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Back to Blogs Community Blog Child Welfare FAQs Regarding Family Detention or Deportation click to Download information in pdf The following information is not legal advice or guidance. What is the states role in overseeing child welfare in Colorado?
The story begins and ends with the story of Maria Toscano and her desperate efforts to schedule a visit with her children in fostercare. It is a symptom of the culture of contempt for families and a lust for child removal that has characterized Massachusetts child welfare for decades. And, in fact, Toscano tried.
States have been hard-put to devise plans for implementing the new services because the bill was designed to fix a problem that did not exist–the alleged absence of child welfare services designed to help families stay together. Sometimes, in order to prevent the need for fostercare, mom and dad might need a little help.
The number of ways family policing agencies (a more accurate term than “child welfare” agencies) can hurt the children they are mandated to protect is limited only by their imagination – and, unfortunately, this is the one area where they show any imagination at all. OCFS theoretically performs oversight.
At last: A group involved in oversight of Maine child welfare that shows a real understanding of the problems. The Maine Child Welfare Advisory Panel (MCWAP) Citizen Review Panel has produced a report with six recommendations. Note that often these programs have the full support of state or local child welfare agencies.
Maine's first child welfare ombudsman, Dean Crocker, understood the lessons from the tragic death of Logan Marr, who was taken when her family poverty was confused with "neglect" and killed in fostercare. For starters, Maine should join the many states in which child welfare court hearings are open.
To read the account on CR’s website you’d think their suit turned a dreadful, failing “child welfare” system into a shining success story. But just four years later, the Tennessee Department of Child Services, their family police agency (a more accurate term than “child welfare” agency) has opened a bunch of new ones. Not anymore.
This is the model that’s proven so successful in New York City – where a comprehensive evaluation found that it reduced time in fostercare with no compromise of safety. Cara, who asked to keep her last name private, said she had already been in touch with a domesticviolence organization about her ex.
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 fostercare. The panic was welcomed by the Times.
New York’s family police agency is still harassing survivors of domesticviolence and their children. In New York, it’s illegal to tear children from their homes and throw them into fostercare just because they “witnessed domesticviolence” – typically a husband or boyfriend beating the child’s mother.
According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, ‘prevention’ is defined as activities that stop an action or behavior or promote a positive one. In many instances of child abuse, there are underlying issues such as domesticviolence, substance abuse, financial instability, and housing insecurity.
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.
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. There was often nothing there, no reason for a kid to be in fostercare," she said. “I
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. The Philadelphia Inquirer tells the stories of some of the survivors.
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 fostercare system is because of physical or sexual abuse.
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? Safety, permanency, well-being.” Let’s start with safety. That failure should surprise no one.
(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 fostercare. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on what happened next.
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 fostercare.
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.
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.
Like the psychiatrist who implied that Mom was to blame for being a victim of domesticviolence. (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.)
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 domesticviolence. Research shows the trauma of removal in such situations is worse than any trauma that may be caused by witnessing domesticviolence.
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 fostercare, 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 fostercare?
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. I have written before about how mandatory child abuse reporting laws backfire. This too is backed up by research.
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 fostercare caseloads and refer families to community supports.
The Imprint also has a story on that new lawsuit that attempts to stop the family police agency in New York City from harassing domesticviolence survivors and their families. Another Imprint story looks at recommendations from a foster youth and alumni organization. They want to “decriminalize being in fostercare.”
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.
People were asked things like whether, as a child, they had witnessed domesticviolence, 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.
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.
The actual evidence of the inherent harm of fostercare and the high rate of abuse in fostercare is so overwhelming, that all they can do is try to distract us with horror stories. The mother says Arabella was taken because she’s witnessed domesticviolence, a tragically common reason for wrongful removal.
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 domesticviolence victims. That has made all children less safe.
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 fostercare systems. Therapist : Clinical social workers provide therapy to individuals, couples, and families, addressing mental health and emotional challenges.
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 fostercare after all! Where have I heard that before? ?
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 fostercare 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.
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.
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 domesticviolence. They were placed with foster parents who adopted them.
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. .
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 fostercare that raises their vulnerability to become a victim of human trafficking — rather the abuse or neglect that led them into state’s care.”
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. ?
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. ?
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. Thats why this post to the NCCPR Child Welfare Blog is called All the failures of family policing in a single case - and it's not an unusual case.
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? In Mississippi, it's when a child is "without proper care, custody, supervision, or support." Poverty is confused with neglect!
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.
was born) for issues including use of heroin, marijuana and alcohol in the home; lack of supervision of the children; domesticviolence; 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 fostercare by nearly 50 percent?
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