Holding Families in the Grey
AI & the Work We Do, Part 4 of 4
There is a category of question that no search can answer. Not because the information is missing, or because the algorithm isn't sophisticated enough, or because the right database hasn't been built yet. But because the question itself isn't an information problem. It is a human one.
When There Is No Right Answer: Supporting Families Through Impossible Placement Decisions
I am working right now with a family whose child has schizophrenia. I will not say more than that, because their story belongs to them. But I will tell you what the question looks like: do they choose the program that is the best clinical fit for their child (the one most equipped to serve someone with his specific and serious needs) even if it means he is far from home? Or do they choose the program that is closer, where they can see him more often, monitor his wellbeing more directly, be present in the ways that parents of seriously ill children need to be present?
There is no right answer. Families often come hoping there is one. What's possible instead is laying out every dimension of the decision as clearly and honestly as possible (the clinical considerations, the logistical realities, the ways each choice ripples outward into the family system) and then staying in the room while they make it.
That staying is the work. It sounds passive. It is not.
When There Is No Cure: Holding Families in Grief and Finding a Path Forward
Some families come to me in the middle of a decision. Others have moved past that. They've arrived at something harder: the recognition that their child's struggle isn't a problem to be solved. It's a life to be navigated.
A mother called not long ago, in tears. Her son's mental health struggles are not a chapter in their family's story. They are the story, ongoing, evolving, without a foreseeable end. She had arrived at that understanding in a new way, and the grief of it was fresh. There are no perfect solutions, she said. I know that now.
She wasn't asking anyone to fix it. She had moved past that. She was asking for someone to think through the options with her (the tradeoffs, the uncertainties, the things she couldn't fully know until she tried them). To do that thinking with her, not for her. From the perspective of someone who had walked this road with other families. From the perspective, she said, of a mother.
What a Therapeutic Educational Consultant Offers That No Technology Can
There is no AI equivalent of that phone call. Not because the technology isn't sophisticated enough. Because what she needed wasn't information or analysis or a list of options. She needed someone to pick up the phone. To stay on the line. To sit inside the uncertainty with her without flinching or rushing toward a resolution that wasn't available.
That kind of presence isn't a feature. It isn't a capability. It is what accumulates in a person over years of sitting with families in the hardest seasons of their lives, and choosing, every time, to stay.
I don't always have the right answer for the families I work with. False certainty is one of the most damaging things a consultant can offer. But the uncertainty can be shared. The weight of the decision can be held by more than one person. Whatever they decide, the path forward doesn't have to be walked alone.
For now, at least, that is irreplaceably human.
Jennifer Benson is a therapeutic educational consultant and MSW, and co-founder of Crossbridge Consulting. She and her partner Rebekah Jordan work with families navigating complex educational and therapeutic placements for children, adolescents, and young adults. This is the final installment in a four-part series on AI and the irreplaceable human work at the heart of their practice.
