By now I hope everyone concerned about child welfare has
read the brilliant New York Times
story “Foster Care as Punishment: The New Reality of ‘Jane
Crow.’” The story is filled with searing accounts of children harmed
by needless removal from their parents, largely because those parents are poor.
As you think about the story please also think about this:
The child welfare system in New York City actually is better than most. There
has been a careful, steady decline in the number of children taken from their
families – with no compromise of safety. In fact, in recent years, child safety
has improved. (Full details are in our
report on New York City child welfare.)
The decline is interrupted every few years by a foster-care
panic; there is one going on in New York City right
now. But even with the panic, New York City is likely to continue to take
away children at a lower rate than most states and most big cities.
NCCPR compares the propensity of states, and of big cities,
to take children from their homes by comparing entries into care to the number
of impoverished children in the jurisdiction.
So consider this:
● Children in Los Angeles are more than twice as likely to
endure the kinds of tragedies inflicted on New York City children – L.A. tears apart families at more than
double the rate of New York City.
● In Philadelphia these tragedies are three times as likely
to occur as in New York City. That’s
also true in the state of Oregon.
● Arizona? Four times as likely.
● In South Dakota, where appalling bias in child welfare was
exposed by NPR? Also four times as likely.
Same with Nebraska. North Dakota
is even worse.
● Iowa? Five times as likely. Same with Indiana.
● Among the more amazing, and obnoxious responses to the
Times story was a
tweet from a bastion of unoriginal thinking known as the Center for
Advanced Studies in Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota. The tweet referred to how the Times story described “The New York City
practice of foster care as punishment” as though this were some isolated
practice limited to the big city that would never be countenanced in wholesome,
progressive Minnesota. But the rate of child removal in Minnesota
is more than six times the rate of New York City.
● The only time people in Minnesota should brag is when
comparing their state to Alaska or Vermont
- where the rate of removal is about eight times the rate of New York
City.
So the real question for child welfare officials in these
states and many more is: When are you going to do something about your Jane
Crow foster care systems?
