NCCPR news and commentary round-up update, week ending February 13, 2022

I may not be posting later this week, so here are some quick additions to the news round-up: 

● A couple of weeks ago, I linked to a review of Jessamine Chan’s novel The School for Good Mothers  The reviewer noted the novel’s “closeness to reality.” In fact, current reality isn’t always as bad as what is depicted in the novel – sometimes it’s worse.  If you doubt it, please read this story from Mother Jones.

● Speaking of the present-day normal in family policing, attorney Diane Redleaf, author of They Took the Kids Last Night will be talking to Lenore Skenazy, founder of Let Grow at this webinar on February 17.  The topic: “Someone Called 911 Because My Kids Were Outside!” 

● Family policing systems have a way of co-opting and perverting good ideas.  That’s what they’ve done with the concept of “primary prevention” – turning it into another excuse to load families down with meaningless “counseling” and “parenting education.”  But in this webinar, from the University of Baltimore School of Law, you can see what primary prevention should be all about. 

● When families tried to tell their stories to a committee of the Tennessee Legislature, the Tennessee Tribune reports, the Speaker of the state House of Representatives shut them down.  So when the state family policing agency claimed that 80 percent of foster children are reunified with their parents, there was no one to set the record straight: The real figure is more like 47%. 

● And finally, this isn’t new, but the format is new – and improved: The inaugural issue of Family Integrity and Justice Quarterly, devoted to assessing the harm done to children and families by the so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act, can now be downloaded and printed.