NCCPR in The Imprint: We Don’t Need ASFA to Shorten Foster Care Stays

Although it took longer than in many other aspects of American life, the racial justice reckoning finally may be having an effect on child welfare. As America is forced to take a new look at other draconian, racially biased laws of the 1990s – the “crime bill” and a law to “end welfare as we know it” – there now are calls to repeal the so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act. ASFA targeted the same population, poor people of color (recall the hysteria over "crack babies") through a series of steps to encourage removal of their children and rush to keep them from their parents forever. 

But some of those who might support repeal are made nervous by a single data point: the average length of stay in foster care. I’ll address why I believe that hesitation is based on a faulty premise and discuss ways to reduce the length of stay in foster care, without hurting children as ASFA does. But first we need to review why it should be repealed.

Read the full column here.

Massachusetts Mandated Reporting Commission: Your guide to what I’ll bet the Commission chair LEAST wants you to hear and read

 

Photo by Jimmy Emerson

On April 27, I posted about the Massachusetts Mandated Reporter Commission.  Pushed, prodded, led and, I would argue, misled, by the Commission chair, state “Child Advocate” Maria Mossaides, the Commission spent nearly two years drafting recommendations almost all of which would expand mandated reporting and make the system more oppressive. As a sort of special bonus recommendation, Mossaides came up with a proposal that would make it even easier to confuse poverty with “neglect.” 

The Commissioners meant well, but, thanks to Mossaides, it appears they only heard one side of the story – until, at last, the Commission held public hearings.  Commission members said they were “shocked” “surprised” and “taken aback” when almost all of the speakers opposed their recommendations and warned of the dangers of further expanding the child welfare surveillance state. 

Now you can read and hear (though not see) for yourself. 

Nearly two weeks after the second hearing, the Commission has posted audio of the hearings.  There is no explanation for the lack of video.  The audio format makes it harder to follow and much harder to search to find particular witnesses. 

Ideally, of course, everyone would listen to all four hours and read all 53 written submissions. But since that is unlikely (I have not read all the written submissions myself yet) here is a handy guide to the parts of the hearing I’ll bet Mossaides least wants you to know about. 

AUDIO: 

FIRST HEARING, HOUR 2, starting at 13:37: Western Massachusetts Attorney Michelle Lucier, who represents both children and parents in child welfare cases threw out her prepared remarks to speak from the heart about the horrible and widespread practice of the state Department of Children and Families tearing children from the arms of domestic violence victims.  Note especially toward the end, at about 23 minutes in, when she speaks passionately of the foster children taken in such cases who call her begging to go back home. 

SECOND HEARING, HOUR 1, starting at 12:00: Prof. Dorothy Roberts of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law (and a member of the NCCPR Board of Directors) author of Shattered Bonds: The Colorof Child Welfare, the definitive book on child welfare and race. 

SECOND HEARING, HOUR 1, Starting at 17:00: Dr. Benjamin Levi of Penn State University.  Dr. Levi actually has created a training program for mandated reporters.  Later in the hour, I spoke to take issue with some of his remarks.  But Levi decried the Massachusetts commission recommendations and the typical approach to mandated reporter training, saying at one point: 

I think it is unethical to encourage reports of any and all concerns that a child’s needs are not being met. Systems work by having standards. “When it doubt, report” is not a standard, it’s an invitation for things to go badly; for serious collateral damage despite best of intentions because the very experience of being assessed can be devastating to families already hanging on by a thread. 

SECOND HEARING, HOUR 2, starting right at the beginning at 0:22.  Fortunately one of the most powerful presentations is among the easiest to find, right at the start of the hour: Zoe Russell, a student attorney at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and head of their family practice area. 

WRITTEN TESTIMONY: 

Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence “The proposals encourage overreporting and will increase rather than decrease risks to survivors of sexual and domestic violence and their children.” 

Prof. Kelley Fong, who has done crucial, in-depth research on mandatory reporting.  Her statement includes powerful first-person accounts from families she interviewed. 

Dr. Mical Raz, who literally wrote the book on the problems of mandatory reporting, and how we got into this mess. 

The League of Women Voters. Yes, even they’re against the Commission recommendations. 

And, of course, the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. 

Some might argue I'm biased because I'm highlighting only testimony from people who opposed the Commission.  But while, as I said, I haven’t read all of the written statements, when it comes to the public hearings almost every witness opposed the recommendations. 

So if you’ve got four hours to spare …

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending April 27, 2021

● What’s worse than taking candy from a baby? How about child welfare agencies stealing money that rightfully belongs to foster children.  Not only is it perfectly legal, in past years the Child Welfare League of America and the Children’s Defense Fund opposed efforts to make it illegal.  NPR and The Marshall Project expose the practice.  Now, some in Congress are trying again. This time, will CWLA and CDF side with the kids – or the thieves? 

● The York Daily Record takes a careful, comprehensive look at Philadelphia child welfare – and what they found applies just as well to almost any child welfare system. 

● “The moment you come into contact with child welfare, you’re like 11:59 of the doomsday clock,” J. Khadijah Abdurahman writes in a Twitter thread linking the police shooting of a foster child, Ma'Khia Bryant, to the system that put her in foster care. 

● A commission in Massachusetts spent nearly two years drafting proposals to make it even easier for force “contact with child welfare” on children by expanding mandatory reporting laws.  But when the commission finally held public hearings, some commission members were “shocked” “surprised” and “taken aback” by the massive opposition to those proposals.  I have a blog post about why some members of the commission are having second thoughts. 

● The so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act harms children in so many ways.  In this commentary, the Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School examines just one: The harm that ASFA’s rush to terminate children’s rights to their parents (a more accurate term than termination of parental rights) does to children of incarcerated parents.  As the authors explain: 

Though ASFA purports to protect children, the U.S. Children’s Bureau found that it sacrifices permanent relationships ––something youth need to thrive–– for the uncertain possibility of adoption. 

● This commentary is less important for what it says than who is saying it: A prominent member of the American Academy of Pediatrics.  For a long time, they’ve been part of the problem. Does this mean they’re ready to be part of the solution? 

● Robert Latham of University of Miami’s Children and Youth Law Clinic discusses Florida child welfare on The Imprint’s podcast.  Starting at 38:10 he discusses his findings about child abuse and COVID-19.  And at the very end he notes that in Florida, a state which has run wild (my words, not his) in terms of encouraging if not demanding people be out and about and meet in person, the State Supreme Court made one huge exception: cutting off visits between parents and their children in foster care. 

● Also on an Imprint podcast, Molly McGrath Tierney reflects on what’s happened since 2014, when she gave a landmark Ted-X talk on foster care.  I recommend watching the Ted-X talk first – it’s on the NCCPR home page.  In the podcast, I particularly like the part at 11:47 where Tierney reveals the secret of how to get kids out of group homes and institutions.  And later she also has a warning.  We’re in a time of rare progress in child welfare, but it’s fragile. Says Tierney: “Don’t think you can turn away for a second.”

Some members of the Massachusetts Mandated Reporter Commission are asking very good questions. Here’s what the Commission chair didn’t tell them.

Nearly two years into their work, Commission members speak of being "shocked," "surprised" and "taken aback" by what they heard at public hearings.

The Mandated Reporter Commission will make recommendations 
to the Massachusetts Legislature

When a commission in Massachusetts charged with studying the state’s laws regarding mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect and making recommendations to the State Legislature announced that, nearly two years into the process, it would, at last, hold virtual public hearings, I almost decided not to bother testifying. 

The whole effort looked like a stacked-deck process from the start; the hearings looked like a pro-forma exercise before the Commission did what it wanted to do in the first place: further expand a failed system of mandated reporting and, while they were at it, make it even easier to confuse poverty with neglect. 

But it looks like I may owe some members of the commission an apology. I certainly hope so. 

For starters, the hearings were nothing like what the commission members expected.  Somewhere between 30 and 35 people testified.  Only one supported the commission’s draft proposals.  And the dozens of opponents weren’t just those you might expect.  

There were national experts, such as Prof. Dorothy Roberts, who literally wrote the book on child welfare and race, Dr. Mical Raz, who literally wrote the book on the failure of mandatory reporting, and Prof. Kelley Fong, whose research demonstrates why mandatory reporting backfires.  (Many, many more scholars, including former proponents of mandatory reporting, have changed their minds, as NCCPR documented in our written testimony.) But it didn’t stop there.  When it came to the Commission’s draft proposals: 

● The foster parent who testified opposed them.

● The adoptive parent who testified opposed them.

● The former DCF social worker who testified opposed them.

● Even the speaker from the League of Women Voters opposed them. 

The Commission holds a meeting 

On Monday, the commission held a virtual meeting to discuss what they heard.  Words that kept coming up included “shocked. “surprised” and “taken aback.”  And at least one member of the Commission, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan, wondered if the commission has been on the wrong track all along.  Said Ryan: 

I spent a lot of years thinking that [mandated reporting] gets us to a better place; I’m disheartened to hear maybe it really doesn’t - and even if it does, perception is reality.  A lot of well-credentialed, well-meaning experts think this doesn’t work. I don’t know how we’re going to get any legitimacy about finetuning the process if a significant number think the process doesn’t work anyway. … I was taken aback to hear so much of that conversation. 

Finding out if we critics are right, Ryan said, “Should be job 1.” 

It should have been job 1 from day 1.  But the Commission proceeded for nearly two years without even knowing about such concerns.  That’s not the fault of Ryan or the others who expressed surprise Monday.  I’ll get to why I think that happened below.  But Ryan was so concerned she floated the idea of the Commission shifting its entire focus from increasing reporting to bolstering prevention. 

Another commissioner, Nina Marchese, director of the Office of Approved Special Education Schools, was “shocked” by a recurring theme at the first hearing: The state Department of Children and Families (DCF) tears children from the arms of mothers whose only crime is to be victims of domestic violence themselves.  This is a common practice across the country – and so incredibly harmful to children that in one state it’s illegal. 

The Commission staffer conducting the meeting and the representative from DCF immediately tried to spin the issue and claim that really, they would almost never do such a thing.  Domestic violence survivors in Massachusetts and their lawyers made clear during the hearings that, in fact, they do.  And as a result, domestic violence victims are afraid to come forward and get help. One of those lawyers spoke of the children in such cases, calling her and crying because they weren’t allowed to go home from foster care. 

But what is shocking is that, again, after all this time, a member of the commission would be shocked to learn this problem even exists. 

The commission representative from the state Attorney General’s office, Angela Brooks, also expressed some skepticism about the thrust of much of the Commission’s work so far. During one of the hearings, she acknowledged another failing: a lack of diversity among the Commission members. 

How things reached this point 

The key to understanding how the commission could go so long and wind up surprised and shocked about so much can be found in the fact that it is chaired by the director of the state’s Office of Child Advocate (OCA), Maria Mossaides, and staffed by her office. 

In recent years, there has been no advocate or public official in Massachusetts more fanatical about expanding the child welfare surveillance state and taking away children than Mossaides.  That is typical of state Child Advocates or “ombudspersons.”  That’s not because Mossaides wants to hurt children – she wants to help them.  But her efforts have backfired. 

Mossaides’ office zeroes in on the most extreme cases, the ones called horror stories because they are so horrible – and so rare.  Then she issues Scathingreports (that’s how they’re always labeled in the news accounts so we might as well make it one word) that effectively call for making the coercive parts of the system bigger.  

The problem is not that she focuses on the horror stories – they demand and deserve attention. The problem is that this leaves the impression that the only error DCF makes is to leave children in dangerous homes.  Such reports contribute to foster care panics  - sharp sudden spikes in removals of children from their homes -- that further overload the system. Workers then have less time to prevent the next tragedy. After the tragedy Mossaides issues another Scathingreport and the cycle begins anew. 

Even a casual observer can see that Mossaides dominates the Commission.  At Monday’s meeting, she probably spoke more than the rest of the commissioners combined.  So it’s worth looking in detail at some of the ways Mossaides’ office stacked the deck – and is still trying to do so. Here’s a partial list. 

Are some witnesses more equal than others?  At one point, commission staff (which, again, is also OCA staff) mentioned that while yes, almost every witness at the public hearings opposed the commission’s recommendations, other speakers they’d heard from favored the current system of mandatory reporting.  Where did those speakers come from? 

Apparently, these were specially invited speakers, who got to speak to the Commission early on.  Did anyone who might challenge Mossaides’ view of the system get an invitation? Doesn’t seem that way. 

Who summarizes the testimony?  The Commission promises to make public all 53 written testimony submissions as well as video of the public hearings.  (Though considering the last hearing was on April 17, it’s hard to see why it’s taking this long just to post a couple of Zoom videos.) [UPDATE, APRIL 30: The written testimony is now available, but so far only audio of the hearings themselves, making them harder both to follow and to search.  So I've posted a guide to how to find the parts I think Mossaides least wants you to hear and read] That’s a lot of material for the commissioners to digest.  So a commission/OCA staff person will prepare a digest.   

The staffer in question ran the hearings with consummate fairness and professionalism. I’m sure she will make the same effort when summarizing the testimony.  Nevertheless, my question to the prosecutors on the commission is this: Would you decide whether to charge someone or what kind of sentence to recommend to a judge based solely on a summary of the case prepared by the accused’s lawyer?  It’s a lot to ask, given the amount of material you have to look at, but please don’t rely on OCA’s version of what people who disagree with OCA have to say. 

Misrepresenting the nature of neglect.  This one is straight from the playbook used by all of those who want to justify the current massive child welfare surveillance state: Using the few neglect cases that are, in fact, horror stories to represent a giant category that is, mostly, poverty cases.  Thus Mossaides said: 

From OCA experience, the neglect cases that we see result in very serious emotional and physical injury to children. … it’s not Twinkies for breakfast or school without a winter coat. Neglect cases that we see are far more serious. [Emphasis added.] 

But, Ms. Mossaides, you don’t see a typical cross-section of cases – you focus on the most horrible cases.  If you really wanted to know what DCF does in typical cases, you would do what your former counterpart in New Jersey, Kevin Ryan did when he was that state’s child advocate in 2005.  Not only did he look at a random sample of cases, he made sure the casereading would be objective by having the cases read by two groups with opposite views of the extent to which the state should intervene in families. 

Even DCF’s own annual report makes clear that the neglect cases OCA sees are rare
exceptions.  Of all the reports alleging neglect – a total of 63,101, 16 were fatalities.  Another 1,121 involved a substantiated allegation of a substance-exposed newborn – and contrary to the fearmongering from the foster care establishment, not every such case by a longshot involves a parent endangering her child. (See below.) The remainder, 14,345 cases, are labeled simply as “neglect.” 

In denial about foster-care panic.  When it comes to tearing apart families, even in normal times, Massachusetts is an extreme outlier when it comes to tearing apart families.  The state removes children at a rate 60% above the national average when entries into care are compared to the number of impoverished children in each state.  Foster-care panics make things even worse.  But Mossaides claimed that a huge spike in removals of children had nothing to do with high-profile deaths in 2014 and 2015 making workers scared to leave children in their own homes.  No, said Mossaides, it was not a foster-care panic, rather, she claimed, it was entirely due to the opioid epidemic.  The data show otherwise: 

● The giant spike in entries into care in Massachusetts occurred in 2014.  The opioid epidemic had started the year before – and got much worse in later years, even as entries into foster care in Massachusetts were going back down to their usual obscene rate. 

● The fact that DCF caseworkers were checking a substance abuse box on a form is not the same as substance abuse always being the actual reason for removal.  It could be anything from a wrong guess by a caseworker, to a false positive drug test, to a mom smoking pot to ease the pain of labor or keep food down during pregnancy, to a mom taking legally-prescribed medicine as part of treatment for substance use.  (And DCF seems to have a particular obsession about marijuana.) 

● Not all substance use is cause for removal.  But even in the best of times, agencies such as DCF often act as though it is.  During a foster-care panic, workers are that much more likely to conclude that a case involving alleged substance abuse requires removing the child from the home – even when there are better alternatives. 

The “family resource centers” will take care of it.  Mossaides tried to sell the Commission on the idea that DCF was really just a kindly, helping agency and that a veritable cornucopia of “preventive services” is available to families.  She repeatedly cited DCF Family Resource Centers (FRCs).  But there’s a huge catch: The people who run and work at those centers are mandated reporters.  Mossaides said they rarely actually call DCF.  But every parent who asks for help must fear that s/he is the one who will be turned into DCF and her family’s life turned into a nightmare.  Prof. Fong, who testified at one of the hearings, discussed how her research found that as a result, families who need help are afraid to seek it out.  

So if the Commission is serious about a new focus on prevention, step one is to exempt workers in FRCs, and all other preventive programs from mandated reporting laws.  That would not mean they were prohibited from reporting if they genuinely thought it was best for a child. But it means they would be able to exercise their professional judgment and training – and not fear prosecution and a fine if they exercise that judgment and don’t report.  (And, by the way, the Commission is considering recommending much larger fines.) 

In addition, preventive services programs should be taken away from DCF entirely and run by community-based organizations. 

Misrepresenting opponents. Of course, Mossaides invoked horror stories.  In doing so, she misrepresented what witnesses said at the hearing.  Mossaides said: “I’m always worried if we abolish the 51a system, [51a is the term used for a report of alleged abuse or neglect in Massachusetts] what happens to all those children who are injured – intentionally abused, the 8% to 9% who are victims of sexual abuse?” 

While I would be glad to discuss abolition at some future date, none of the witnesses said that the system should be abolished.  They didn’t even say all child abuse reporting should be abolished.  Most didn’t even say all mandatory reporting should be abolished – though I did.  Rather witnesses said that, at a minimum, Massachusetts should stop expanding a failed system.  

And it is that ever-expanding ever more oppressive system Mossaides wants to further expand that not only hasn’t stopped the horror stories, it’s made them more likely by overloading caseworkers with false reports and poverty cases.  

It’s not 15%, it’s more like 3%

This did not come from Mossaides, but a number got into the atmosphere at the meeting that is not quite correct. 

It was suggested, simply as a hypothetical, that 15% of cases involved things that no one would doubt required coercive intervention and removal of children  - physical and sexual abuse.  But that figure appears to be based on the percentage of reports that are screened in and then “substantiated” – a term that means only that a caseworker checked a box on a form saying it was slightly more likely than not that abuse occurred.  

But since the Mandated Reporter Commission is looking at whether to encourage reports alleging child abuse, the real question is, of all such reports to child abuse hotlines, what percentage are ultimately deemed by caseworkers to involve actual physical and sexual abuse.  Nationwide, it’s not 15% - it’s more like 3%. (See p.4 of NCCPR’s written testimony to the commission.)  It’s almost exactly the same in Massachusetts.  That doesn’t make those cases any less horrible, and it doesn’t make the need to try to stop them any less urgent.  But understanding that 97 times out of 100 the call is a false report or a neglect case is crucial to understanding why deluging DCF with more such reports only makes it harder to find children in real danger. 

What about the middle-ground cases? 

Ryan, the District Attorney, raised another important question: There are cases on the far ends of the continuum where everyone can agree: A proportion that never should have been brought into the system and a proportion where not just intervening but removing the child immediately was the right call.  But, she asked, what about the in-between cases? 

Apparently, Mossaides didn’t tell the Commission about the landmark studies done by Prof. Joseph Doyle of exactly those sorts of cases.  He found that even when families were not offered any extra measure of help, the children left in their own homes in such cases fared better in later life than comparably-maltreated children placed in foster care.  Prof. Doyle is right nearby at MIT.  I’m guessing he wasn’t one of the people invited to address the Commission. 

First, hit the brake

 

And that brings me to something else that Nina Marchese, who was shocked about DCF taking children from battered mothers, said during the meeting. She expressed some frustration that while one witness after another told the commission what not to do – namely most of what it is considering recommending – we didn’t explain what to do instead. 

But think of it this way: Imagine there is a bridge out ahead and a car is careening toward the cliff at 90 miles an hour.  The commission is like that car.  We had only about three minutes each to testify – just enough time to yell: Hit the brake!!! Hit the brake!!! 

People like Dr. Raz, Prof. Roberts, Prof. Fong and so many others have so many ideas for how to rebuild a better bridge.  NCCPR has a few as well.  I’m sure they are as eager as I to discuss them with anyone on the Commission who might be interested. 

But please: First, hit the brake.’s a lot to ask, but please don’t rely on OCA’s version of what people who disagree with OCA have to say.

News and commentary round-up, week ending April 20, 2021

● Another outstanding story from Rise: Two cases in which children suffer accidental injuries.  In one case the city family policing agency, the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), tries to take the child away.  Writing for rise, the mother in that case, Imani Worthy, compares her situation to another mother: 

Around the same time, there was a story in the news about a white actress, Jenny Mollen. She had dropped her son and he fractured his skull. She talked openly about how hard it was for her as a mother and that she was so thankful for the hospital staff. They didn’t question her motives.

 Our babies were both hurt unintentionally – but we were treated very differently. …

 Her words were not twisted and used against her. In fact, she wrote about her woes and received so much sympathy. I did not. I couldn’t focus only on how devastating it was for my child to be hurt and to lose my mother. I also had to worry about ACS.

 ● Most child welfare organizations have responded to the national demand for racial justice by slapping some kind of Black Lives Matter statement on their website and hoping the whole thing will blow over. The Associated Press reports on one organization, aptly described as an “unlikely voice,” that might be ready to do more. 

● Once again, Eli Hager of The Marshall Project tells the real story of COVID-19 and child welfare.  The story is called These Parents Had to Bond With Their Babies Over Zoom — or Lose Them Forever.

 ● By an overwhelming margin, the Washington State Legislature has passed a bill to narrow the state’s neglect law to make it harder to confuse poverty with neglect.  The message does not seem to have reached the state family policing agency, however. 

--That agency just settled with the U.S. Department of Justice over widespread discrimination against parents who are deaf or hard of hearing.  According to the Justice Department: 

DOJ found evidence that on more than 100 occasions between 2017 and 2019, the Child Welfare Program failed to provide appropriate auxiliary aids or services, including qualified sign language interpreters, for the complainant families.  The communications included high stakes interviews during investigations regarding the possible termination of parental rights and during court-ordered treatments and counseling required for reunification with children. 

--And The Imprint reports on the sickening maneuvers undertaken by that same agency – with the connivance of a Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) program, of course – to tear a Black child from loving relatives and place him with white strangers for adoption.  Even though they failed, the Washington State Supreme Court apparently is sufficiently concerned about what was done to this Black child and his family to hear an appeal of the original decision to remove the child.

● In Minnesota, a state long an extreme outlier when it comes to tearing apart families, family advocates are not willing to settle for the usual boilerplate-b.s.-filled “preventive services” plan. As The Imprint reports, they’re demanding a plan that will “address one of Minnesota’s most glaring child welfare issues: racial disproportionality.” 

● I have more about the injustice inflicted on children by the fifth wheel of the child welfare system in Missouri, and on the harm of mandatory child abuse reporting laws in this blog post.

● And, finally, I believe that CASA isn’t just racially biased (see Washington State item above for only the latest example) – the bias is built into the model. The program also is a well-documented failure in almost every respect.  I believe CASA is unfixable.  But if there’s one person who could prove me wrong it’s Charity Chandler-Cole.  Guess who’s just been named to run the CASA program in Los Angeles. This is going to be interesting to watch.

Justice by geography, and more evidence that mandatory reporting backfires: Notes about Missouri and Massachusetts.

Photo by Tori Rector

Missouri: Justice by geography 

The story, from a Springfield, Missouri, television station is typical fearmongering, parroting the discredited, and yes, racist line about COVID-19 and child abuse.  It begins: 

Child experts [sic] feared it at the start of the pandemic. Greene County has seen staggering numbers of kids going into foster care. Experts say there is a range of issues and there are signs of abuse everyone should know. 

But later in the story we learn this: 

The Missouri Children’s Division reports a very small jump in the number of children who entered foster care in 2020, less than a half of a percent. … Greene County had a 44% increase. 

So, is Greene County a cesspool of depravity with vastly more child abuse than the rest of the state?  Has COVID-19 mysteriously set off a pandemic of child abuse in Springfield while somehow skipping over St. Louis, Kansas City and Joplin? Seems unlikely. 

Rather it’s a continuation of a disturbing pattern.  

Way back in 2003, when NCCPR released its report on Missouri child welfare, we noted that Greene County was an extreme outlier, with the proportion of children in foster care nearly double the state average, even though the child poverty rate was actually below the state average.  We focused on Greene County in part because that’s where a little boy named Dominic James was taken needlessly from his parents, only to die in foster care. 

What the story from that Springfield television station really illustrates is what Judge Darrell Missey termed “justice by geography,” when he was a Juvenile Court Judge in Jefferson County.  And a major reason is the existence of the Juvenile Office, the fifth wheel of the Missouri family policing system, which corrupts the very nature of juvenile court in Missouri. 

In his outstanding 2013 law review article on why the Juvenile Office does so much harm (and, by the way, also is unconstitutional), Prof. Josh Gupta Kagan quotes Judge Missey at length – an essay within an essay – on pp. 37 and 38.  I hope everyone will read it, especially in Missouri: I will highlight just one sentence, in which Judge Missey describes what he saw before becoming a judge: 

In ten years of practicing in that Court, I never saw the Juvenile Office lose a case, hearing, motion, or even an objection. 

There are two possible lessons here. One is: The Juvenile Office has achieved perfection!  Just eliminate the judges and everyone else altogether and let them do what they want.  

There is, however, another possible conclusion … 

Massachusetts: More evidence that mandatory reporting backfires

 I have written before about the failure of mandatory child abuse reporting laws. I’ve cited research showing that they deter families from seeking help and so overload the system with false reports that workers have less time to find children in real danger. 

At a hearing of a commission “studying” the issue in Massachusetts (they’re not really studying mandatory reporting, mostly they’re looking for excuses to expand it) Dr. Mical Raz, who literally wrote the book on this topic, pointed out a new study, which includes this: 

Whereas most policy or practice changes [by legislatures or family policing agencies] resulted in increased reports, most changes served to decrease the number of substantiations. 

In some cases that is to be expected.  For example, in most states all that it takes to “substantiate” an allegation of abuse or, far more often, so-called “neglect,” is for a caseworker to check a box on a form saying s/he thinks it’s slightly more likely than not that the abuse or “neglect” occurred and was caused by the accused.  There is no impartial hearing of any kind beforehand. Caseworkers sometimes proclaim they base these decisions on “intuition” or “gut feeling” or, in Massachusetts “vibe.” 

When the standard of proof is raised slightly – though it’s still just a caseworker’s assessment – both reports and substantiation go down. 

But the researchers found something else they said was “unexpected” – though I can’t imagine why anyone who knows how the system really works would be surprised: 

Sixteen states (32%) made changes to the scope of maltreatment, such as adding new categories of maltreatment or requiring certain populations be referred or investigated; the most common change was to add infants born with positive drug screens. Broadening the scope of maltreatment was associated with increased reports (5%), as expected, providing empirical evidence that these policy changes do indeed widen the reach of child welfare involvement. However, broadening the scope was also associated with decreased substantiated reports, which was unexpected, given that these policy changes were also intended to expand the range of what defined substantiated maltreatment. It could be that broadening the scope of maltreatment may increase the number of reports for lower-risk families that are ultimately unsubstantiated. [Emphasis added.] 

Ya think?

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending April 14, 2021

 ● Remember all that fearmongering about COVID-19 leading to a “pandemic of child abuse”?  (Of course you do, since even after several national news organizations challenged it, the fearmongering kept right on going.)  Remember the dire predictions of a vast surge in child abuse reports when all those battered and bruised children came limping back to class and their horrified teachers saw what their evil parents had done to them?  

A study from New York City finds that it didn’t happen.  When the family police had to step back, mutual aid networks stepped up. That prompted me to check one of the states that has been most fanatical about forcing schools to reopen: Florida.  It didn’t happen there, either.  I have a blog post about it, with a link to the full study. 

● When I saw the headline I thought this story from a television station in Connecticut was going to be the usual fearmongering.  On the contrary, a spokesman for the state child welfare agency had a very different take on the decline in reports alleging abuse and neglect: 

“What did we find during the pandemic and what are we still finding now? Families are incredibly resilient. Communities are the best form of support for families,” [DCF spokesman Ken] Mysogland said. 

Many of these families need housing, food or broadband internet service.  “What children and families need are those concrete and tangible supports. Versus surveillance by a government agency,” Mysogland said. 

● If only a school in Michigan had turned to a mutual aid network when a struggling father was only able to get his children to school 75 percent of the time, compared to a countywide average of 85 percent.  Instead, they called the family police – who tore away the children.  They even managed to get the courts to terminate the children’s rights to their parents (a more accurate term than termination of parental rights).  The Michigan Supreme Court had to step in to reverse the termination. 

A child welfare appellate clinic run by Prof. Vivek Sankaran won the case.  But, he writes: 

our appellate victory will never erase the harm done to this family. Our client has not seen his children in nearly two years. During this time, the children formed relationships with other adults, which will now be disrupted. These children may never be able to overcome the trauma created by a foster care system that unnecessarily separated them from their father, placed them with strangers, and needlessly terminated their father’s right, only to have our state’s highest court correct these errors years later. 

● The mutual aid approach got a big, albeit indirect boost, thanks to the American Rescue Plan.  As Kendra Hurley explains in Early Learning Nation:

The relief package is the most radical child protection plan this country has seen. Unlike our current approach to child maltreatment, it funds the very measures that have been demonstrated to keep kids out of foster care and safe in their homes. 

● Mandated child abuse reporting is a failure.  One-time proponents have turned against the current system of massive mandated reporting, and study after study shows that it backfires – discouraging families from reaching out for help and overloading the system, making it harder to find children in real danger. 

But a commission studying mandatory reporting in Massachusetts appears to have limited its discussion to whether to expand mandatory reporting a little, or expand it a lot. NCCPR’s testimony on the commission’s proposals is available here. 

● Mandated reporting is a contributor to still another danger to children: KQED Public Radio reports on an alarming rise in syphilis in newborns.  The disease is easily treatable during pregnancy. So why is it increasing?  According to a former director of the California Department of Public Health: 

"They're very concerned about what's going to happen when they're found to be pregnant and using drugs. They're concerned that their drug use will be reported and then CPS will be involved and their children will be taken away." 

So congratulations, all you backers of mandatory reporting laws, and all you supporters of making the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act even tougher: You’ve created still another hazard for children.

● The Washington Post has a very good story about some excellent foster parents. They saw that love is more important than money.  So they fought against the state child welfare agency (Florida, again, of course) to allow their foster child, a young boy who migrated to the United States with an abusive uncle, to return to his parents in Guatemala.  But, of course, as Prof. Sankaran pointed out, child welfare agencies putting money before love doesn’t just happen with immigrant children: 

The American legal system has long treated poor or minority families differently than White families, said Vivek Sankaran, a law professor at the University of Michigan who has studied termination of parental rights cases.

● That fact is aptly illustrated by two excellent stories in Next City. They examine the racial bias that permeates child welfare in Philadelphia – and that means the bias that permeates child welfare everywhere. 

● Two analyses of that long, complicated court decision concerning the Indian Child Welfare Act: One from Indian Country Today, the other from The Imprint.  (And here’s a reminder of why the law is needed.) 

● And finally, congratulations to Jeanette Vega and Bianca Shaw – the new co-directors of Rise!