY nontheless – believe that her behaviors are going to change with the next child? The failure of a mandated reporter to actually report the abuse spotted like protocol states is inexcusable. Another bone to pick, the lack of training. It’s no secret that America’s welfare systems are underfunded, undermanned, overwhelmed, and in need of some serious revamping, but there were mistakes made here that should not have been.

Gelles does make suggestions about what could be done to benefit our child welfare system. Among his suggestions are the elimination of mandated reporters and increased emphasis on training our social workers. Personally, I believe an infusion of common sense for some of these individuals are in order. Some of our social workers bust their asses regardless of crazy hours and low pay, the rest need a serios revamp.

I don’t pretend to have the answers. I don’t know about laws everywhere or the exact missions of each child welfare department. I can’t tell which countries have the greatest systems or which have the worst. I can’t even do that for all of the states. As it is each state has its own mission for child welfare. Some put emphasis on getting the child into a safe environment whether its with family or without. Other states believe on doing everything to reunite the child(ren) with their parent(s). Whatever the individual laws, Gelles has helped me to open my eyes more fully to the state of things within America’s child welfare system. Someway, somehow, we need to do something. We need to protect children like David who at fifteen months old had no way to protect himself. I have a baby brother who’s sixteen months old and another turning four in December. The thought of anything like this ever happening to them makes me go ape-shit. And while I know that my dad and step-mom give them a great home, so many children out there are not as lucky. So the question becomes, what are we going to do about it?

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for a social work class. It's about a child who falls through a lot of cracks, and dies because of the efforts of social services to keep his family together. Social workers used to have a reputation of being "baby snatchers", and the author's argument is that we've gone too far in the other direction, preserving families even when it's a bad idea. A problem I have with the book is that it takes place in Florida, and their social systems are about as bad as it gets; I think (or hope!) it's not representative of the rest of the country.