● In a brave and
important tweet thread Amy Mulzer, an appellate family defender in New York
City, writes about being a parent in an age of constant surveillance by child
protective services agencies. Some excerpts:
Rationally, I know
that I have all the privilege in the world, and that what happens to my clients
is incredibly unlikely to happen to me. But
despite that, I am so anxious and feel so watched and judged after seeing
everything that happens to my clients and the judgment they receive from
workers, judges, attorneys, and foster parents, that I am having a hard time
holding the line on what I know is right for my kid.
And what that leads me
to is this: Imagine what it is like to parent in this city as a low income parent
of color who IS in fact likely to have ACS called on them if someone doesn’t
agree with their actions or circumstances? Imagine having to run everything
through that filter? …
The funny thing is
that it would ABSOLUTELY be better for my son if I did not know the worst case
scenario. I would be a better, more confident parent that way. And, similarly,
so would many others.
● Among the worst failings of the child welfare system is
when it punishes the children of battered mothers by taking them away and
charging the mothers with “failure to protect.”
But in Oklahoma it
can be even worse.
● The execrable HBO documentary Foster presented the Disney version of how people in the Los
Angeles County child welfare system do their jobs. In this column, a caseworker for the L.A.
Department of Child and Family Services offers
a reality check.
● In
this NCCPR Child Welfare Blog post, I offer a word of advice to those
writing puff piece op-eds about the joys of residential treatment: You probably
shouldn’t cite a for-profit company that was the subject of exposes concerning
allegations of widespread abuse at one of its institutions – and abuse
allegations plus a riot at another.
● Though New York City has gotten most of the attention,
Washington State also has embraced high-quality family defense. This story
looks at both.
● The Minneapolis
Star-Tribune interviews
family defender Diane Redleaf about her work helping families who want to
let their children have normal childhoods fight child protective services
agencies.
● There is an increasing realization that the failings of
the child welfare system have a lot in common with the failings of the criminal
justice system. So it’s worth looking again at
this 2018 column from Chris Gottlieb, co-director of the Family Defense
Clinic at New York University School of Law.
