NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending December 16, 2025

● You know how family police agency workers often claim they can’t throw children into foster care entirely on their own? Check out this story in The Imprint that makes clear, once and for all: Most of the time, they’re lying. 

● From Courthouse News Service: 

A former University of Minnesota pediatrician filed a federal lawsuit against the university, its associated medical groups and several doctors on Friday, claiming his June 2023 termination was retaliation for exposing a fraudulent scheme to maximize child abuse prosecutions. 

Dr. Bazak Sharon accuses the defendants — including the University of Minnesota’s governing board and child abuse specialist Dr. Nancy Sanders Harper, among others — of civil rights violations and racketeering. 

Sharon, who served at the university for 17 years, says the scheme was intended to maximize the identification and prosecution of child abuse cases to secure funding and increase the prestige of the university’s child abuse fellowship program. 

You can read much more about this case here.

● The Nevada Current is the latest publication to report on children torn from their families because their parents lack adequate housing.  I have a commentary in the Current on their findings. 

● In Lucas County, Ohio (metropolitan Toledo) the family police agency is blaming the federal Family First Act for the fact that residential treatment centers are jacking up rates so the county has to spend more money (because it’s not like you could actually stop dumping all those children into institutions, right)? As I explain in a letter to the Toledo Blade (subscription required) the real problem is the agency’s own lack of guts and imagination. 

In this week’s edition of The Horror Stories Go in All Directions: 

● From the Boston Globe: 

The family of a girl who was repeatedly raped at a Springfield group home when she was 14 years old sued the state Thursday, alleging state agencies failed to protect her from terrible conditions at the facility.

● From the City News Service via Times of San Diego: 

The city and county of San Diego, along with two private entities, have agreed to legal settlements totaling more than $31 million in the death of an 11-year-old Spring Valley girl. The settlements resolve a lawsuit brought on behalf of Arabella McCormack’s two younger sisters. All three girls were allegedly abused by their adoptive parents and grandparents. 

● From KLAS-TV, Las Vegas: 

Mom says daughter was forced to fight another child in Las Vegas group home; state revokes licenses 

The state of Nevada revoked the licenses of four group homes for children and teens after several reports by the 8 News Now Investigators. 

Nevada Health Authority’s Health Care Purchasing and Compliance Division sent notices of revocation to four psychiatric residential treatment facilities operated by Moriah Behavioral Health, also known as Ignite Teen and Eden Treatment, on Dec. 11, citing safety concerns, a lack of cooperation from the business and a lack of compliance with state and federal laws.

NCCPR in the Nevada Current: The real problem is housing. The desperate search for “other reasons” homeless kids wind up in foster care says more about the system than the families

More than 20 years ago, the journal of the Child Welfare League of America devoted an entire issue to the problem of children removed to foster care or trapped there because their families didn’t have adequate housing. The issue noted that three separate studies found that at least 30% of foster children could be home right now if their families had adequate housing. 

A fourth was even more disturbing. If found that child protective caseworkers were, to use one of their own favorite phrases, in denial, concerning the extent of the problem. The study found that workers “may tend to ignore housing as a problem rather than deal with the cognitive dissonance caused by the recognition that they cannot help their clients with this important need.” 

Perhaps that’s why, in the Current’s stories on this issue, while I read comment after comment about how it might be a “filthy house” that may lack heat or air conditioning and may have “toddlers crawling around the floor,” never once was such a comment followed by “so we sent in a cleaning crew” or, “so we bought them an air conditioner.” After all, what would be the point if the “real” problem is mental illness or substance abuse? ...

Read the full column in the Nevada Current

NCCPR in the Toledo Blade: County Children Services won’t do its own heavy lifting

 The increased costs facing Lucas County Children Services are not the fault of a federal law or state stinginess. They’re the fault of the county’s own lack of guts and imagination. ...

Read the full column in the Toledo Blade (subscription required)

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending December 9, 2025

● I’m not sure how to talk about this first item without sounding all clickbaity, but what happened in a New York appellate court late last week really did play out almost like the climactic scene in a Hollywood movie. It was oral argument in the latest in a string of cases concerning the New York City family police agency harassing survivors of domestic violence and their children.  Fortunately, it’s all on video. I have a blog post about the case, with a link to the video.

● New York State’s highest court is sending a similar message. I’ve often written that, in much of the country, families would get about as much “representation” from a cardboard cut-out in a three-piece suit as they get from the overloaded court-appointed lawyers who may meet them for the first time five minutes before the court hearing. That can happen even when it’s a hearing to terminate children’s rights to their parents (a more accurate description of the stakes than “termination of parental rights”). The Imprint reports on a case in which the New York State Court of Appeals said that’s not good enough. 

Perhaps most notably, when a lawyer defending the termination tried to play the bonding card, the court didn’t buy it. From the story: 

“There is no question that it is very important and imperative that these cases be resolved in a speedy fashion,” [Judge] Troutman said during the appeal proceedings. “But we cannot throw the Constitution in the garbage with respect to people’s rights in order to get there.” 

● One hopes the message all these judges are sending will reach all across the nation, or at least across New York, including to Rochester, where, writing in the Rochester Beacon, a mother describes what happened when she fought for a better education for her son, and the school retaliated by calling the family police agency: 

As a Black parent, I do not feel safe asking for the support I need. I fear I will be met with accusations and racialized surveillance. For Jeremiah, he becomes very anxious when asked personal questions—especially from those in authority positions. He fears threats of being removed from his environment. The reality is, we were both traumatized by our interactions with CPS. 

● Study after study keeps showing that, in typical cases, children left in their own homes fare better even than children alleged to be comparably maltreated but placed in foster care.  Most recently, there was that Swedish study showing that, by age 20, the foster children were more than four times more likely to have died. But there’s an even more fundamental question: Why have we allowed foster-care apologists to reverse the burden of proof? My column in The Imprint: Safer Compared to What? Foster care apologists set an incredibly low bar — and still can’t clear it 

● Remember the expose of horrible conditions in residential treatment in Arizona and Kentucky and Tennessee and Indiana and Utah and Iowa and Oklahoma and Rhode Island and Washington State and Arkansas and New York and Connecticut, and Idaho? 

Now, thanks to excellent reporting from The Marshall Project – Cleveland, add Ohio. In the follow-up story, in which various officials shoveling children into the institution tell us how shocked – shocked! -- they are, a spokesperson for metropolitan Cleveland says that now, after all the abuse has been exposed, and they need to find someplace to put all those children, “reunification also is a priority.”

In this week’s edition of The Horror Stories go in All Directions:

In 2003, Dewey Sloan, then the chief juvenile prosecutor in an Iowa county where Native American children were in foster care at a rate seven times higher than the rate for white children told the Des Moines Register, "I don't think there's anything in any of these cases that points to something positive about Indian culture, except the culture of drugs and the culture of poverty and the culture of abuse." 

Five years later, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reports, Sloan’s office got a judge to terminate the rights of a family of Native American children to live with their mother. Here’s what happened next, according to a lawsuit filed by one of the children, now an adult: 

In 2009, when [Mikalla Starr] Winkel was 4 years old, she and two of her siblings were placed in the foster home of Norman and Cammie Winkel of Sioux City – a couple who had no connection to the Santee Sioux Nation or any other Native American community. 

According to the lawsuit, at the time of the foster-home placement Norman Winkel was a former prison inmate who “had an extensive drug-related criminal history with five drug convictions, including a felony for which he received a 25-year prison sentence.” 

In 2010, Winkel was legally adopted by the couple. The lawsuit alleges that while Mikalla lived in the home, Norman Winkel “began to exhibit grooming behaviors toward Mikalla,” and then, as she matured, the “grooming escalated to sexual assault, including fondling, mutual touching, and sexual assault in the foster home.” The alleged sexual abuse “continued for multiple years,” according to the lawsuit.

NCCPR in The Imprint: Safer Compared to What? Foster care apologists set an incredibly low bar — and still can’t clear it

 A recent study in Sweden followed children in more than 21,000 cases of child abuse or neglect allegations. Part of the sample went to foster care, the others were allowed to stay in their homes. 

It found that though the two groups were no worse off to begin with, by age 20, the foster children were more than four times more likely to have died than the children allowed to stay with their families. We’re not talking about a small difference: the study finds that if a child facing the prospect of being taken into care is indeed removed from their home, the risk of dying by the year they turn 20 increases from 1.8% to 8.6%. ...

Read the full column in The Imprint

Child welfare in New York: “Despicable” them.

That’s just one of the choice words appellate court justices applied to the behavior of the New York City family police agency during oral argument last week.

Imagine being 11 years old. You’ve moved with your brother and your mother to a new state to start a new life in a new school. Suddenly, armed sheriff’s deputies are marching through the halls, calling out your name. When they find you, all your new friends can see as they bring you to a semi-public place to interrogate you.  

Now imagine it’s Christmas morning. You’re at home celebrating, family are visiting. Suddenly the armed sheriff’s deputies are back, pounding on the door, loudly calling out that they’re there because there’s a child welfare agency case against your mother.  They demand entry, “observe” you and your brother and search the entire apartment, all in front of the guests. 

Of course, it’s all ok because a “child welfare” agency would only do this when parents are accused of beating or raping children, right?  Well, OK, maybe they’d also do it if parents were accused of starving children, or running a drug lab in a basement, right?  But they’d never, ever inflict so much trauma on children whose parents were accused of doing nothing to them at all – would they? 

Of course they would. It’s the sort of thing that happens all the time. But last week, in a scene that played out like the climax of a courtroom drama, one mid-level appellate court judge pledged that, at last, in one state, in at least one type of case, it will no longer be tolerated. She called the behavior of the agency in question, New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), “despicable.”  

Said Presiding Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels: 

The issue here is that this woman has done nothing wrong, but she's being treated like a criminal, and her children are being retraumatized again and again. That's the issue here, and that's going to be put to a stop! 

You can see it all in the video above of oral argument in the case, known as Matter of Liam M. The argument starts at 2:22:22 in.  If you follow this link  it goes a little past that, to 2:38:00. That's the point where, at long last, an agency which normally is accountable to no one, finally is held to account for what it has done to so many children. 

Lawyers sometimes refer to judges who ask a lot of questions as a “hot bench.” This one was on fire. That requires some explanation. 

The context 

More than 20 years ago, a federal court barred ACS from tearing apart families and throwing children into foster care just because a parent, usually the mother, was herself a survivor of domestic violence. New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, effectively extended that statewide. (NCCPR’s Vice President, Carolyn Kubitschek, was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in that landmark case, which has been cited scores of times across the country in the intervening years.) 

Of course this didn’t stop the practice completely, but it curbed it. But the response from ACS could be summed up as: Oh yeah? Maybe we can’t take the kids, but we can still harass families with endless supervision and surveillance as much as we want! 

Two recent appellate court decisions stopped ACS from doing this at an early stage in the process. To which ACS effectively responded: Oh yeah? Maybe you can stop us early on, but we can still harass families with endless supervision and surveillance at later stages in the case! 

That brings us to the case argued last week. 

The facts of the case 

What might prompt such questioning from the justices? 

Here’s the backstory, as recounted in the brief for the mother, known as Ms. C., submitted by the Family Justice Law Center and the New York University School of Law (quotes in blue) and in oral argument, mostly from the Legal Aid Society, which represented not the mother, but the children (quotes in green). (And, lest there still be any question who really is on the side of protecting children here, they were supported, through amicus briefs, by, among others, Children’s Rights, Lawyers for Children, who do what the name implies, and the National Association of Counsel for Children.) 

The family is from Florida. They moved to New York to be close to the children’s grandmother, who was suffering from cancer. They moved to a New York home that the mother owned with her ex-husband. On one occasion, the ex got violent with her in front of the children. The mother did everything right, immediately calling the police and then getting all the court orders she needed to kick the father out of the house and keep him out. He followed those orders to the letter. 

The father consented to a finding of neglect against him. The mother was never charged with anything, and, indeed, ACS records repeatedly attest to the fact that she took excellent care of the children.  Eventually, she and the children moved back to Florida. So any supposed “threat” from the father was now 1,300 miles away. 

But through it all, ACS repeatedly demanded that the mother and the children be under their surveillance and control, and the Family Court repeatedly rubber-stamped those requests. The only grounds ever given for this surveillance: the father had not yet jumped through all the hoops in his case plan. 

Here’s what this did to the family: 

ACS monitored Ms. C.’s care of her children for more than five months, conducting numerous announced and unannounced searches of her home, from which the respondent father remained judicially barred. Caseworkers searched every room in the apartment during every home search. They even repeatedly inspected inside the refrigerator. 

I keep wondering: Did ACS think the father was hiding in the fridge?  

When ACS said, “Jump!” the family immediately had to say, “How high?” If they weren’t home when the caseworker was at the door, they had to drop everything and race back there – even when they were visiting their grandmother, sick with cancer. 

When the family moved back to Florida, things actually got worse. ACS went high-tech, demanding the right to virtually enter the home at any time and surveil every room (and, yes, the refrigerator again) by video. But that wasn’t enough for them. They recruited armed Florida sheriffs to inspect the family in person, and not just at home. As the children’s lawyer told the court, and the brief explains, one of the children 

was at school with her new schoolmates, and these unformed people with guns come, like, running into the school, calling out her name and saying they're there on behalf of ACS. They take her out of class. They interview her in a quasi-public space. Kids she wanted to be friends with saw. 

She began “shaking and crying with embarrassment and rage” and “yelling at the sheriffs to leave her alone.” 

She was so humiliated and mortified, her mother had to come to school to take her off campus. She couldn't even calm down. She was so upset. 

And after that, it was hard for her to even come back to school. But when she did come back … she started having problems that she had never had before. She started having behavioral problems. She started getting in fights. … 

She's finally doing better now, but it took a while. It took a really long time. 

And then, two months later, this happened: 

On Christmas morning, ACS sent armed sheriffs to Ms. C.’s apartment. In public outside the apartment building, the sheriffs loudly announced that they were there because of a children’s services case against Ms. C. and demanded to see her children. The sheriffs observed Liam and Sari and searched the apartment. Ms. C. had family over for the holiday and testified that the law enforcement search was “humiliating.”… 

Ms. C. felt “constantly threatened” that she would lose her children if she did not comply, a possibility that kept her awake at night. As she explained, “I [felt] like I left one abuser for another. …  ACS use[d] methods of control, including sending sheriffs to my apartment, to remind me that they’re in charge.” 

[The children] felt “watched and controlled” by ACS, and were “embarrassed and frightened” by sheriffs demanding to see them at school and at home … They implored the caseworker directly: “we don’t want to talk to you, don’t call us.” 

Even a family court judge overseeing the case said: 

“[I]t bothers me that ACS reached out to the Florida law enforcement authorities that put [Ms. C.] and her children through . . . these embarrassing ordeals.” 

But the judge let ACS keep on doing it anyway. 

Now, however, some appellate justices are making clear they’re not going to tolerate such “despicable” behavior.

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending December 2, 2025

● Another example of the journalism of child welfare at its best: From CT Mirror:  A project that involved reporting over two years, revealing how the “child welfare” system fails on so many levels and leaves so much heartbreak in its wake. We’re pleased to have NCCPR’s perspective included.

● Having exposed the terrible harm done to children when they are torn from their parents because those families lack adequate housing (and how it’s clear the leadership in the family police agency in Missouri is just fine with that), The Nation turns now to places that are doing better: three counties in Wisconsin.

The story also cuts through the hype about the so-called Family First Act, pointing out that, particularly when it comes to providing families with the concrete help they really need, “Families First Act funding comes with so many strings attached it’s nearly impossible to use.”

● What’s the difference between “Driving While Black” and “Driving While a White Prominent Lobbyist and Former Campaign Policy Advisor to the Governor”? Based on a thoroughly reported story from The Imprint, I have a blog post that answers that question. 

● Yes, again: Another lawsuit against child abuse pediatricians. This time, the IndyStar reports on a case from Indiana. 

● While in Georgia, WXIA-TV reports on child abuse pediatricians resisting reform. 

● And in Psychology Today, a pediatrician with decades of experience reviewing suspected child abuse cases says she has observed 

a troubling pattern: many allegations arise not from actual abuse or neglect, but from misinterpreted childhood injuries or medical conditions. When these events are viewed through socioeconomic bias, parents can experience intense stress, fear, and trauma while navigating everyday challenges and worrying that ordinary accidents might be mistaken for abuse or neglect. 

● In The Imprint, Jessica Castillo writes this about her experience in foster care: 

I was placed in foster care right after turning 12. I was in five foster homes, adopted at 16, and kicked out at 17, resulting in a brief period of homelessness. During my time in foster care, I experienced abuse in all of my placements, the third being the worst. … I remember her telling me and my foster sisters, “You think your social workers will believe you? I’ve been a foster parent for over 20 years, and I’m very good friends with the supervisors at DCFS. If you have a problem with me, they’ll just move you somewhere else, and good riddance.” …  There wasn’t a single day in foster care where I felt peace and safety.

● Massachusetts has a committee to nominate candidates to be the state’s next “Child Advocate.” I’ve posted my statement to the committee, which discusses not only the criteria for the person who should get the job but also the urgent need to restructure the entire office. (And it applies to almost every such office in the country.) 

● There’s still another study out documenting the transformative power of cash in reducing child abuse and neglect, this time from Flint, Michigan. 

● And finally, here’s something I never thought I’d write: Check out the op-ed from the Trump Administration’s highest-ranking child welfare official – in The Daily Signal.  And see also this research report from the America First Policy Institute.  (No, I don’t agree with all of either of these, but a lot seems headed in the right direction.)