This TED Talk features social worker, child advocate, and researcher Jessica Price, recorded live at TED Residency 2018.

I want you to imagine that you're a child protective service worker, and you have to respond to a report of child abuse.

You walk into a home, unannounced, unexpected, certainly uninvited.

The first thing you see is a mattress in the middle of the room on the floor,

three kids lying on it asleep.

There's a small table nearby with a couple of ashtrays, empty beer cans.

Large rat traps are set in the corner not too far from where the kids lie asleep,

so you make a note.

A part of your job is walking through the entire home.

So you start with the kitchen where there's very little food.

You notice another mattress in the bedroom on the floor that the mother shares with her infant child.

Now, generally, at this point, two things may happen.

The children are deemed unsafe and removed from the home

and placed in state custody for a specified period of time.

Or the children remain with their family,

and the child welfare system provides help and support.

When I was a child protective service worker,

I saw things like this all the time.

Some far better, some far worse.

I asked you to imagine yourself in that home,

because I wonder what crossed your mind?

What guides your decisions?

...