As a former Intensive Permanence Services (IPS) and Intensive Trauma Services (ITS) practitioner and now Director of Transformation at Alia, Brenda Anderson-Powers learned that the most important thing you can offer a family isn't a service. It's proof.
When Brenda began delivering ITS in one close-knit community, she didn't know she was being tested by her clients.
"I learned later they had planted some stories in sessions," she recalls with a laugh. "They intentionally did this to see if they would show back up outside our sessions. To see if I would keep the trust. Of course the stories never left our sessions, and I was able to prove loyalty. They had not experienced sharing personal information and not have it appear in a report, case plan or court hearing before.”
Word travels in communities where ITS is being implemented, but most of the time not from referrals by social workers. Instead, it's usually one person telling another that this time it was actually different.
Why Parents Don't Trust the Child Welfare System — And What It Takes to Change That
Families entering the system have almost always been burned before, by therapy that felt like surveillance, parenting classes that didn't match their culture or beliefs, practitioners who left mid-treatment, taking months of hard-earned trust with them. They arrive, as Brenda puts it, with a spirit of "I hear what you're saying, but is it really true, can I do this work in the way and pace that works for me?" The first few sessions are cautious.
"When they come to believe that, they are so ready," Brenda says. "They're sick and tired of being sick and tired."
This is the moment most interventions never reach, because they aren't designed to get there. They're built around compliance, box-checking, and timelines that prioritize the system's needs over the family's capacity. Brenda describes being available until 9 PM, seven days a week, so that a parent overwhelmed in the moment could call, co-regulate, and make a better decision rather than a desperate one. Over time, small successes compound and trust builds. People begin to feel that they aren't alone.
What Relational Healing Actually Looks Like in Practice
Brenda shares the story of one client who came to ITS wanting her teenage daughter placed out of the home. Their relationship had deteriorated to the point where she saw no other way forward. In one session, Brenda asked her to write down everything her own mother had said to her when she was her daughter's age, and what she really needed from her mother.
Then she asked her to cross out her mother's name and write her own. And cross out her own name and write her daughter's.
"When I asked if this could be true in her situation, she was completely shocked," Brenda recalls. "I asked her, do you say these things to your daughter? She said yes." Brenda then asked if she might try giving her daughter one of the things she wrote in the need column.
That night, the mom went home and tried something different. She came back to the next session in tears. It was the first time her daughter had really talked to her.
“It is difficult to meet someone else’s needs when your own needs were not met, we can learn how to do both here," Brenda told her.
Psychoeducation exercises like that don’t work as effectively without the foundation of trust. You are asking people to be vulnerable with you, and to be open to learning and trying something different. Openness isn't possible coming from a mandate. That's what we mean when we say trust is the treatment.
The Infrastructure Most Child Welfare Systems Are Missing
Trauma that builds across a lifetime affects behavior and the capacity to trust. For parents who have spent years navigating a system that feels adversarial, showing up to a caseworker appointment, a parenting class, or a family meeting is far from neutral. And when we ask parents to engage before we've done anything to earn their trust, we're often asking for something they don't yet have the capacity to give — not because they don't love their children, but because their nervous systems have learned that connection is dangerous.
Most systems aren't equipped to fill this gap. Leaders see it and want to fix it, but the infrastructure for sustained, relationship-based healing simply isn't there.
How Alia's Intensive Trauma Services Builds That Infrastructure
Alia's ITS model pairs youth and caregivers with a consistent, reliable practitioner over 24 to 36 months — long enough for real trust to form and real healing to begin. The goal is restored capacity: the ability to engage in healthy relationships, to feel safe, and to build the networks of support that make families sustainable long-term.
The outcomes reflect something remarkable. In a case study with parents in the Lower Sioux Community:
-
100% of active parents strongly agreed they had improved a key relationship in their lives
-
100% agreed they were better parents because of ITS
Every single one engaged voluntarily. When systems create the conditions for trust, families reach for help.
For county leaders navigating high caseloads, stretched budgets, and families with complex needs, ITS offers a model with the depth to match the problem. Alia partners with agencies to implement ITS, providing training and consultation so your team becomes skilled practitioners of this relational healing model.
Get in touch with us to learn more.