NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending May 19, 2026

● The big news this week, and some of the biggest in years, is the release of a study showing that it is possible to estimate the number of children who will suffer severe illness and even die prematurely because they were needlessly torn from everyone they know and love during a foster-care panic. The authors have applied their formula to what is now, proportionately, the worst such panic in decades, the one in Santa Clara County, California. I have a blog post about it. 

● Last week, I highlighted the latest in a long line of studies showing the transformative power of cash in child welfare. This week MLive examines the program that was the subject of the study, Rx Kids. 

Here’s how their story begins: 

Ni’esha Wright didn’t feel comfortable raising her son in the Kalamazoo residence she was living in when she got pregnant last year. Thanks to Rx Kids, she didn’t have to. The 31-year-old qualified for a $1,500 “lifesaver” payment that helped cover her moving costs and the deposit on a new, safer place to call home. 

Subsequent $500 monthly checks were also “hugely helpful” for affording essentials like a crib, clothing, and diapers for her son, Shiloh. 

“That first year is extremely expensive,” Wright said. “This money helps cover those costs and it’s a way to jumpstart savings for him for larger expenses down the road.”

● What’s the opposite of a program that treats impoverished mothers as fully human and knows that what they need is a helping hand? How about a program that subjects more than 16,000 mothers to slipshod drug testing and actually calls itself “Motherrisk”? It wasn’t some fly-by-night operation, either. It was run out of one of Canada’s most prestigious hospitals. In Filter magazine, a mother whose family was victimized by Motherisk writes that all these years later, the trauma continues. And even those who exposed the testing flaws are missing the point: 

A 2018 review largely focused on “fixing” flawed testing methods and oversight. But by framing the problem as a technical failure, we avoided a harder conversation about the deep-seated biases—the moral judgments about drug use and parenting—that made this junk science so easy to believe in the first place. 

● And speaking of ludicrous policies concerning drug use and child welfare, last year New Mexico’s governor ordered the state family police agency to seek to confiscate at birth children born to mothers who test positive for certain substances, without any assessment of the risk to the individual child or consideration of alternatives. Now the ACLU of New Mexico and two courageous State Legislators are asking the State Supreme Court to overturn the governor’s order. 

As the ACLU’s press release explains: 

“We all want what is best for New Mexico’s children, and our laws aim to prioritize child well-being while also preserving family unity,” said Deanna Warren, staff attorney at the ACLU of New Mexico. “There will be times when parents are not in a position to provide the care their infants need, but a decision to remove a newborn from their mother should not be determined by a blanket policy. Instead, it should be made through an individualized assessment of the particular circumstances of each child. The right to due process of law requires that every family be treated as an individual family unit –– not treated as a category. New Mexico children deserve the chance to grow up with the people who love them and for decisions made about their wellbeing to be grounded in law, medicine, and their actual circumstances." 

The directive causes the very harm it purports to prevent. Stigma and criminalization drive families away from care — parents may avoid prenatal appointments, travel out of state to give birth, or conceal their health history from providers, leaving both mother and child worse off.

● Last week, I highlighted a story from Indiana about a foster mother, portrayed in the story as a living saint, who, according to the story, fell in love with a foster child – until she found out the state wouldn’t subsidize the baby’s child care. This week, USA Today shows us what love really looks like in child welfare – and not surprisingly, it involves exactly what the child welfare establishment has been denigrating for decades: blood ties. 

● Want to hear everything you never knew you wanted to know about the intricacies of how family policing is paid for and how the incentives are all wrong? I’m glad to oblige on this edition of the Torn podcast. 

● KUOW Pubic Radio reports on the lawsuit brought by Children’s Rights documenting how the Washington State family police agency fails to protect immigrant foster children. What’s particularly disturbing in this story is the callous indifference revealed by the comments of the head of that agency. 

● The comments are all the more disturbing in light of this New York Times story on how perilous life is for immigrant children now. The story notes that 

[M]ore than 100,000 children have been separated from their parents during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. And roughly three-quarters of those children … are likely U.S. citizens, according to estimates from the Brookings Institution that were shared with The New York Times. 

● The Deseret News reports on a bill introduced in Congress that would make it harder for family police agencies to confuse reasonable childhood independence with neglect. 

● In a story on the fifth annual Black Mothers March on the White House to protest family policing, The AFRO quotes Maleeka “MJ” Jihad, a former foster child, whose consulting firm works to “empower and guide those navigating the complexities of the child welfare and criminal justice systems.” Says Ms. Jihad: 

“When a child tells a counselor they’re hungry, the counselor quickly assumes that means the parents are neglecting them, and while that may be the case, more often it means the family just can’t afford to pay the bills. CPS uses that information to break up the family and separate the children. Children like me feel we’re to blame and that feeling not only scars us, but often leads us down a path of spiraling, negative emotions and actions.” 

● The New Hampshire Bulletin reports that New Hampshire lawmakers have approved a bill that would impose penalties for malicious false child abuse reports. But New Hampshire still allows anonymous reports, making the new legislation largely pointless. 

● The Alaska Beacon reports that state lawmakers have passed a series of bills intended to curb needless prolonged stays – and abuse – in “residential treatment.” Some of those bills may be marginally useful.  How marginal? One bill included a requirement that state inspectors check on the conditions of the children while checking on the conditions of facilities. If they found abuse, they would have to notify, among others, parents or guardians. That provision was removed. 

But most important, Alaska tears apart families at what is, by far, one of the highest rates in the nation – more than triple the national average.  As long as that continues, the state will remain dependent on institutionalizing children. The reason we have abuse in group homes and institutions is because we have group homes and institutions. 

In this week’s reminder that The Horror Stories go in All Directions: 

● From the This Should Surprise Nobody file, this from the Columbus Dispatch: 

Abuse and neglect, painful restraints, bullying and intimidation plague youth residential treatment facilities across the state, according to Disability Rights Ohio. 

Unfortunately, DRO’s recommendations to deal with these problems are pathetic. 

● Also from the This Should Surprise Nobody file, this from the Baltimore Sun: 

A 16-year-old foster child placed at Silver Oak Academy has been missing for more than nine days, according to sources familiar with the case and public records obtained by Spotlight on Maryland, deepening scrutiny of a privately operated juvenile facility already facing calls for closure from local law enforcement, lawmakers, former staff and residents. 

Carroll County Sheriff Jim DeWees said the latest disappearance is not an isolated incident, but part of what he described as a growing pattern of instability and danger at the rural campus, which has generated more than 100 emergency calls since January 2025. 

● And we end back in Santa Clara County: From The Imprint: 

Calling their case a “profound institutional betrayal,” seven former California foster youth have sued a pediatrician and Santa Clara County child welfare officials for sexual abuse they say they suffered nearly two decades ago. 

Identified only by their initials, the plaintiffs accuse Dr. Patrick Clyne, former foster parent and chief pediatrician for the county’s foster care system, of inappropriately touching and penetrating their genitals during medical exams. 

Oh, and by the way: This happened not when the county was emphasizing family preservation but when it was tearing apart far more children than it is taking even now.