Comments on: Vulnerability and hope for foster children http://povertyblog.net/2009/07/17/vulnerability-and-hope-for-foster-children/ understanding trends and what to do about them Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:17:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Richard Wexler http://povertyblog.net/2009/07/17/vulnerability-and-hope-for-foster-children/#comment-168 Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:55:03 +0000 http://povertyblog.net/?p=588#comment-168 The two terms that make up the name of this Blog, “poverty” and “inequality” are almost synonymous with America’s child welfare system. While some children really are brutally abused and must be taken from their parents, far more common are cases in which family poverty itself is confused with “neglect.” Many more cases fall on a broad continuum between the extremes. And racial inequality permeates American child welfare – with Black children far more likely to be reported as abused, substantiated, and torn from everyone they know and love.

The take-the-child-and-run approach which Bill describes still dominates American child welfare, as it has for more than 150 years. The key figure to look at is entries into care. Though that finally has begun to decline just a little, a turnaround in a couple of large states probably accounts for most of it.

And systems remain vulnerable to foster-care panics, huge surges in child removals in the wake of high-profile child abuse tragedies – a point made well by Andrew Bridge in this op ed column in The New York Times: http://bit.ly/GDexl

It will take more than more services to change this. They’re going have to be the right kinds of services – emphasizing concrete help to deal with poverty. And, as important as concrete help for impoverished families is due process for those families, something utterly lacking in the closed, secret world of America’s juvenile and family courts.

Richard Wexler
Executive Director
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
Alexandria VA
http://www.nccpr.org

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