Professional middle-class families reach out for support all the time: to therapists, private drug and alcohol rehabilitation, nannies, babysitters, afterschool programs, summer camps, tutors, and family doctors. But because it is all privately funded, none of those requests ends up in Allegheny County’s data warehouse. The same willingness to reach out for support by poor and working-class families, because they are asking for public resources, labels them a risk to their children in the AFST, even though CYF sees requesting resources as a positive attribute of parents.
