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Seven children and all she needed was a van: large families and the blindness of the child welfare establishment

Child Welfare Monitor

But today’s post focuses on one particularly jarring vignette–the story of a mother, her seven children, and a van–and what it means about how child welfare policy is made and discussed today. David Reed, the Deputy Director of Child Welfare Services in Indiana, introduced the story of this family in his testimony.

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“Child welfare” and racism: Children’s Rights steps up

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

Minnesota’s use of these factors to support a child’s removal and/or ongoing separation due to alleged neglect discriminately and disproportionately impacts Black families who are overrepresented in Minnesota’s child welfare system for neglect-related allegations.

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The $20 million boondoggle that perfectly illustrates the banality of child welfare thinking

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

But it’s hard to imagine anything that more perfectly captures the banality of child welfare thinking than this waste of $20 million: Five organizations will spend this federal grant money to create a “Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth in Finding Permanency.” Oh, don’t get me wrong.

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Lessons from two child welfare court decisions

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

Vivek Sankaran, director of the Child Advocacy Law Clinic and the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic at the University Michigan Law School summed it up perfectly: In many ways, the decision was unexceptional. Writing in The Imprint , Prof. Appellate courts would intervene. The system would move quickly to protect the powerful.

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Oregon’s “child welfare” agency wants to narrow definitions of abuse – but only when THEY are the abuser!

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

In Oregon, "child welfare" has become a pathetic game of whack-a-mole. They also revealed that Oregons family police agency (a more accurate term than child welfare agency) knew about the abuse for at least 18 months and did nothing. So -- whack! -- a child advocacy group brought a lawsuit to prohibit the practice.

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Massachusetts pilots the most promising reform in child welfare. Guess who’s trying to undercut it.

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

If you’ve followed Massachusetts child welfare at all, you know exactly who: Massachusetts’ Fearmonger-in-Chief, state “child advocate” Maria Mossaides. I know that the advocacy community conflates neglect with poverty," Mossaides said. Unfortunately, much of child welfare operates with a pre- Gault mentality. Except it hasn’t.

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‘Door could be open to abuse’ of disabled children due to DfE shelving advocacy plan, say leads

Community Care

The “door could be open to the abuse and neglect” of disabled children due to the government’s cost-driven decision to shelve a planned expansion of advocacy for the group. “Due to the extent of their disabilities and health needs, their cries for help can be easily dismissed when they are subjected to abuse.