NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending May 20, 2025

It isn't just Pittsburgh. New York City also has an algorithm 
that slaps an invisible "scarlet number" on some children it 
deems at "high risk" for abuse or neglect.

● We all know about the predictive analytics child welfare algorithm in Pittsburgh – the one that independent investigators have found to be biased and the Justice Department reportedly is investigating. But largely under the radar, New York City’s family police agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, has been doing something similar, using an algorithm to take families already under scrutiny and decide which get an extra measure of oppressive surveillance. Now it’s been exposed by The Markup. 

Among the findings: 

“Using poor or biased proxies can lead to the wrong resource allocations, cause harm to families, and perpetuate systemic biases and disproportionality,” a technical audit of the system by the agency obtained by The Markup acknowledges. The internal audit found that the data used by ACS to train the algorithm likely included at least “some implicit and systemic biases” baked in, as some families are investigated at disproportionate rates. 

The report still concluded that the system more accurately predicted which past cases ended in harm than criteria the agency had chosen in the past …   

But, the story notes: 

Only a tiny number of cases lead to a child being severely harmed, meaning the algorithm’s predictions about hundreds of cases “are more likely to be incorrect than correct,” according to ACS’ internal audit. 

And while ACS isn’t dumb enough to say out loud that race is a risk factor, a report obtained by The Markup says the algorithm uses 

“variables that may act as partial proxies for race (e.g., geography)” to make its decisions, including a family’s county (or borough), zoning area, and community district.  

Families on this extra-black blacklist are never told they were flagged by an algorithm, much less why.  One young mother suspects she’s getting extra scrutiny because she grew up in foster care herself: 

“They target you from the minute you step out of foster care,” Hamblin said. “They have this microscope on you, and for them to build a case based off your prior records of you being in care—it’s not right. It’s like I never had a chance to really feel freedom. Like I’ve been under their watch since birth and I’m still under their watch.”

 ● Last week, the New York Daily News published a commentary from NCCPR about what’s happened in the decades since the News exposed the predations of New York City’s private foster care agencies. This week, Nora McCarthy, director of the New York City Family Policy Project, writes about what needs to happen now, and one of the authors of the original series, Stewart Ain, sums up what they found. That’s a useful reminder at a time when all over the country these agencies are seeking either taxpayer bailouts or virtual immunity from lawsuits by the children harmed while in agencies’ “care.” 

● UCLA Blueprint looks at the “rebel child” among the 900+ Court-Appointed Special Advocates programs in the United States. It’s the one in Los Angeles led by Charity Chandler-Cole, a child welfare abolitionist with lived experience. We’re going to need more data to be sure, but the very nature of who was made uncomfortable by Chandler-Cole is a good sign. From the story: 

Some volunteers and board members told her that her approach was scaring people. Some quit. One said she was triggered every time the new CEO used the words “social justice” or “racial justice.” 

But see this post concerning all the other CASA programs. 

● In Rhode Island, a state that tears apart families at a rate more than double the national average when rates of child poverty are factored in, the head of a foster care agency wrote about the urgent need to provide more support – to foster parents, because there’s a “shortage.” She portrayed foster parents as saviors, rescuing children who, until they came along, couldn’t sleep through the night, never heard laughter and were never listened to. As I noted in a response in the Rhode Island Current: 

[T]here also are many other foster children who cry through the night desperate to return to the parents they loved – and laughed with – and who desperately love them back; children who, even years after being reunited may dive under the bed or try to hide in the closet whenever there is a loud knock on the door for fear that they will be taken again; children taken because that family’s poverty was confused with neglect … 

A lot of that could be solved if birth parents simply got the kinds of generous support Rhode Island foster parents already receive from the state.

● In Iowa, which year after year tears apart families at one of the highest rates in the country, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that the state has settled a class-action lawsuit demanding improved mental health services for children eligible for Medicaid. The suit was brought by Disability Rights Iowa, the National Health Law Program and Children’s Rights. What sets it apart from other such suits is that this suit is not limited to children in foster care – it applies to any child eligible for Medicaid, including children who might be placed in foster care for lack of such services. The settlement emphasizes “essential home and community-based mental health services and supports” – not institutionalization. 

● The Washington Informer reports on the fourth annual Black Mothers March on the White House. Several mothers told heartbreaking stories of children who, in many cases, will never be allowed to live with them again. (Scroll down to the second story in the link.) 

● The Imprint has compiled a state-by-state guide to policies concerning the prescribing of psychiatric medication to foster children.  This is, of course, a guide to what’s on paper; it may or may not reflect what really happens. 

In this week’s edition of The Horror Stories Go in All Directions: 

● From The Imprint: 

A longtime California pediatrician has surrendered his medical license after facing more than two decades of accusations that he sexually abused his patients, foster youth and boys in his home. 

The development in the case of Dr. Patrick Clyne, 63, settled drawn-out legal proceedings with the state Attorney General’s office, which was set to lay out its evidence to bar him from the exam room in a matter of weeks. … Clyne has long maintained his innocence and has never been criminally charged or arrested. … A separate civil case before the Santa Clara County Superior Court is scheduled to go to trial next month.