Advancing Excellence in Clinical Practice in Child and Family Serving Settings
With a call to bring together thought leaders across disciplines to address persistent challenges in child welfare, retired Associate Professor Alma J. Carten laid out her vision for NYU Silver’s memorial lectureship honoring her late son, Elliott Wesley Carten, LMSW, MSW ’00. Child welfare leaders, New York City government and agency officials and social work scholars recently gathered at a reception at New York University to launch the lectureship. The lecture will be held each March in conjunction with Social Work Month, beginning with the inaugural lecture on March 12, 2025.
Elliott, who was known to family and friends as “Robby,” shared Dr. Carten’s passion for practice with at-risk children and families in the public service where the need is greatest. Prior to his untimely passing in September 2023, Elliott spent the largest share of his professional career practicing in agencies in the public and private sector serving children and families in New York City’s high-need communities. In welcome remarks, Dean Michael A. Lindsey explained that “Dr. Carten created this lectureship in partnership with the School to celebrate her son’s commitment to public service, his encouraging the use of a clinical social work perspective in practice with families, and to rekindle the interest among social workers, particularly our Silver students, in advancing best practices in child welfare settings.”
The significance of the family to the welfare of children was among the topics Dr. Carten suggested the lectureship should address. “We should give some thought to reframing our definition of the field of child welfare to more accurately reflect our stated national value of the irreplaceable role of the family in American society in rearing children to successful adulthood.”
Other topics Dr. Carten raised examined conventional wisdoms that deter MSW students and new professionals from pursuing careers in public child welfare. One is that the social work code of ethics that places client interests first, and bureaucratic emphasis on conformity to organizational rules and regulations, prevent professionals and bureaucrats from finding common ground on which they can work together. Another is that the overwhelming need for concrete services and the severity of traumatization make children and families seen by the system unsuitable candidates for the talking therapies. Dr. Carten also encouraged shifting child welfare’s focus beyond child protection to an examination of the more existential problems faced by families, and measuring America’s child and family policies against those in other wealthy Western countries.
In an address on Child Well-Being in New York City Today, Eric Brettschneider, former First Deputy Commissioner of NYC Administration of Children’s Services, noted the considerable progress the agency has made. He cited the dramatic reduction in the number of children placed in foster care, from more than 55,000 in the 1990s to approximately 6,000 today, 40% of whom are placed with relatives. He also noted the establishment of community-designed Family Enrichment Centers for neighborhood-level primary prevention. However, he said there is more work to be done. At CUNY’s Institute for State and Local Governance, he has been focusing on marginalized families and children who are underserved by the mental health system. “We've advanced to a greater well-being orientation in our work,” he said, “but the energy from those gains must bring us to address the mental health crisis.”
Mr. Brettschneider concluded with memories of Robby, whom he both mentored and knew through Dr. Carten. “I knew Robby in a way that’s incontrovertible: His decency, his empathy, his dedication to serve those in need.” Although Robby was lost too soon, Mr. Brettschneider said, through NYU Silver’s lectureship, his memory and the inspiration he provided to others will be kept alive.