From Peggy, a Washington parent
The services offered by King County’s Children’s Crisis Outreach Response System were at the level our family needed. However, all the promise of the program was undermined by flaws in how it was delivered.
We were assigned a highly competent youth peer who started making inroads with my daughter. Unfortunately, just as she began to trust this new person, the services were abruptly cut off because the provider decided our family was no longer in crisis. This judgment wasn’t based on needs, it was based on arbitrary system-imposed rules.
The impact of the sudden loss of connection to a youth peer reinforced my daughter’s fear that relationships aren’t safe, and people who show up will eventually disappear. For a child already struggling with attachment and trust, this abrupt ending was not just disappointing, it damaged her ability to build trust with other therapists in the future.
Even well-meaning supports, if mismatched or improperly trained, can reinforce harmful dynamics and sabotage family bonds. The team connected my African American son to a Black male mentor. Unfortunately, the mentor advised my son that he had “too many women telling him what to do” undermining his relationship with his lesbian mothers.
An unexpected “benefit” of the program was being repeatedly referred to Child Protective Services (CPS) which happened as a result of my own reports to our therapist about the intense conflict at home as I struggled with my child’s severe emotional meltdowns and refusal to follow even simple requests.
The third time I was reported shortly after we were dismissed from Children’s Crisis Outreach Response System (CCORS). When the CPS worker arrived for a surprise visit after school got out, it was clear to her that I needed more support than I was currently receiving. She was new on the job but assured me there were other programs she could refer me to for help.
The hope I felt when she left that day evaporated a week later when she called me to say that she had been mistaken; there weren’t other resources for our family. And worse, the next time she came back it would mean a referral to foster care or the courts. I lost complete trust in the system that day and ended up sending my children to out-of-state care where we finally got the help we needed, but not without more trauma and a huge financial cost.
