Good Intentions, Dangerous Systems: Why I had to Stop Protecting the Lie

My Journey From Complicity to Calling

There comes a moment when the story you’ve been repeating to yourself no longer matches the truth God is showing you. For me, the crack didn’t start with anger. It started with grief. A quiet grief that whispered, “You were trying to do good, but look at what the system is doing.”

In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, that whisper became a roar I could no longer ignore.

I had spent twenty years in the child welfare system. Two decades of believing I was helping. Two decades of promotions and leadership roles. Two decades of convincing myself I was improving the system from within.

But when the United States was forced to confront the truth about racism, I had to confront mine.

Because despite every good thing I thought I had done, the needle on disproportionality hadn’t moved. The same over-surveillance and over-removal of Black children that existed when I started as a DCF investigator in 1999 was still there.

That realization broke something open in me.

What good is it to be a Black senior leader in child welfare if we are still taking Black children at alarming rates?

I was blessed not to grow up in a heavily targeted  zip code. But what about the mothers who did? The fathers who entered adulthood already defeated by systems that failed them?

What about the parents trying to raise children while carrying unhealed trauma from their own years in foster care? People who were never taught how to regulate their emotions, yet are expected to parent flawlessly? We rarely acknowledge that those raised by the system often struggle to parent under pressures most of us will never face. And many of their children weren’t removed because they were unsafe but because their families were experiencing poverty, isolation, or harsh judgement.

The questions came fast:

How can I use my gifts for true change?

If I speak out, how will colleagues see me?

Will they think I’m judging them?

Will I be shut out?

What happens when you expose truths people don’t want to face?

As I began learning the history and realities of the system I served for so long, I had to confront something devastating:

My good intentions didn’t erase the harm.

My silence protected the system, not the children.

And my desire to play nice in the sandbox came at the cost of the Black community.

If I believed God forgave me for past wrongs, repentance couldn’t stop at confession. It had to push me into action, truth, and accountability.

And then came my adoption journey.

The deeper I went, the clearer everything became.

The violence of termination of parental rights.

The trauma baked into the process.

The harm the system calls “protection.”

Adoption didn’t pull me away from the truth. It pushed me directly into it.

You cannot reform a lie.

You cannot save a system built on harm.

You cannot stand in truth while protecting the machinery that destroys families.

That was the moment the lie finally broke open.

The Lie That Shapes an Entire System

From day one, we are told: “We’re here to keep children safe.”

It’s a comforting narrative.

A noble one.

It positions us as heroes entering broken spaces for the vulnerable.

And we cling to it even as evidence contradicts it.

We watch children deteriorate in care.

We see parents crushed under surveillance.

We observe the trauma of separation.

We hear the stories that never leave us.

And still we repeat the same lines, believing what we were taught to believe.

We become conditioned to hyper-focus on the “harm” caused by parents while ignoring the harm that unfolds the moment the State steps in.

How do we keep believing this narrative when the truth sits in our case notes?

Because the truth is far more complicated.

The system does not run on safety.

It runs on surveillance.

It runs on compliance.

It runs on control.

It runs on fear.

It runs on the belief that Black and poor parents must be corrected, monitored, or replaced.

And the lie is powerful because believing it feels good.

It protects careers.

It protects reputations.

It protects salaries.

It protects the illusion of moral superiority.

But a lie does not become truth just because good people repeat it.

And spiritually, we know this: A thing is either of God or of the devil. There is no neutral ground.

So, what does it mean when we sit quietly, watching families endure treatment we would never accept for ourselves?

Silence doesn’t make us neutral.

Silence makes us complicit.

My Complicity: The Part No One Wants to Name

This is the part people fear naming: I was complicit.

Not because I had harmful intentions.

Not because I wanted to destroy families.

Not because I didn’t care.

But because the system gave me power over families and any power left unchecked becomes harmful.

I justified decisions because they followed  policy.

I trusted processes never designed for healing.

I operated inside a machine that saw parents as cases, not human beings.

And even my son’s adoption sits inside this truth.

I love him fiercely.

He is the greatest blessing of my life.

But he came to me through a system that prioritized  punishment over compassion and support.

He is my joy.

But what happened to his mother was not justice.

I hold both truths. Not to shame myself, but to remain accountable.

Silence is the soil where harmful systems grow.

Silence keeps the pattern alive.

Silence keeps contracts funded, careers stable, and narratives unchallenged.

But silence has never protected children. It has only protected institutions.

A Challenge to Those Still in the System

I want to be clear: This blog is not written to make child welfare professionals feel ashamed.

Shame paralyzes.

Shame silences.

But this is a challenge. A call to rise.

A call to look honestly at the families you serve .At the patterns you see. At the harm you may have normalized.

And ask yourself: Does what I witness every day align with my values? Is this what families truly deserve?

You cannot declare yourself a “good person” and remain silent while generational harm continues.

You cannot hide behind policy while families pay the price.

You cannot say “this is just how it is” when the truth sits right in front of you.

We have a moral obligation to do right by families. Not theoretically. Not symbolically. But boldly and tangibly.

And for those who claim to follow Christ, the standard is even higher.

What did Jesus do when He encountered injustice from government authorities?

He confronted it. He exposed it. He protected the vulnerable. He flipped tables when people profited from suffering. He stood with those society judged and discarded. He never chose silence to keep the peace.

He said: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… to set the oppressed free.”

If we say we follow Him, our courage must reflect Him.

Our advocacy must reflect Him.

Our willingness to confront broken systems must reflect Him.

Child welfare doesn’t need quiet kindness.

It needs courageous truth tellers.

People who disrupt harm, not justify it.

People who choose integrity over comfort, conviction over career, and justice over silence.

There is too much at stake to do anything less.

Why You Can’t Reform a Lie

You cannot reform something born from a lie.

You cannot audit your way out of harm

.You cannot “train” your way into justice.

You cannot rebuild a house whose foundation is rot.

Child welfare does not need reform.

It needs truth.

It needs repentance

It needs a new blueprint.

Anything less is just a new costume on the same old pattern.

The Freedom in Naming the Truth

The moment I named the truth out loud and without apology, something shifted.

I no longer felt responsible for protecting a system God never asked me to defend.

I no longer put comfort over conviction.

I no longer hid behind good intentions.

Naming the truth did not break me.

It freed me.

Freed me to speak.

Freed me to challenge.

Freed me to atone.

Freed me to walk in alignment with the God of justice.

Because once God exposes a lie, you cannot return to it.

And I won’t.

You can’t reform a lie.

You can only reveal it, refuse to protect it, and help build what should have been there all along.

That is the work I owe to the families harmed.

That is the work I owe to my son.

And that is the work I owe to myself.