● A volunteer in
the Los Angeles Court-Appointed Special Advocates program said she was
“triggered” when the program director used the words “social justice” or
“racial justice.” This particular CASA
director used those terms more than most. Instead of deciding the problem was
with the volunteer, they … well, it’s CASA, so I’m sure you can guess. The Imprint has a story
and I have a blog post about it.
● When you take
away children at a rate 60% above the national average, you have to start begging
for beds, and beggars can’t be choosers. So over and over and over, you turn a
blind eye to what’s really happening in the places where you put all those
children. The Boston Globe exposes some of the
terrible consequences.
● Missouri only
tears apart families at a rate 50% above the national average – but the new
head of their family police agency is aiming higher. I have a blog post
about how Sara Smith of the Missouri Children’s Division is turning up the
spigot on the foster-care-to-prison pipeline.
● Of course, no
matter how many times journalists expose abuse in group homes and institutions,
someone will always bring up Boys Town.
After all, Boys Town is wonderful, isn’t it? So it must be OK to
institutionalize children, right? So I’m
glad I stumbled across this stunning 2023 series from the Des Moines Register
that I’d missed at the time.
● Yet again, scandal
surrounds the work of a “child abuse pediatrician.” This time, ProPublica reports,
even another doctor who dared challenge her allegedly faced retaliation. There’s
a harrowing recording of a crucial meeting. And in this case, a 2014 foster-care
panic, fueled by the Minnesota Star-Tribune, may have played an indirect
role.
● Fortunately, more
recent reporting by the Star-Tribune that seemed aimed at starting another
panic failed, and the state is taking small steps in the right direction, such
as the initiative discussed in this story from The Imprint.
● “I remember the
case of a 6-year-old boy whose teacher called child protective services because
he had missed school one too many times,” writes Mathangi Swaminathan in The 74.
No one asked
why. If they had, they would’ve heard about the eviction notice taped to the
front door, the backpack still stuffed from the rushed move, the air mattress
where he now slept curled beside his baby sister. His parents were working two
jobs each, leaving at dawn and returning long after bedtime, doing everything
they could to keep food on the table and a roof overhead.
He wasn’t
unsafe. He wasn’t unloved. He was just missing too many days of school: seven,
to be exact, the unexcused limit. And that was enough to trigger an
investigation.
● There are several
states in which, if you are torn from the arms of your parents as a child, you
are almost certainly never going home. I have a blog post
about the state with the worst record – Virginia – and a follow-up about some
of the others.
● In the Michigan Advance, I have a column about that state, which, also has a particularly dismal record.
● In Washington
State, whether it’s a state agency that won’t help or a tribal agency that can’t,
Native American children wind up forced into foster care at disproportionate
rates. KUOW Public Radio reports
on the consequences.
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