Some good, bad and ugly in new federal “child welfare” data

The federal government has released state-by-state data for the number of children taken from their parents in FFY 2021 (yes, they always run about a year late).  And NCCPR has updated our rate-of-removal index. 

The big national takeaway is that these data – once again – refute the racist myth about COVID-19 and “child welfare.”  You remember, right?  All those dire predictions that when overwhelmingly middle-class, disproportionately white “mandated reporters” no longer had their  “eyes” constantly on children who are neither, those children’s parents would unleash upon them a “pandemic of child abuse.”  

Notwithstanding research showing that didn’t happen, the myth morphed in 2021 into this: As soon as schools reopened and overwhelmingly middle-class, disproportionately white “mandated reporters” once again had their “eyes” constantly on children who are neither, a vast amount of hidden child abuse would be revealed and entries into foster care would surge. 

The new data provide even more evidence that this didn’t happen.  Nationwide, entries into foster care declined by five percent.  That’s because, of course, there was no hidden pandemic of child abuse; on the contrary, government cash assistance and mutual aid efforts reduced poverty so there was less poverty to confuse with neglect. 

Some outliers 

But some states, notably states that always have been fanatical about tearing apart families, didn’t get the message. 

Missouri.  This is a state where the head of the family policing agency, known as the Children’s Division, effectively admitted massively violating federal law by failing to make “reasonable efforts” to keep families together.  The failure shows.  The number of children torn from their parents in Missouri increased by five percent.  In 2021 Missouri tore apart families at nearly double the national average and the 10th highest rate in the country – even when rates of child poverty are factored in. 

Kansas.  Even Missouri looks good compared to Kansas.  In Kansas, entries into foster care also increased by five percent – but Kansas was worse than Missouri to begin with.  Kansas tears apart families at the seventh highest rate in America, more than double the national average.  And that may be an underestimate, because of how that state uses a loophole in federal reporting requirements (or simply violates those requirements) to avoid reporting many short-term placements. 

Iowa. This state shows what happens when those masters of “health terrorism” at Prevent Child Abuse America dominate the debate.  PCAA’s Iowa chapter has been the “Godsource” for journalists in that state for decades.  (You can read about Prevent Child Abuse Iowa’s recent behavior in NCCPR’s publication on reputation laundering in “child welfare.”) So it’s no wonder Iowa tears apart families at a rate nearly as high as Missouri – and the number of children torn from their families soared by 11%. 

And, by the way, all three states have records of racial disparity as bad or worse than the national average.  

The Philadelphia DHS Pyramid of Bulls**t

Fortunately, it’s no match for the Bar Graph of Reality:

For full details on time periods, methodology and sources
 see the NCCPR Big City Rate-of-Removal Index

  

The Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS) is the Kellyanne Conway of child welfare. 

Under the leadership of Commissioner Cynthia Figueroa, the agency has developed a fondness for  “alternative facts” – desperately spinning data (and recent history) in the hope that no one will notice the simple truth: Year after year after year, Philadelphia tears apart families at either the highest or the second highest rate among America’s biggest cities, even when rates of family poverty are factored in.  (Come to think of it, justifying the needless removal of children is something else Conway and Philadelphia DHS have in common.)

Yes, the most recent data show that, due to a slight decrease in removals in Philadelphia, and a big increase in Phoenix, Philadelphia is again in second place among the ten largest cities. Narrowed down to the five largest, Philadelphia is still #1. And what is consistent year after year is that these two metropolitan areas – Phoenix and Philadelphia -- consistently tear apart families at rates far above all the others.

Recently, I discovered that DHS had outdone itself, when I found something toward the end of the department’s most recent Quarterly Indicators Report.  It wasn’t entirely a surprise. Ever since Philadelphia journalists caught on to the city’s extreme outlier status, DHS has been in full alternative facts mode.  As I explained in a blog post in February:

Here’s what DHS is claiming, according to a tweet from the agency: “Last year of 19,325 families reported, 3.8% had children removed due to safety.”  In a tweet of her own, Figueroa claimed that “Philadelphia’s removal rate is inline with the National average and other big cities.”

What’s new is the visual.  Call it, the DHS Pyramid of Bullshit.  It looks like one of those classic “food pyramids” but it’s designed to reinforce the false impression left by the tweets. Here’s why the operative word is bullshit:

The basic number DHS doesn’t want you to know

For starters, nowhere in the pyramid does DHS ever tell us the actual number of times children are taken from their parents in Philadelphia each year.  So here’s the actual number for federal fiscal year 2018:

2,718

In fact, I have not been able to find the number of entries into foster care anywhere on the DHS website.  The figure is easy to find for every other community in the top ten – even for Phoenix.

How do we know the 2,718 figure is correct? Because every state and locality has to report entries into foster care to the federal government. And, though it takes awhile, the federal government makes these totals public.  That’s how Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children pulls together data for every county in Pennsylvania.  You’ll find the figure for Philadelphia in this report at the bottom of page 2.

So why won’t DHS even provide this one basic number?  Why won’t the agency tell the press and the public something as basic as “How many times a year are children taken from their parents in Philadelphia?” 

The answer, of course, is that the real number is so embarrassing – it shows how vastly out-of-line Philadelphia is with every other big city except Phoenix.

So instead, the Pyramid of Bullshit includes only the claim that children were removed from 739 families in City Fiscal Year 2018.  But even that makes no sense, since that would mean taking an average of nearly four children per family.  So some data seem to be missing.

Compared to what?

The other problem concerns what measure is used to compare the number of children removed from their homes.  The logical choice is to compare it to something objective.  So one should either compare entries to the number of children or the number of impoverished children in each community. 

With its fondness for "alternative facts," 
and its willingness to justify needlessly 
separating families, Philadelphia DHS is the
Kellyanne Conway of child welfare agencies
(Photo by Gage Skidmore)

When you actually do that, you get the Bar Graph of Reality that appears at the top of this post comparing entries into care to the number of impoverished children in each of the five largest cities.  You’ll find another Bar Graph of Reality for all ten big cities at the end of this post.  They show that Philadelphia is nowhere near “inline” with either the national average or other big cities – except Phoenix.

We think factoring in poverty is the fairer method, but in our NCCPR Big City Rate-of-Removal Index, we do both.  (For the record, if you don’t factor in poverty, Philadelphia is even worse, #1 in child removal instead of #2.) The Index also provides links to sources for all data.

But a key part of the DHS Kellyanne Conway act is to avoid using anything truly objective for comparison. So instead she offers the number of families reported as alleged child abusers and the number of families investigated.

But that figure is itself easily manipulated.  If, as Cynthia Figueroa reportedly does, you urge people to just use their “intuition” and report anything and everything and if, as Cynthia Figueroa seems to believe, every sports injury might be abuse and therefore should be reported, and if, every few years, as it is prone to do, the Pennsylvania Legislature passes a spate of new laws demanding an that ever more people report their intuition, then the number of reports and investigations will artificially increase.

In contrast, DHS can’t manipulate the number of children living in Philadelphia or the number living in poverty (though if DHS really wanted to curb child abuse and neglect, reducing the latter number would be a great way to start.)  So the logical comparison is the number of times children are thrown into foster care compared to the number of children living in poverty.

That’s reality.  The only way to change that reality is for Philadelphia DHS to stop needlessly harming so many children by consigning them to the chaos of foster care. 

And Philadelphia DHS could do it, too. If only what passes for leadership there would devote as much creativity to alleviating poverty and curbing needless removal as it did to crafting its Pyramid of Bullshit.

For more details about methodology see this earlier post.

For full details on time periods, methodology and sources see the
NCCPR Big City Rate-of-Removal Index

Foster care in Nebraska: Signs of real progress – but the rate of removal in North Platte is insane

For years, NCCPR, along with outstanding state advocates like the Family Advocacy Movement in Omaha, have been sending one message to the child welfare establishment in Nebraska: The state must get its obscene rate of tearing apart families under control.

Now it looks like the message is getting through.


UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 12:  Thomas Pristow, Director of the Division of Children and Family Services in the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, has written to NCCPR to explain the discrepancy discussed in the August 24 update below.  He says Nebraska gave the same figures to the federal government and to the voluntary database.  But, he says the Nebraska "Court Improvement Project" asked   the organization maintaining the voluntary database to adjust the figures to remove children placed in foster care through the state agency dealing with juvenile delinquency.  Pristow does not explain why the Court Improvement Project made this request.  The Supreme Court Commission on Children in the Court, a key part of the Court Improvement Project, includes three places for top officials of DHHS.  

Unfortunately, Pristow did not mention any of this when he first wrote to NCCPR on July 6 to take umbrage at even the slightest suggestion that his agency might have fudged the figures.  Indeed, Pristow did not investigate the discrepancy until after we pointed it out in the update below.

UPDATE, AUGUST 24, 2012: It now appears that the message has not been getting through to the extent that I'd hoped.  In the post below, I warned that the state might be fudging the figures.  That appears to be what happened.


The source for the data on which this post is based is a set of figures Nebraska reported to a voluntary database.  The federal government has a separate database.  States are required to report entries into care to this database, and there are specific rules for what constitutes an entry into care.  

The federal Department of Health and Human Services has just released figures from that database for the year ending September 30, 2011 – the same time period discussed in this index.  The figures are available here. 

Nebraska reported a much higher figure for the total number of children removed from their homes to this database: 3,151.  In contrast, Nebraska reported only 2,540 entries to the voluntary database.  

So the statewide figure in the NCCPR Nebraska Rate of Removal Index should be considered invalid.  However, the index still probably gives an accurate indication of how counties in Nebraska compare to each other.  In other words, if the state fudged the figures, the state probably fudged those figures the same way in every county.

Today NCCPR releases its Nebraska Rate of Removal Index, which compares rates of child removal for the Nebraska counties that include more than three-quarters of the children removed from their homes.

These are new data, not yet released by the federal government, for the year ending Sept. 30, 2011.  The key findings:

● If the data are accurate (that is, if the state Department of Health and Human Services did not fudge the figures) Nebraska reduced the number of children torn from their parents by 25 percent over the previous year, an important and impressive change in direction.

● However, even with this decline, Nebraska still is taking away children at a rate that is among the highest in America.

● There are significant variations within the state.  The rate of removal in Lincoln County (North Platte) is insane – nearly double the state average.  In fact, the rate of removal in Lincoln County is so high that, were this county its own state, it would have, by far, the highest rate of removal of any state in America.

● Scotts Bluff County, Madison County, and Lancaster County (City of Lincoln) also are alarmingly high, even by Nebraska standards.

● This jibes with what the Family Advocacy Movement has been hearing anecdotally about the behavior of DHHS, the courts, and law enforcement in these counties. 

● None of the measured counties in Nebraska is as low or lower than the national average.

● The data show no correlation between high rates of removal and improved child safety – as measured by the key outcomes used by the federal government.  These data also are available in the NCCPR Nebraska Rate-of-Removal Index.

The full press release, and the full Rate-of-Removal Index, which includes links to the raw data from which it is compiled, are available at the Nebraska Resources Page at www.nccpr.org