For years judges and case workers in Butler County and throughout the nation prioritized the immediate physical safety of children over their long-term well-being, various county employees agree.

Now the county’s social workers are part of a six-county program meant to stop the problems that judicial systems create when they take children from their parents.

In January, a state family engagement initiative will begin shifting staff behavior and family court systems in Butler County, according to county Judge Kelley Streib.

“Sometimes we have to remove a child to keep them safe,” Streib said. “The parent can’t be around that child, but the kid is still bonded to that parent. They still love that parent. We have to keep the child physically safe but still allow nurturing.”

The initiative, in which neighboring Beaver and Venango counties are also participating, is built around research showing that obstacles people face as children can be ruinous for their long-term mental and physical health. Those obstacles are oftentimes court-imposed, Streib said, as many children are shuffled through foster programs until they’re 18 and often immediately switched from family court to criminal.

The research behind this program is called the Family-Finding model. Its developer, Kevin Campbell, spoke to about 80 case workers and county employees in Butler County Thursday. Campbell, who serves as something of a face for the statewide efforts, described this current initiative as an expansion of now widespread family-finding techniques.

In an interview between sessions, Campbell explained that Butler County was chosen because it’s already trying to do some of the things he’s advocating. The data are in his favor, he said, he just needs willing and able people.

“Butler County actually had to compete with other counties in the state,” Campbell said.

The ideas boil down to two points. For one, children who are removed from their families need to be around healthy adults on a long-term basis to succeed. They still need family, even if being around their parents is dangerous, so social workers need to look deep to find people who can fill those roles.

Second, the courts can end up hurting kids even as they try to help. Children need friendships to grow, and court-ordered living arrangements can make things like holding sleepovers nearly impossible.

Campbell’s research ties those problems to health issues later in life.

“This system can function like a quarantine,” Campbell said. “It can so isolate children that, while they might be safe from the things we’re trying to protect them from, we might be putting them at risk in different ways.”

Campbell will be helping coach local caseworkers in the coming months. Such training can be hard to fit in, Judge Streib said.

Walking through Thursday’s meeting, she gestured to case workers standing on its edges taking phone calls and urgently ducking into side rooms.

“They’re dealing with people in crisis,” Streib said. “You don’t get a day off for training when people are in crisis.”

Among those on the ground in the system, the training appeared well received.

Jodi Miller, a program specialist with the county Children and Youth Services department, said she and her coworkers were “excited about using this research.”

“We operate like an ER,” Miller said. “It’s like, put out that fire that exists for the family. Get the kids in a safe place. Unfortunately, that’s been what we accept. We haven’t been able to focus on the implications.”

Cathryn Heakins, another program specialist, agreed.

“If we begin to see the change in one family, then we’ve made success,” Heakins said.

Campbell wants case workers to work harder to find families who can help raise children. Part of that is getting creative, and from social workers’ perspective, brave. He advocates for bringing coaches, teachers and other potential authority figures into the process, which workers of old would have shied away from out of fears of violating confidentiality. A child’s coach can learn that they’ve been taken from their parents, but not why, Heakins said.

Campbell calls it “dosing.” Putting children with traumatic experiences in normal environments with healthy adults is a medicine, he said.

Judge Streib wants to start filling prescriptions.

“It is going to give us the opportunity to put really practical steps in place to make a change in our community,” Streib said.