NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending February 10, 2026

● The Marshall Project has a stunning expose of the extent to which mothers are harassed at birth – and children torn away during the days they need their mothers most, their first, -- after what often are false positive drug tests or positive tests for substances that are no problem for white, middle-class mothers, such as marijuana gummies. It happens far more often that previously thought.  Some examples from the story: 

In Oklahoma, armed sheriff’s deputies took two children from their parents after the mother tested positive for meth, a false result triggered by an acid reflux medication the hospital had given her during labor, according to court records and her lawyer. In South Carolina, police interrogated a mother after she tested positive for the fentanyl from her epidural, as well as marijuana, according to police records. 

And after a Virginia couple insisted on having an attorney present for a child welfare interview, a police officer threatened them with arrest if they didn’t surrender their newborn. “When we step in, that’s when we start charging people,” the officer told the parents, according to an audio recording of the meeting. “You got about three seconds.” The mother had tested positive for methadone, the medication prescribed to treat her opioid addiction. The parents were forced to leave their newborn in the hospital and police escorted them out, records show.

● As you read this story from USA Today, about a grandmother’s heroic fight for her grandchildren, I hope you will take special note of the role of the so-called guardian ad litem – and what it says about allowing those supposedly looking out for a child’s “best interests” to inflict their own biases. 

●  Oklahoma Watch reports that Oklahoma is the latest state taking first steps toward boosting one of the most effective ways to keep children safe: providing high-quality family defense. Perhaps most notable is the vivid description of what “representation” is like where this program does not exist (and that’s what it’s like in most of the country). 

● The Imprint takes a close look at the decision by the federal Administration for Children and Families to allow the medication used for Medication-assisted treatment of substance use disorder to be funded under the Family First Act. The story also discusses the bias against this treatment among many in the family police community and the harm that’s done to children. But the story has a reminder: What the Trump Administration gives with one hand, it may take away with another. The primary source of federal reimbursement for these medications is Medicaid – and Trump’s budget is expected to cut millions off from Medicaid. 

● Here we go again: Still another study on the benefits of concrete help to families. This one, in JAMA Pediatrics, shows that the availability of universal pre-kindergarten significantly reduces the number of children forced to endure an investigation concerning alleged “neglect.” The results were particularly strong for nonwhite children. 

● In Utah, legislative auditors issued another one of those ScathingReports on a state family police agency. I have a column in the Utah News Dispatch about why this ScathingReport is different: It recognizes that the tragic errors go in all directions. Speaking of which … 

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

● From The Imprint

 A mother whose baby died in a Los Angeles County foster home has been awarded $9 million to settle a lawsuit against the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and one of its social workers. 

According to court records, Erick Lee died in 2022 from severe dehydration in a foster parent’s home where two other children had previously died. Earlier that year, another foster child placed in the home passed away of unknown circumstances, but no autopsy took place. The foster parent’s biological son also died in 2018, as a result of untreated diabetes. 

● From the San Antonio Express News 

A New Braunfels woman was sentenced for 40 years in prison for keeping children in cages and denying them food to the point of malnutrition, Comal County officials say. 

Susan Rae Helton, 53, was convicted of four counts of injuring a child and causing serious bodily injury in an abuse case that involved two of her adopted children, according to the Comal County District Attorney’s Office. 

● And sometimes, as the Associated Press reports, the horror stories go in all directions for the same children: 

A Southern California county and a foster care agency have agreed to a $13.5 million settlement with six children who were placed in an abusive home after being rescued from squalid and abusive conditions in their parents’ home. 

Riverside County will pay $2.25 million to six of the Turpin children, most of whom are now adults, and ChildNet, a care agency, will pay $11.25 million, according to a copy of the settlement.