Maureen Lane

We Cannot Ignore The Child Welfare Crisis

Government leaders are talking incessantly about revenue shortfalls, downsizing and cut backs. The economic crisis is dominating media coverage. But we cannot ignore the child welfare crisis. We need bold policy solutions from the new national leadership officially taking charge in Washington next month. The same old politics will not get us to a better place.

There was a little ray of hope in October when President Bush signed into law the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act. The legislation is progressive in several respects. It provides money for grandparents and other relatives caring for foster children; and extends foster care payments up to age 21 for youth who are now aging out of foster care at 18 years old. But child welfare in the U.S. is still a long way from being fair or equitable. The majority of children separated from their parents are from poor minority families. In fact, the racial divide is overwhelming, as many studies show. "Forty-two percent of all children in foster care nationwide are Black, even though Black children constitute only 17 percent of the nation's youth."

And the economic hardship of these children is just as staggering: One in 5 will become homeless, and a third won't graduate from high school.

In September, I attended a gathering of family advocacy organizations. The convocation was sponsored by the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR) and David Tobis, Executive Director of the Child Welfare Fund.
The participants included grassroots organizations of parents from all over the country. Parents whose families have been torn apart by children services agencies driven by harmful policies like the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA).
At the September conference, Bernadette Blount, a parent leader from Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) in NYC spoke about hope. She said that CWOP parents envision a major Agency for Children Services (ACS) system shift from foster care to a family preservation system. CWOP works to establish an ACS focused on the needs of the family, with full knowledge of their neighborhoods, communities and cultures, and respect and compassion for parents and children.

In the past few years, ACS's involuntary removal of children has decreased quite a bit and referrals for preventive services are up. CWOP organizers have made gains in NYC but there is a big distance left to travel both in the city and nationally. If a mother has a domestic violence problem, she can be charged with child neglect even if she is the victim of the violence. A CWOP parent was in this situation and turned her personal struggle into action and organizing and help for others. But parents and grassroots organizations cannot do it alone. Elected officials and political leaders need to act.

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Posted at 6:54 AM, Dec 24, 2008 in Child Welfare
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