● Two very good pieces of children’s rights legislation
passed the New York State Legislature last week.
One bill, discussed
in this story, would provide modest reforms to New York State’s Central
Registry of alleged child abusers. It
also would raise the standard for a caseworker deciding to “substantiate” a
case from one of the lowest in the nation to the same absurdly low standard in
most states.
The other bill puts children’s rights ahead of the
convenience of foster and adoptive parents.
It’s the topic of this
post to this blog.
● ProPublica Illinois has an outstanding story about how,
for decades, the Illinois child welfare agency has violated a consent decree
that requires only what should be a basic human right: that children and
families get services – and placement settings – where people speak their own
language. I have a
blog post about the story, with a link to the full story.
● The headline isn’t great, but
this story, from Stateline, is a
very good examination of how some states are curbing the worst form of
substitute “care” – group homes and institutions (something the group home
industry insists just can’t be done). Of
course it helps that most of the states cited have made significant strides in
reducing the number of children needlessly taken away in the first place.
● A Texas family with a medically-fragile child files a complaint
against a hospital about the child’s medical care. The hospital promises to respond within 45
days. The response comes on day 46 – but
it’s not from the hospital, not directly anyway. As
a Texas television station reports, the hospital contacted CPS which showed
up to take the child on the spot.
● And I
have a blog post on how the latest evaluation of Pittsburgh’s
vastly-overhyped child welfare predictive analytics algorithm misses a crucial
point when it comes to how to reduce racial bias in the system.
