(And if you’re not in New York City, take no comfort from that; your system almost certainly is worse.)
As in most places, when COVID-19
struck, the child welfare system in New York City revealed its true priorities.
The order was issued on March 15,
effective two days later: The juggernaut of pro-forma
Family Court hearings to rubber-stamp removals of children by the City’s
Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) – hearings that often occur after
the removal takes place and usually without a parent, much less a parent’s
lawyer, present – would continue. But the
hearings that are supposed to happen a few days later – the first real chance
for children to get their parents back – were postponed, along with almost everything
else.
Now, those hearings are very slowly
resuming, via videoconference. So now we
have statistics showing just how much children are being hurt by these skewed
priorities.
The
Center for New York City Affairs reports that from March 26 through April 9
there were initial hearings seeking reunification in cases involving only 37 children. Parents challenged the removal in cases involving
19 of those children. And in cases
involving 10 of those 19 the judge said, in effect, that ACS screwed up. The
judge sent the children back home, much the worse for the experience and, of
course, at greater danger of contracting COVID-19 due
to the very process of removal itself.
So this means that, at a minimum,
ACS inflicted foster care and all the attendant trauma on children needlessly
more than 25 percent of the time. That’s not some fluke related to the
pandemic. The 25-percent-ordered-returned rate is consistent
with ACS’ track record even before COVID-19. The real figure almost certainly is higher. That’s
because we don’t know how many parents simply were unable to challenge removals
– and because it is extremely difficult to get a court to rule against ACS only
a few days into a case.
So now let’s think about all the
removals in New York City where there have been no hearings – because the court
was only holding hearings to take away children not to return them home. Odds
are, at least 25 percent of those children should have been returned home,
too. But some of them continue to
languish in foster care, and will stay trapped there until the courts get
around to them.
And what about the rest of the
country? Most court systems have displayed the same skewed priorities – in
spite of federal guidance urging that hearings continue. And most of the country is even quicker –
sometimes vastly quicker – to tear apart families than New York City.
It is terrifying to contemplate how
much wrongful removal – and needless exposure of children to the risk of
coronavirus - is taking place in, say, Philadelphia, which takes away children
at the highest rate of America’s biggest cities, and where the
child welfare agency is lying about another key element of federal
guidance.
And it’s terrifying to think of
what is happening to children in states like Montana, Wyoming Vermont
and West Virginia; states that, year after year, tear apart families at among
the highest rates in the nation, even when rates of family poverty are factored
in.
All across America, how many
children have they needlessly traumatized by removal to foster care – and needlessly
exposed to COVID-19 – thanks to the failures of child welfare systems and
courts? And why aren’t more journalists asking
about it?
