Wednesday, January 29, 2020

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending January 28, 2020


● Two big stories illustrate the enormous harm wrought by our mad rush to enact “mandatory reporting” laws more than half a century ago.  One, from Rise, illustrates how these laws can devastate entire poor communities.  The other, from NBC News, includes this revelation: Five doctors at a prestigious hospital in Wisconsin are so afraid of false allegations – from their own “child abuse pediatrician” colleagues -- that they fear taking their own children to their own hospital.  I discuss both stories, with links to both in this blog post.

● The Associated Press reports on still another study documenting the harm of foster care.

● Child welfare has its own creation myth – and it’s dead wrong. The real story is much more interesting, and teaches profound lessons.  I wrote about it for Youth Today.  Here’s a spoiler: Mary Ellen Wilson was a foster child.

● A member of the Board of Supervisors in Yolo County, California, is beginning to worry about the foster-care panic in that county. Here’s his column in the Davis (Calif.) Vanguard.  And here’s some context.

● In Los Angeles County the police department is wisely refusing to do duplicate child abuse investigations concerning allegations of “emotional abuse.” The L.A. Sheriff’s office doesn’t understand that you can’t fight emotional abuse by inflicting emotional abuse.  I have a blog post about it.

● Speaking of emotional abuse, consider the lead anecdote in this column from Vivek Sankaran in the Chronicle of Social Change.