Dear friends and colleagues,

I write to share this upsetting, sad, unsettling correspondence from one abused in foster care, and our subsequent conversation, still in process. The comment was made on my personal face book page. I believe that many of the tragedies in foster care and elsewhere have happened when non-social workers and non-health care professionals are hired to do work they are not prepared for or trained for. And that the press, in covering tragic situations, refers to those working with our most vulnerable populations social workers (or caseworkers – who usually are thought of as social workers, which they are not. I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

Many thanks, SaraKay

- Kim Sherwood: I was in the foster homes and severely abused. It was amazing how some foster parents could trick the social workers. First they were forewarned of the visit so after week in and week out of spending 5 or 6 hrs in a corner afraid to ask for water, getting the belt for no apparent reason, sitting on the floor (my back to the tv)forced to rub their feet. I could go on and on with much worse.......But 2 days before social workers visit....I was aloud to sit outside. I was given ice cream.....Then the visit...social worker to me: how are you? Me: oh I'm good I got ice cream.....little kids forget fast. Sorry I just don't want to share more now. Wheww

- SaraKay Smullens: Dear Kim, Thank you for this important sharing. I know this happens and I am horrified. I hope you will write about this and publish it. Perhaps a commentary in your local newspaper. I so life has been easier for you now, The leading cause for my book on burnout is that my colleagues and mentors said they were burnout out by the services offered by so many resources that were there to supposedly protect children. I am wondering: did those who were so easily conned by those who never should have been allowed to be foster parents workers will an actual social work degree? Or did you have no way of knowing, as they were called "social workers." Please let me know how you are, and if you are comfortable, where you live. I so hope you are well and safe, and thank you so much for reaching out to me.

- Kim Sherwood: I thank you for responding. I believe I could come up with some questions for the kids when visited, they can help a social worker see through the temporary (I'm ok) coming from a child. I'm crying now as I remember me in 1 corner my younger sister in the other. Our foster parent walked in and both my self and sister asked to use bathroom. The parent said it was a plot. She slapped my sister hard in the face knocking her down. My sis got up and grabbed a plastic picnic butter knife. She was scared to death. The parent grabbed a metal spatula and using it edgewise held my sister's hand on the counter and proceeded to bloody her tiny hand......I haven't ever shared this but now I'm 68 yrs old. These incidents happened when I was 8...I turned out to be a very intelligent and very friendly person I'm very creative and try to do a random act of kindness each day........thanks bye for now.

- SaraKay Smullens: I am so sad that this happened to you and yours sister, Kim, and I have deep respect for your persistence and resilience. Do you have any idea if those called "social worker/s" who so let you and your sister down were degreed social workers, or were they employees of an agency who were referred to as "social workers." I would like very much to know the questions you would recommend, and anything other you wish to share. If you are comfortable telling me where you live and the agency who employed those who visited your foster homes, that would be helpful. I can give you a private address to reach me, if you prefer. Above all, thank you so much for reaching out and writing.

- Kim Sherwood: I so thank you for caring and letting me share. Somehow I feel a bit relieved to tell someone. Please give me a little time. I will try to compose some things that might help you. Again I thank you. And God bless you.

Dear friends and colleagues,

WHAT IS IT LIKE OUTSIDE (explanation and apology below)
What is it like outside, dear friend
The trees, the flowers, the sun
What is it like outside to know
The children having fun
From my window now the rain pounds down
Can it wash away a curse
Or will a plague beyond our sight
Continue to get worse
What is it like outside, dear friend
I miss our talks, our time
Yet I am filled with gratitude
That your friendship has been mine

In these days when many read verse of hope and miracle, of overcoming horrid pain and loss, I know we share a common prayer -- may the living plague engulfing our world end. Several clients have lost their incomes and are ill. Several neighbors are also ill -- some extremely so. A colleague has died. A few minutes ago from my window I saw the rain pounding down, and I longed to run outside to feel it. Yet, I could not. During this time, a few words poured out of me. I share them above with apology_ -- knowing I surely am not a poet. I just want you to know..... As I write now, the sun is out once again.

Watch video here.

A darling, uplifting video. Pure joy.

Every caring wish,
To be continued,
SaraKay

Dear friends and colleagues,

Social distancing does not mean social isolation, and many of us are using Zoom to connect with others important to us. With this in mind, please be aware of a warning issued earlier this week by the University of Maryland, which has been passed on to me. There is now a new way to express hate labeled “zoombombing”: People crash Zoom meetings, expressing horrific, unsettling, ugly statements. This is possible because when we schedule zoom meetings, the default is “personal Meeting ID” -- and this ID follows us and does not change. That means that when we use it anyone who has learned this ID can drop in. For protection select “Generate Automatically,” which generates a unique ID for that specific meeting.

Be well and safe.

To be continued, SaraKay

Dear Readers,

I had a request for the following article, The Failure of Trusteeship at Penn State, which appeared on the Huffington Post web site, but is no longer available.  I am reprinting it here.

With caring wishes,

SaraKay

The Failure of Trusteeship at Penn State

The recent events at Penn State and the ongoing uncovering of sexual abuse of hopeful innocents have sickened and saddened.  If you live in Pennsylvania, as I do, the tragedies seem endless and terribly close to home --  the violated young children; college students shamed by their university; the firing of a sports legend, now suffering cancer; endless finger pointing coupled by endless confusion about failed leadership.

It was only a matter of time before the public would begin to assess the role of trustees in this horror story and to find them seriously lacking.  Most know that trustees hold fiduciary responsibility for the college or university they serve.  However, fiduciary responsibility is far more than raising money or writing checks. It involves ethics, morality and responsibility for the welfare and wellbeing of an institution and its community

According to  Charles William Golding in “Inside the Nonprofit Boardroom”:  “(A trustee holds) the very existence of the organization in trust for the people who contribute to it and for those who benefit from it.  What does “in trust” mean?  It means that you nurture, care for, and protect the entire organization.”  He further explains:  “(There is a) sense of security that comes with knowing that someone is overseeing things.  People want to feel that someone is paying attention to what is going on.  That’s the job of the board…Serving on a board is not about you.  It’s about doing all you can to help the organization carry out its mission...The ideal situation is when the trustee experiences the intensity of the cause in his or her head, heart, and stomach.”

For the past six years I have been a trustee of a small liberal arts college, admittedly a far different community than Penn State.  Still, trusteeship is trusteeship, and above all, trustees must feel free to ask questions. When this story first unfolded my reaction was immediate:  What did the trustees know about the grand-jury investigation of child-sex-abuse allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, as well as the long standing progression of events leading up to it? If they had been told about this, how were events characterized? What were trustee reactions and recommendations? If they were not told, why?

This week former provost and present university president Rodney Erickson said that although he was not present, the Penn State board was briefed by then President Graham B. Spanier.  His explanation will surely lead to more questions  about what trustees were actually told.  When asked the seriousness of the allegations characterized in the briefing, Erickson responded:  “I have no idea, because I was not there.”

Ben Novak, a former Penn State alumni (class of 1965) trustee who served from 1988 to 2000, wrote that open discussion in board meetings was nonexistent.  In his words published in a three part installment in the Centre Daily Times that he paid for himself:  “The simple truth is that it is not simply one bad apple that has brought about the humiliating situation we face.  Rather, it is the way the board of trustees has structured the whole governance of the university that has made this scandal not only possible but almost inevitable.” According to Novak, the board is controlled by the president and a few rich, connected trustees, and dissent is silenced:  “I came onto the board thinking that it was a deliberative body such as one reads about in civic books.  It is not.”   

Most are confused about the role of trustees and their relationship with the president of a college or university.  The college or university president is hired by, reports to, and as we recently saw, can be fired by the board. It is the board of trustees that sets policy of a school, with recommendations and significant input by the college president, (and hopefully) his or her staff, faculty, students and members of the community.  The president and the staff then carry out the policy on a day to day basis.  According to Golding,  “When a board becomes a true and solid sounding place for management, and when management has both the courage and the sense to listen, the positive effects can be remarkable on both sides.”

When I became a trustee the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges sent trustees throughout our country a copy of Golding’s book, which has a forward by William H. Gates, Sr. (yes, the father of the Bill Gates, who has expanded his parents’ enormous philanthropic commitments).  I cannot help but wonder if President Spanier or his board of trustees read the following: “(The board and the president) should be able to ask any questions, with neither side feeling threatened or intimidated.  It doesn’t always work that way, but it should.”  And, “The conduct of all activities by all persons representing the corporation in any way, at any time, must be right and proper.”

Author Golding also offers a prescient warning, words spoken by his father-in-law, a Greek immigrant and an American success story:   “A corporation is like a fish.  It rots from the head first.”

I had an experience today that is related to the film "45 Years." One of the reasons I value this film so much is that its genius is based on the importance of "an examined life." Every civilized society discovers this importance, but facing it in one's own life can be very disruptive and painful, and takes a great deal of courage. Without revealing plot, the film's end is both stunning and startling because it is based on a sudden awareness -- putting together truths that previously had been blinded by love and devotion. Today a good friend visited me out of the blue, and here is what she said: "As you well know, I have been the loyalist possible supporter of Donald Trump for many reasons, but finally today I was able to face what this man is doing to our country, to our allies, to our world. I finally see the danger of his selfish, grandiose, and impulsive leadership, and that the office he holds must be removed from his dangerous grasp."

On Friday, December 14 on the front page of the Region Section of our Inquirer was yet another indictment of how the Department of Human Services (DHS) is failing our most vulnerable children. I shook with rage and horror as I once again read about “statewide patterns" of abuse and maltreatment at foster-care facilities.

My first social work job after graduating from Penn with my master's degree in social work was with the Society to Protect Children. Here I learned from a rainbow coalition of committed social workers how to turn an inability to care for one's children and safeguard them around -- to offer hope and direction to those who were repeating and reacting to the kind of care they had received. In 1991 Lynne Abraham began referring carefully selected pro bono cases of first offenders where there were no fatalities for intensive therapy, rather than incarceration — -- By this time the responsibility held by PSPC had been turned over to DHS, and I saw that my colleagues and mentors who went from PSPC to DHS had left, explaining to me that they decided to leave a field they cared deeply about and had trained for arduously because they were "burned the hell out."

This led to 5 years of research into what burnout is and the necessary self-care strategies that can turn it around and prevent it. My papers about the ongoing tragedies -- with approaches -- are in the Archives of the University of Pennsylvania. They span more than 30 years with stories about unnecessary deaths of our children. They include reports and information about reports that are similar to the one reported on December 14, but gather dust.

I wrote yet another Letter to the Editor to the Philadelphia Inquirer: When will city leadership put an end to this?

Here is what I wrote:

To the editor:

I invite readers to visit the Archives of the University of Pennsylvania at 3401 Market Street — #210. In a collection bearing my name is a huge folder of pleas and suggestions written to DHS and other city resources, some printed in this newspaper, spanning over thirty years. There are also articles about many of the dead and severely injured children, who have been under the care of several administrations as well as studies of reports similar to the one highlighted in another tragic article.

Therefore, rather than detailing once again what can and should be done, I suggest another route: Print the salaries and budget of the resources who have failed our city’s most vulnerable children, and demand an accounting of where this money actually goes.

Making Sense of the Inexplicable

If anyone needs living proof that denial is not just a river in Egypt. President Trump’s support of a ruthless Russian dictator and his crass Helsinki dismissal of the institutions that protect our country have provided it. It also provided a portrait of the impotent rage of a bully acted out dangerously on a world stage.

I assure you: I do not believe in diagnosing an elected official in a public arena. However, I believe there are times when it is imperative to share vital information about the development of well-grounded emotional maturity, and what can go terribly, dangerously wrong in the functioning and awareness of an individual. Now is surely one of these times.

Fortunate individuals grow up in homes where there is secure “attachment” — essential bonding with primary caretakers during one’s early years. This bonding becomes the first floor in an emotional home that leads to the ability to care for and about others, as well as realize that he or she is not the center of the universe. Further, it leads to the ability to differentiate between friend and foe as well as the confidence to confront dangerous adversaries -- in other words develop what I describe as a reliable “emotional sense of direction.”

In time, the fortunate are given permission to leave a parental home and carve out their own lives independently. The primary factors that make this healthy “separation-individuation” process impossible — ones that make a child doubt he will ever be able to protect himself, navigate the slippery slopes of life, or communicate with strength and honor— are terrifying rage and inability to find safety within the home, rejection if one displeases a parent, enmeshment (where all family members must agree on all and act as one unit), complete neglect, and extreme overprotection and overindulgence.

Deep within those who cannot separate from their parents is burning, unyielding anger (at themselves for their perceived weakness and at the parent or parents who made independence seem an impossibility). Yet, there is also the terror of expressing anger appropriately. 

Related research by University of Massachusetts doctoral candidate, Matt MacWilliams, became public during the primary of our 2016 presidential primary election. The study showed that the best predictor of those who would back Donald Trump’s candidacy were views about child raising — views that were black and white, held without question, and described as “authoritarian.” Trump supporters could not tolerate their children believing and acting in ways that differed from those stressed in the homes where they were raised.

When permission to think freely is not granted, a child grows into a chronological adult who lacks confidence and is emotionally fragile. In situations where one has learned how to be charming and glib, these traits are used to cover up frailties. Every possible means to keep this cover-up is called upon. Such personalities are ever on the run, often act impetuously, and delight in causing conflict. They cannot tolerate criticism of any type. Nor can they abide another winning what they desire. Unable to tolerate true intimacy, they feel compelled to continuously prove their sexual attractiveness and powers. Often their charm, verve, determination, and ruthlessness propel them to powerful positions, where bullying can become second nature.

Donald Trump’s father’s approach to success and business has been mirrored by his son. Further, it is common knowledge that Trump senior introduced his son to his revered guide, Roy Cohn, the corrupt attorney who helped mastermind the disgraceful reign of Joseph McCarthy during a ruthless witch-hunting period that bears his name. Roy Cohn’s mantra was to get what you want, regardless of how this is accomplished; to never admit an error; and above all, to keep your name in the public press.

Immediately before his Helsinki fiasco, President Trump received detailed information concerning 12 Russians indicted for compromising our electoral system.  Three days before his inauguration he was briefed about proven Russian cyber interference in the 2016 presidential election.  Yet, his frailties and fears made necessary confrontation of Putin an impossibility. Instead, Donald Trump offered sickening praise to a ruthless adversary. Evidence that he had not won the presidency on his own compounded an inability to distance himself from one like Roy Cohn, who had no ethical or moral guidelines. Without question, in Helsinki, the president of our United States aided and continues to aid a dangerous enemy in his quest for world domination.

Helsinki must be an awakening moral tipping point. McCarthyism received its fatal blow during a June 9, 1954 hearing when Boston lawyer, Joseph Welch, finally confronted Joseph McCarthy: “Until this moment, Senator…I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…Have you no sense of decency?”

Tragically, the Republican Party fears this brave stance. They must at long last address Donald Trump’s reckless, terrifying behavior and displaced rage, and restate these long overdue words. Further, this is a message that voters must echo in the upcoming congressional elections, as well as our next election for the presidency of the United States. The future of our free world depends on it.

— Published on July 20, 2018

Some readers may recall an early September pre-publication commentary first appearing in “The Philadelphia Inquirer,” where I expressed my hopes for What Happened. Very sadly my hopes crashed,, and I want to explain why.  Please read on, even if you are sick of hearing about Hillary and her book.  I think my focus will offer a different take.

You see, I wanted Hillary to use her book to talk to us honestly about her campaign -- her detractors, of course, which she did focus on (often in excruciating detail), but also the lapses she and her campaign leadership were responsible for.  For example, personal polling was stopped a month before the election.  Why?

Through building this trust with us, her leadership direction in how to deal with our exceedingly dangerous, complicated present would have been carefully listened to, even, I believe, by many of those who did not support her.  This would have been especially true of women, who could have assured Hillary’s victory, but whose support was disappointingly low. The ability to communicate in this way rests with trusted connection, a hallmark of “emotional intelligence.” 

Those with emotional intelligence know how to navigate the slippery slopes of life through sincere communication with others.  Through their mutual, trusted connections they often reach their goals.  Or if goals are denied, which is frequently the case since life is not fair, those with emotional intelligence learn from the experience, and are then able to offer important insights and direction to others. Sadly, however, What Happened offers the best possible explanation of what “emotional intelligence” is not. 

 After my commentary was published, I received close to 100 emails from readers throughout our country, which fell into three camps:  those who never would have voted for Hillary, those who worked for her victory with every fiber of their being and were furious at a poorly run campaign, and those who asked for a clearer definition of “emotional intelligence,” with examples.

Three examples follow, each underscoring the kind of missed opportunity that would lead to non-flinching loyalty of women, regardless of  a candidate’s detractors. (Do remember:  It was women’s compassion for Hillary when Monica Lewinsky came into her life that humanized her to many, leading to her senate victory.  We “got” her pain; it hit home.) 

1. When Hillary was ill and went to her daughter Chelsea’s to rest, rather than distance herself from us, if she had told us that she had pneumonia, appreciated our concern, which would surely help her recovery, women would have been deeply moved by her truth and her trust.  In discussing this incident in her book, Hillary held on to a wall around her, showing resentment of the intrusion of her privacy.
2.  When her husband cornered Attorney General Loretta Lynch on her plane, Hillary uses What Happened to lay all blame Jim Comey.  (Yes, Comey proved a horror to Hillary, but he did not instigate this event.) As presidential candidate, women would have rallied around Hillary if she had apologized for poor judgment and shown regret, confiding:  “As you can well imagine, Bill and I had a bad night when I learned of this.  I apologize for both of us – this conversation was especially unfair to Attorney General Lynch.”
3. In Hillary’s personal email fiasco, consider the difference an immediate apology would have made, rather than stone-walling until an apology seemed insincere and contrived.  Women would have identified with Hillary had she spoken of all of the moving parts in her life that propelled her to take a very wrong short cut. (Once in my kitchen preparing for a dinner party I became so distracted by an overdue report  that I put rubber bands, rather than noodles, in the chicken soup.  Don’t ask!  And you?), In her book we read a 32 page defense of her actions.  She calls her decision “dumb” but explains that others did it, and it is still being done.