Greetings!

My name is Grey Endres and I am a clinical social worker in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Presently I am a full-time lecturer at Missouri Western with the BSW program. In addition, I am a founding partner of Lifeworks Family Treatment group in Kansas City.

In May of 2018, I began my DSW journey. I have chosen to focus on the Grand Challenge of ensuring the healthy development of youth given that child welfare fails to protect the children it is mandated to serve.

WHY??

In September of 2014, I was hired by the Jackson County children's division to facilitate in-home couples’ therapy with a mom and dad who’s 15-year-old was in foster care along with her new infant son. On a Friday afternoon, just before beginning a session, their daughter and grandson were having a supervised visit, and I noticed that my client and her daughter were looking at homecoming dresses on the internet. I asked the young girl if she was excited to attend homecoming, and she responded without looking at me by stating that her caseworker told her that she could not go to homecoming as she was now a mother and that mothers do not go to homecoming. The look in her face was that of shame. Immediately I was angry and frustrated. How difficult is it to be a mom or a young mom? How difficult is it to be a young mom who is feeling shame? What impact did that have on her ability to parent her infant son, or her own future as a woman, daughter, and mother? When should mental health clinicians begin to consider the future of their client? Is the future a treatment goal, case plan goal or does it begin at discharge? Does the future of the client begin tomorrow or five minutes from now? In retrospect, considering a client’s future is something that child welfare does not do well.

            Endres, G. (2019). Grand Challenge Public Discourse Paper (Unpublished paper). SOWK                   705, Spring. DSW, University of Southern California