A lot of the focus of the work I tried to do on library board and school board was trying to help good people with good intentions realize that they shouldn’t rely on compassionate teachers, advisors, librarians, etc., but should build compassionate systems that would protect and support the kids / patrons regardless.
It can be a tough mental shift, because the impulse is to think, oh, our teachers are great, they love the kids, they pour so much time and energy into them, of course we can rely on them to be compassionate. But even the best teachers have bad days, and everyone (myself included) is sadly subject to implicit bias — if you haven’t taken the Harvard implicit bias tests available online, they’re really eye-opening.
We shouldn’t leave our kids (or library patrons) reliant on any given individual being compassionate in the moment. This is why going fine-free at libraries is just better than relying on librarians to waive fees for people for whom the fines would be a hardship.
Now extrapolate that principle to every system — hospitals, the justice system, prisons, etc. and so on. We can do better.