NCCPR in the Missouri Independent: Hailey’s story illustrates Missouri’s failure — doing too little to preserve families

The Missouri Children’s Division has accomplished something most of us would have thought impossible: They got all sides in the debate over abortion to agree. 

They agree about Hailey, the young mother profiled in an outstanding story in The Independent. They agree that the behavior of the Children’s Division in surveilling, harassing, traumatizing and sometimes tearing apart Hailey’s loving family was, in the words of State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, “really horrifying.” 

Over and over Hailey’s great-aunt, Jodi Spradley, overcame one obstacle after another to craft a fragile safety net first for Hailey and then for her infant as well.  Over and over the Children’s Division tore that safety net apart. The issue was never abuse, it was poverty – often housing. 

As Kelley Fong, professor and author of the landmark study Investigating Families said: 

“[I]t’s really striking that rather than provide her with what she needs to provide a stable home for mom and baby, the response is just to separate everyone. That is extremely traumatic for the new mom, for the baby, for everyone involved.” 

Yes, it’s horrifying. But here’s something more horrifying: A change in leadership at the Children’s Division means it’s likely to get worse. … 

Read the full column in the Missouri Independent

NCCPR in the Missouri Independent: What Missouri’s vulnerable children need — and what they don’t

Two recent news stories aptly illustrate what Missouri children “at risk” of maltreatment need — and what they don’t. 

What they need is concrete help for their families, so their family poverty is not confused with “neglect” and they are not torn from everyone they know and love and consigned to the chaos of foster care. 

To his great credit, Missouri Republican U.S. Rep. Jason Smith has partnered with Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore to introduce legislation to clarify that a small source of federal aid can be used to provide this kind of help. 

And to his great credit, in supporting the bill, Children’s Division Director Darrell Missey said: …

Read the full commentary in the Missouri Independent

Two new NCCPR op-eds

NCCPR in The Missouri Independent:

Fixing Missouri child welfare: Darrell Missey has it backwards 

In his masterful biography The Power Broker, Robert Caro describes how New York City’s “master builder” Robert Moses, became a master destroyer of communities because of a fundamental misunderstanding. 

Moses thought that if he just blasted enough highways through enough neighborhoods it would end the city’s chronic traffic congestion.  But each time he opened a new highway, in just a few years, traffic would be as bad – or worse. Moses didn’t understand that each new highway was luring more people into cars and out of mass transit. And all that highway spending caused alternatives to atrophy, compounding the problem and making the cycle ever worse. 

Today, the director of the Missouri Children’s Division, Darrell Missey, is making the same sort of mistake. … 

Read the full column in the Missouri Independent. 

And we joined Prof. Shanta Trivedi in this oped for the Baltimore Banner:

Inadequate housing for foster children is only part of the problem

Too many kids are removed from homes because of structural racism, and their families need more support.

The Baltimore Banner has been reporting on how, right now, in Maryland, children in the state’s care are living in hotel rooms and office buildings. We’re told the problem is a “shortfall of placement options” and the fact that group homes have closed. But this framing ignores the actual problem: Maryland doesn’t have too few foster homes, Maryland has too many foster children. We should be horrified not simply by where children are being housed, but also because they are being unnecessarily removed from their families in the first place. 

At a fundamental level, the overwhelming majority of cases are nothing like the horror stories in the news. In Maryland, over 62% of the children in the foster system are there due to neglect. However, in many cases, family poverty is confused with neglect. Nationwide, 30% of America’s foster children could be home right now if their parents just had adequate housing. But the same Maryland governments that are willing to spend the money to house foster youth alone in hotels won’t house families who lack decent housing in hotels in order to keep them together. … 

Read the full column in the Baltimore Banner