About 25 state social workers, family attorneys, foster parents and others came together Friday to march around the state Department of Social and Health Services headquarters in downtown Vancouver — all to protest one specific job loss: home support specialist.
Facing that budget-reduction layoff is Debbie Conway, who brings special qualifications to the position that’s aimed at keeping troubled families together.
Conway once lost legal custody of her children, only to regain it after changing her life. As far as anyone knows, she’s the only person with that background ever to be hired by a child welfare organization to help others who have lost custody of their children.
Conway said cutting her job would save the state about $34,000. She knows she saves the state far more than that in the court costs, jail costs, state employee time and more that need not to be spent because of her efforts.
Friday’s lunchtime march was likely only the first local protest by people who’ll feel the pain as the state makes deep cuts to spending on social services, health care, education, pensions, public safety and more. On Wednesday, Gov. Chris Gregoire announced a two-year budget plan that includes $3billion in cuts to current state programs. The state’s budget deficit is projected at $4.6billion.
Conway operates a Parent Partner Program, linking parents in trouble with parents who have been there and prevailed. The program establishes mentoring relationships to build parenting skills and knowledge of child welfare law and services, and ultimately to salvage families that are in danger of breaking up — or already have.
“It’s an innovative peer-to-peer program and it’s gotten some attention nationally. Clark County is the only place we know where it’s being done,” Conway said.
Peggy DeVoy, a state social worker and Conway’s supervisor, said all home support specialists statewide have received layoff notices — but Conway is unique in being the only one in the nation, as far as anyone knows, who speaks from deep personal experience: an early life of drug addiction, family breakup and homelessness — and then recovery and family reunification.
Today she lives with her son, Cory, 13, in an apartment near downtown Vancouver. The Columbian told her story in April, when she won the Advocate of the Year award from the Washington State Court Appointed Special Advocates group.
Now, DeVoy said, Conway is the local face of the state, and the person who’s best able to get through to parents in trouble.
“So many are defensive and hostile because this is the department that is getting tough with them,” said DeVoy. “Debbie is the one who gets their respect and gets them to listen. Debbie is so pivotal to this program.”
“Sometimes they’re just not hearing it when it’s coming from a social worker,” Conway said. “They just take an adversarial role. When they hear what I’ve been through and what I’m telling them about where they’re headed, they listen.”
Conway was recently the keynote speaker at a national conference on family welfare. She offers parenting classes for Open House Ministries, a downtown homeless shelter for families. She has served as a resident representative on the board of the Vancouver Housing Authority, and recently facilitated the arrival of 50 new public housing vouchers for children and their families.
Conway “is like a database for people in crisis,” said client Ann McNealy, who has taken Conway’s parenting class. “I’ve had a lot of desperate moments where if Debbie hadn’t answered the phone, I don’t know what would have happened to me. But she talked me down.”
DeVoy said she is trying to organize a post-Christmas community meeting where people interested in saving the home support specialist position can brainstorm ways to do it.
