This is a problem area for sure. I did my residency at Riley and worked as a pedi in several places in Indiana.
The child welfare system is incredibly broken because the resources alloted in Indiana are poor (and MI too). And all over the country.
The case workers are not well trained or paid and all I have met are almost totally unaware of the importance of ACEs science, but getting better. I’ve talked to a few of my fellow peds classmates still in Indiana and it hasn’t changed much I am told. These SYSTEMS are like the titanic & are hard to move. I have been trying to get things done with my county DHS in MI and it has been overwhelmingly stressful - so much so I gave up for now. I decided I needed a new approach starting from the outside. I would say that checking out other state models is great, most probably have lots of problems because we simply don’t put in the financial resources that are needed - which is the biggest problem - but go slow, think about how you can show the agency that by understanding ACEs science - and I think working on creating a community wide trauma-Informed community culture and approaching from the grassroots level, you could show over time this cultural transformation would help their work, reduce their stress, improve their success and ultimately increase buy in. I haven’t been met with interest in my DHS system as someone with value even though I was in the system growing up - sometimes some agencies just aren’t interested in what “survivors” have to say.
These systems are used to how they do things and moving these big ships around takes a lot of finesse. Proceed with care and do lots of self-care because I know the kids I see and the decisions and outcomes of child welfare systems (and my own lived experience) are often overwhelmingly heart-breaking and an area where the risk of secondary trauma is very high.
Lake has Gary so not Rural like my experiences so you may have better luck. I would still say, go slow. These systems don’t like rapid change.
Just my random thoughts.