NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

OCTOBER 27, 2021

So the public was primed to scapegoat family preservation when Nixzmary Brown died in January, 2006 – leading to a foster-care panic , a sharp sudden increase in the number of children torn from everyone they know and love and consigned to the chaos of foster care. The panic was welcomed by the Times.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

The story begins and ends with the story of Maria Toscano and her desperate efforts to schedule a visit with her children in foster care. Taking a child under those circumstances causes the child even more trauma than taking the child for other reasons – that’s one reason it’s illegal to do it in New York.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

Often, when I single out for criticism particular stories about “child welfare” – or as it should be called family policing, it’s because the reporter never bothered to even speak to parents who have had their children taken, or to lawyers for such parents. It’s not like the state can’t afford to step in and provide this money.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

JULY 31, 2024

New York’s family police agency is still harassing survivors of domestic violence and their children. In New York, it’s illegal to tear children from their homes and throw them into foster care just because they “witnessed domestic violence” – typically a husband or boyfriend beating the child’s mother.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

JANUARY 11, 2022

It was followed by a systematic campaign of forced adoption into white homes, spearheaded by, among others, the Child Welfare League of America. Foster-care panic is like a fire. But that is exactly what the child welfare “ombudsman” is doing in Maine. It’s not a good idea to add gasoline.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

OCTOBER 8, 2024

This is the text of the NCCPR’s presentation at the 2024 Kempe Center International Virtual Conference: A Call to Action to Change Child Welfare What the cover says How many times have we heard it or read it? Well, it helps if your definition of abuse includes anything that might affect a child’s well-being.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

Haaland, the case challenging the Indian Child Welfare Act is scheduled to begin TODAY (Nov. Another post discusses two stories about “shortages” in Massachusetts “child welfare.” A common misunderstanding is that the leading reason kids are taken into the foster care system is because of physical or sexual abuse.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Dorothy Roberts , who explains: “A promising trend that this lawsuit is part of is recognizing that enforcing parents’ constitutional rights is critical to an approach to child welfare that truly benefits children. But typically, they aim to fix poor conditions for children living in foster care.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

JANUARY 16, 2024

As the research summarized in NCCPR’s new Issue Paper makes clear, this has backfired – creating a massive child welfare surveillance state that scares families away from seeking help, overloads the system with false reports, trivial cases and poverty cases, and leaves workers even less time to find the few children in real danger.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Scoppetta , both state and federal courts told New York family police agencies that no, you are not allowed to tear apart families just because a mother is, herself, a victim of domestic violence. Research shows the trauma of removal in such situations is worse than any trauma that may be caused by witnessing domestic violence.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

DECEMBER 19, 2021

Like the psychiatrist who implied that Mom was to blame for being a victim of domestic violence. (He All of the children were taken away. Two of them were placed with the abusive father. And there is so much more: ? He didn’t literally say “she was asking for it” but he came awfully close.)

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

(Note that you need to register for each separately You can register for the first event here and the second event here.) ● The head of the family police agency in Missouri is bragging that they have reduced foster care. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on what happened next.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

Whenever anyone in state government was asked about the problems in the state’s “child welfare” system they’d give the same stock answer: As soon as the new Department of Social Services was up and running, and took over jobs then done by the Department of Public Welfare, everything would be fine! Katz did something simple.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

It provides astoundingly small amounts of cash or basic goods so children can stay home or return home because, guess what, they were taken, or are now trapped in foster care, because of poverty alone. It’s an excellent program – but why is it just a tiny add-on to a system built on family policing and foster care?

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

SEPTEMBER 19, 2022

I have written before about how mandatory child abuse reporting laws backfire. They overload child welfare systems – or as they should be called, “family policing systems” -- with false reports and cases in which poverty is confused with neglect , stealing time from finding the few children in real danger.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

DECEMBER 22, 2021

The latest to debunk this myth is the ultimate medical and child welfare establishment source: JAMA Pediatrics. From the story: “For the families that we work with, it’s constantly living in a state of fear,” says [Teresa Nord of the Indian Child Welfare Act Law Center]. Although Minnesota is worst, it’s far from alone.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

AUGUST 22, 2023

Kelley Fong asks in a commentary for the Hartford Courant if the head of the state’s family police agency will make sure there’s no foster-care panic. She writes: DCF has expressed a commitment to keeping families together, and has worked, impressively, to decrease foster care caseloads and refer families to community supports.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

DECEMBER 19, 2023

The Imprint also has a story on that new lawsuit that attempts to stop the family police agency in New York City from harassing domestic violence survivors and their families. Another Imprint story looks at recommendations from a foster youth and alumni organization. They want to “decriminalize being in foster care.”

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

JANUARY 2, 2023

People were asked things like whether, as a child, they had witnessed domestic violence, whether they felt no one in their family made them feel important or special or whether they “didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you.” ACEs have become quite the fad.

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All For Kids

FEBRUARY 27, 2025

This article will explore common questions, facts, and figures about this tragic national epidemic, including how education empowers individuals and ways to get involved locally and nationally in the fight against child abuse. What Is Child Abuse Prevention?

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CO4Kids

DECEMBER 6, 2024

Back to Blogs Community Blog Child Welfare Blog Using Evidence-Based Clearinghouses Finding the Right Program for Your Community: Why Reinvent the Wheel? The California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC) , which focuses on programs that enhance family stability and child well-being.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

JANUARY 25, 2022

Family Integrity and Justice Works , the group started by two former top federal child welfare officials, is publishing a quarterly magazine. At long last, it appears America’s racial justice reckoning might be starting to reach child welfare. ? We begin this week not just with one story but with an entire magazine.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

MAY 15, 2023

Because when it comes to advocating for a take-the-child-and-run approach, horror stories are all they’ve got. The actual evidence of the inherent harm of foster care and the high rate of abuse in foster care is so overwhelming, that all they can do is try to distract us with horror stories.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

JANUARY 14, 2024

Instead of a way of targeting horrendous cases of abuse, mandatory reporting metastasized into the foundation of a giant child welfare surveillance state, with disastrous consequences. Among those who suffer most: Children of domestic violence victims. That has made all children less safe.

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Social Work Haven

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

Child Welfare Specialist : Social workers in this role focus on the safety and well-being of children, often within the context of child protective services or foster care systems. TRENDING CONTENT ON SOCIAL WORK HAVEN What is the main role of a social worker?

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

DECEMBER 23, 2021

But whatever the reason, after years of marching in lockstep with the Miami Herald – ignoring wrongful removal and sometimes fomenting foster-care panic -- the Tampa Bay Times has discovered that maybe all those children don’t need to be in foster care after all! Where have I heard that before? ?

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

NOVEMBER 12, 2023

Have a look: The only good news for the family police came from the fact that, apparently, only a minority of respondents agreed with the statement “Overall, the foster care system harms more than helps the children in its care.” There is no mention of seeking to recapture the spirit of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

DECEMBER 26, 2022

Dorothy Roberts’ definitive dissection of racism in family policing: Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World. Some might say the novel depicts a dystopian future child welfare surveillance state. We start with three important books: ● First, Prof.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

DECEMBER 26, 2023

Part one of NCCPR’s news and commentary year in review for 2023 America’s massive child welfare surveillance state was built on horror stories. That’s why we’ve long extended an offer to the fearmongers in the child welfare establishment: a mutual moratorium on using horror stories to "prove” anything. 27 of this year.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

MARCH 14, 2023

Canada has a similarly ugly history when it comes to child welfare and Canada’s First Nations. In San Diego, Arabella McCormack and her sisters were taken from their mother not because she abused them, but because they witnessed domestic violence. They were placed with foster parents who adopted them.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

DECEMBER 1, 2022

But leave it to the Deputy Chief of Staff at DCF to rub salt into the wounds of these grandmothers and so many others, declaring that “It is not solely the fact that the child is in foster care that raises their vulnerability to become a victim of human trafficking — rather the abuse or neglect that led them into state’s care.”

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

OCTOBER 12, 2022

The New York Times recently sought to reassure us that, when it comes to foster children, that problem had been curbed. Interesting things can happen when what used to be a garden party for the “child welfare” establishment starts inviting in some skunks. But, as The Imprint reports, that’s sure not the case in Indiana. ?

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

DECEMBER 14, 2021

The real story of COVID-19 and “child welfare” was not a “pandemic of child abuse” -- that never happened. The state’s child welfare “ombuds” investigated and found that KING got it right. Speaking of dangerous delusions about adoption, check out Prof. Shanta Trivedi’s analysis, in Ms. , NYN Media has that story.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2023

This morning, I gave a presentation with the above title At the Kempe Center International Virtual Conference: A Call to Action to Change Child Welfare Here is the text of that presentation Have you heard? CAPTA creates the modern framework for the current child welfare surveillance state. Nah, just kidding.

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NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

DECEMBER 30, 2024

OVERVIEWS OF FAMILY POLICING FAILURE You hear it from family police agencies (a more accurate term than child welfare agencies) all the time: We never take children because of poverty alone. Fatalities where child abuse or neglect was confirmed have continued to decline through the recent period of fewer foster care removals.

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Child Welfare Monitor

DECEMBER 9, 2024

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 Monitor

JANUARY 13, 2025

was born) for issues including use of heroin, marijuana and alcohol in the home; lack of supervision of the children; domestic violence; an unsafe caregiver living with the family; an unsafe and unclean living environment unsecured guns in the home out-of-control behaviors by B.B.s How did DCYF reduce foster care by nearly 50 percent?

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