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

● Video is now available from last week’s presentations on narrowing the front door of the family policing system.  I recommend in particular the 15-minute presentation of Prof. Anna Arons that starts at 17:54 in.  She summarizes her findings about New York City’s “unintended abolition” in which COVID forced the family police to step back and community-based, community-run mutual aid organizations stepped up.  Families also got direct cash assistance no-strings-attached through various federal programs.  As even the head of the city’s family policing agency admits, all that led to far less trauma for families with no compromise of safety. 

● Who says the so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act hasn’t accomplished anything good? Well, OK, I do.  But leaving that aside, this odious law has done one thing that’s worthwhile: It bridged America’s great political divide.  Read why experts from Left and Right oppose it in this column from the Washington Examiner. 

● ASFA has helped create a generation of legal orphans, with no ties to birth parents and no adoptive home either. Even when there’s an adoption, there’s no guarantee it will last.  And even when it lasts, the reality is more complicated than the fairytale – especially for transracial adoptees.  Some of them told their stories to The Washington Post, for a story that carried this quote as a headline: “‘I know my parents love me, but they don’t love my people.’” 

● Speaking of dangerous delusions about adoption, check out Prof. Shanta Trivedi’s analysis, in Ms., of Amy Coney Barrett’s remarks during oral arguments in the Mississippi abortion case. 

● The real story of COVID-19 and “child welfare” was not a “pandemic of child abuse” -- that never happened.  The real story is how it made all the problems for families torn apart by family police worse.  NYN Media has that story. 

● Also in NYN Media, three members of New York’s Parent Legislative Action Network describe what family policing does to impoverished families and communities even without a pandemic: 

Low-income communities are saturated with mandated reporters who are obligated to report any inkling of child maltreatment. That means that if a parent is thinking of asking for help, such as HeadStart child care, emergency housing, domestic violence support, substance abuse counseling, or Applied Behavior Analysis therapy funded by the state, they should be prepared to deal with [the city’s family police agency, the Administration for Children’s Services]. … 

We need to stop equating safety with surveillance. Instead, we need to unlearn the notion that the government knows best. Families need real support from trustworthy service providers within their communities. But even more, families need cash. … 

● One public official who gets that is Michael Tubbs, mayor of Stockton, California, who writes about the transformative power of cash for NBC News Think.  (He’s not writing specifically about the family policing system; it just sounds that way): 

We absolutely can implement bold policies on the local, state and federal levels that will dramatically change the trajectory of people’s lives, eliminate poverty and improve the nation’s productivity. But we can only achieve that kind of change if we disrupt and replace the current narrative on poverty based on racist, classist, sexist and xenophobic stereotypes. It’s a narrative that blames people for their struggles — labeling them as lazy, corrupt, unintelligent or worse — and deems them undeserving of our trust, our investment or even their own dignity. 

● Remember when KING-TV reported that foster youth were being held under conditions that international human rights organizations recognize as torture in order to make them more docile and compliant when caseworkers tried to stash them in offices and cruddy group homes or institutions?  The state’s child welfare “ombuds” investigated and found that KING got it right.  From the story: 

Some workers and teens reported … that office stays were used as a punishment for refusing placement. … “You either get a cot, the floor, or the couch,” the youth said, according to the ombuds report. “They are all uncomfortable, even the cot. Sometimes you get a blanket. They are treating us like the trash that we are.”

Needless to say the “solutions” offered up by the agency omit the only one that would actually work: not taking away so many kids needlessly.  

● You would think if a family policing agency was going to march into school and demand that a child be produced on-the-spot for what the school would later call an “emergency extraction” they’d at least check to be sure they had the right student.  Or perhaps, knowing how family policing agencies work, you’d be wise enough to make no such assumption.

● And in Utah, KUTV reports on the alarming amount of personal information the state health department requires just so the parent of a newborn can get a birth certificate for the child.  The health department is about to merge with the department that runs family policing in Utah.  And if you want to know what that might mean, just look at Allegheny County, Pa.

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending December 7, 2021

We begin with two big events: 

● TODAY (Dec. 8) at 10:00 a.m. ET: “Narrowing the Front Door to NYC’s Child Welfare System: COVID-19 Lessons Learned and Charting a Path Forward.”  

From the description: 

In New York City, the COVID-19 shutdown forced a temporary but radical reduction in the child welfare system—halving the number of reports, investigations, and family separations, reducing surveillance of families in their schools and in their homes, and restricting support of voluntary preventive services. Early indications seem to suggest that this shutdown did not endanger children. Rates of substantiated abuse did not rise and, in fact, may have dipped; rates of substantiated neglect remained unchanged; and children stayed with their families and in their communities. We would like to take a look at this data together and see what solutions emerge. 

Unlike a previous event from the same organizers, this time, when it comes to participants, the deck isn’t stacked – and the chat function will be enabled.  Though geared to New York City, the lessons are likely to be applicable anywhere. 

● Then on Friday, Dec. 10 at 7:00 p.m. ET: from the National Welfare Rights Union: Take Our Poverty, Not Our Children: A Human Rights Day Truth Commission.

In the news: 

● Florida Politics cuts through the b.s. and gets to the heart of the problems plaguing the “child welfare” system in the Tampa Bay area – and statewide. You can probably guess what the story pointed out. 

● From the “yeah, we already knew that” file:  Contrary to the propaganda from the “residential treatment” industry, a meta-analysis (a study of the studies) found that for children with serious mental health problems Wraparouund services are a better option than tearing apart families and forcing the children into “residential treatment centers.”  Wraparound also costs less.  And this part is new: “Wraparound may hold the potential for reducing disparities in outcomes for youth of color.”  To get a sense of how Wraparound works, check out this video: 

● What happens when ageism meets ableism: Children are kept from a loving father and his aunt, possibly forever, thanks to an appalling court decision in Pennsylvania.  I have a blog post about it. 

● In that Pennsylvania case the aunt was dismissed as “elderly.” She’s 68.  It’s one more example of the bias relatives can face, even though kinship foster care is clearly the least harmful form of foster care.  Vivek Sankaran, in The Imprint, has some ideas about what can be done about it. 

● Anna Ramirez writes in The Imprint about the trauma of losing her family – twice: 

After being taken out of my birth mother’s placement at 13, my world was crushed. Not only did I lose my birth mother, whom I admire most in life, but I also lost all five of my siblings. It took me years to cope with the trauma. However, I was soon reunited with my two younger siblings. We were eventually placed with a foster family who we thought would be our new, permanent family. 

The sad truth was that we were placed into a family that was neither ready for nor interested in extending their family circle. They were more interested in the benefits of having three foster children in their home and being applauded for taking on big responsibilities. These responsibilities included basic things, such as making foster children feel welcome in the home, as well as providing necessities for them. 

● Wisconsin Watch is still on the case: Documenting still more examples of the enormous harm done to children by a “child abuse pediatrician.” 

● And finally I’m going to steal from The Daily Show and leave you with a Moment of Zen.  As you watch consider what would have happened to a Black or Native American mother who posted a video like this: 

Complete relaxation 🙏🏽 @trumpwinery pic.twitter.com/SJUHWRr0Lp

— Lara Trump (@LaraLeaTrump) October 24, 2021

 

UPDATED: A Pennsylvania case illustrates again why, for children, “best interests of the child” is among the most dangerous phrases in the “child welfare” lexicon

         

UPDATE, DECEMBER 15, 2021: The York Daily Record has an excellent story about this case.

  Consider a recent case involving the family policing system in a county in Pennsylvania.  Everything I am about to recount is true except for one detail: 

            Two young children are taken from their mother.  Their father is eager to take them in, but at the time of the removal he’s in the hospital.  That’s because after he was hit by a drunk driver and confined to a wheelchair it led to medical complications that sometimes require hospitalization. 

            But once home from the hospital, the children still are left in foster care – with foster parents who are eager to adopt.  Dad must jump through the usual hoops, but, as is so often the case, it’s never enough.  

            Sure, the usual “bonding evaluation” says, the children are excited to see Dad during visits.  But the court focuses on the part where the evaluator complains that the children have to be the ones to initiate contact with Dad because of Dad’s “compromised mobility.” 

            Then there’s the matter of how long it would take Dad to get upstairs, even with a wheelchair lift in the home.  Three or four minutes – that could be too late in an emergency.  And while it’s true Dad’s aunt is living in the home, the court is worried because she is, to use the judge’s word “elderly.”  She’s 68. 

           

            So the county wants the children taken from their father forever.  They move to change the case goal for the children from reunification to adoption.  The judge rubber-stamps the change with enthusiasm.  An appellate court agrees.  Next stop, presumably: Termination of parental rights, after which the children, now ages five and three may never see their loving father again. 

            But even in a system as riven with every bias under the sun this wouldn’t really happen, right?  Well no* – and yes.  Because, except for that one small detail, it did just happen, in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania. 

            Here’s the detail: Dad’s mobility isn’t compromised because he’s confined to a wheelchair.  It’s compromised because of his weight.  At least partly because of hypothyroidism, he weighs over 400 pounds.  It was complications from his obesity that landed him in the hospital, there was no auto accident.  And, of course, there’s no wheelchair. It’s the obesity that slows him down going up stairs. 

            Everything else, though is straight from the appellate court decision – including the children’s love for their father, and the fact that the trial court judge wrote off the 68-year-old aunt as “elderly.”  I changed the one detail because so many people view obesity as both repugnant and a moral failing – apparently including the trial court judge, whose decision includes finger-wagging comments suggesting the problem is that dad lacked the willpower to embrace a healthy diet. 

            Even were that so, however, that still wouldn’t be grounds to keep this man’s children from him forever – or even for one day.  

            ● For starters, there’s another caretaker in the home.  Apparently, as noted above, she’s ruled out because at age 68 she’s “elderly.”  Presumably this also would rule out a large proportion of those providing kinship foster care, since they tend to be grandparents. 

            The appellate court had no problem with this. In fact, in one way the appellate court decision may be even worse.  In a footnote, the judges write that 

 “While Father complains that the ‘Agency offered no evidence that the aunt is a threat to the children and nothing more than a helping hand[,]” Father has not offered any evidence that his aunt was an appropriate, substitute caregiver.” 

            But why should it be up to a father who never has himself been accused of abusing or neglecting the children, and an aunt who faces no such accusation either, to prove the aunt is suitable?  Shouldn’t it be up to the family policing agency to prove she isn’t suitable?  By this court’s logic, every family that decides to have grandma babysit while they go on vacation should have to go to court and get approval first – with the burden of proof on them to show grandma is “suitable.” 

            ● Even if there were no aunt available, the decision still is wrong.  Federal law
requires that states make “reasonable efforts” to keep families together.  This case is one more illustration of the fact that the law is routinely ignored.  In this case, home health care should have been enough to alleviate all of the family policing agency’s concerns.  And if they were still obsessing over Dad’s ability to climb stairs, how about finding the family a place to live that doesn’t have stairs?  This is what affluent families do in such situations.  That’s one reason why, you may be sure, rich parents don’t lose their children because of obesity. 

            The case also illustrates bigger problems. 

  

          ● The fundamental fact of American “child welfare” is that if you’re not white and affluent the system will discriminate against you. (That’s not unique to “child welfare” of course, but the field seems to be “in denial” about it to an extraordinary degree.) Usually we see this in the form of discrimination based on race and class.  But discrimination against families with physical or mental disabilities gets far less attention, even though it is just as widespread. 

            As Prof. Robyn Powell of Stetson University College of Law has written: 

The disproportionate rate of child welfare system involvement in families headed by parents with disabilities is striking. Although children of parents with disabilities comprise only 9 percent of the nation’s youth, they make up 19 percent of the children in foster care. 

The National Council on Disability—an independent federal agency that advises the President and U.S. Congress on disability policy—described the child welfare system’s bias against parents with disabilities as “persistent, systemic, and pervasive.” 

Similarly, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have stated that the child welfare system’s discriminatory policies and practices toward parents with disabilities are “long-standing and widespread.”     

Indeed, those two departments demanded reform from Massachusetts family policing officials for violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.  They eventually reached a settlement.  Similar issues have arisen in Oregon.  

But the ADA rarely is raised in family policing cases. UPDATE, DEC 15, 2021: Though it is not always clear when it applies in cases involving obesity, Prof. Powell told the York Daily Record it does apply in this case.  According to the story:

Under the Americans with Disability Act, the father in this case would likely be considered a person with a disability, Powell said after reading the court document.

"It seems to me that they’re discriminating against him because of the disability and not recognizing the in-home support he has," she said. 

Why “best interests of the child” isn’t in the best interests of the child 

This case also illustrates why one of the most common and most revered phrases in the child welfare lexicon is, for children, one of the most dangerous.  The phrase, of course, is “best interests of the child.”  It is an invitation for family policing agencies and courts to inflict their own biases, whether based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual preference, disability – or weight, on a family and then confiscate and transfer children at will. 

You can’t say you’re doing that, of course, but that is the practical effect or such broad, vague language in a system with no real checks and balances. 

That’s always been true in American family policing, but it was made worse with the passage of the so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act.   The appellate court appears almost gleeful when it cites ASFA, even putting the last sentence in this paragraph in bold: 

Placement of and custody issues pertaining to dependent children are controlled by the [Pennsylvania] Juvenile Act, which was amended in 1998 to conform to the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (“ASFA”) The policy underlying these statutes is to prevent children from languishing indefinitely in foster care, with its inherent lack of permanency, normalcy, and long-term parental commitment. Consistent with this underlying policy, the 1998 amendments to the Juvenile Act, as required by the ASFA, place the focus of dependency proceedings, including change of goal proceedings, on the child. Safety, permanency, and well-being of the child must take precedence over all other considerations, including the rights of the parents.  [Emphasis in original, citations omitted.]

 By that standard, of course, family policing agencies should be empowered to walk into any and every home, regardless of whether there is even an accusation of abuse or neglect and if they decide the child would be in any way better off with someone else take them away on the spot. 

            That is why, in theory, courts are not supposed to reach the issue of “best interests” until after determining birth parents are unfit.  The one good thing about this decision is that it reveals what judges really do. 

Even if we were to accept the judges’ reasoning, and even if we were to accept that ASFA was necessary for any of these goals – and, on the contrary, it impedes them -- in this case there was no safety issue that couldn’t be remedied with “reasonable efforts” – and possibly no issue at all.  There should have been no issue of the children languishing in foster care because there was no need for them to be in foster care once the father was out of the hospital. That takes care of “permanence.”  And there is nothing to indicate that tearing these children from their father forever would improve their “well-being.” 

So this case perfectly illustrates how ASFA is simply a license to take children from people we don’t happen to like and hand them over to people we do. 

            Strip away the legalese and the decision of the trial court judge in this case, in its entirely can be boiled down to: “Eeewwwww, he’s so fat.  I’ll just give the kids to the people I like better.”  The decision of the appellate court boils down to “We have no problem with that.” 

            Come to think of it, substitute “Black,” “Brown,” “Native American” “LGBTQ” or “poor” for “fat” and you have a huge body of “child welfare” caselaw. 

*-That “no” might be overly optimistic.  I’m not aware of a case in which children were taken from a parent forever because the parent was confined to a wheelchair, but sadly, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s happened.  This post may yet be updated.

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending November 30, 2021

● WXYZ-TV in Detroit has a story about relatives who took in a one-year-old child as a kinship foster care placement, only to have the child taken with them to be placed – forever – with strangers.  The story asks: 

Under the law in Michigan, family members have priority to adopt their relatives. So why is the state saying the Mihailoff family can’t do that? And why was [the child] found at the home of one of the adoption agency’s employees?  

You don’t suppose the second question helps answer the first? 

● Think Michigan is a fluke?  Then consider this strikingly similar story from the Tennessee Tribune. 

● Also in Tennessee: Three children were taken from their mother because they witnessed domestic violence.  Taking children on those grounds actually worsens the trauma for the children.  Now, WTVC-TV in Chattanooga reports, one of the children is dead – allegedly killed by his foster mother, who subsequently committed suicide.  The surviving siblings are still in foster care.    

● Illinois used to be different.  There was a time when that state took away children at among the lowest rates in the nation – and independent court monitors found child safety improved.  A foster-care panic has wiped out much of that progress.  As I explain on this Blog:

Bottom line Illinois pols and DCFS: you trashed a system that once was, relatively speaking, a leader.  You vastly increased the number of children subjected to the enormous emotional trauma of needless separation – in fact, when it comes to needless family separation you vastly outperformed Donald Trump.  You subjected all these children to the high risk of abuse in foster care itself.  You’ve even got children sleeping in offices again.  

And all that did nothing – nothing – to prevent the very sorts of tragedies that prompted you to start this foster-care panic in the first place.

● Things may be about to change for the better in Arkansas.  The Imprint reports that the former leadership team at the federal Children’s Bureau – probably the most progressive team in its history, is about to step in and guide a transformation. 

● Still another harrowing story of abuse – by so-called “child abuse pediatricians.”  In one of the cases documented by Wisconsin Watch an obsession with child abuse, to the exclusion of the real cause of the problem, may have put a child’s life in danger.

Illinois “child welfare” sets a terrible record in 2020

The Illinois foster care panic may have ended 
in Chicago. But it's still tragically strong in 
other parts of the state.

The foster-care panic that started sweeping through the state in 2019 continued in 2020 – and in much of the state, 2021.  In some regions the number of families torn apart has more than doubled since 2017.

Guess what happened to child abuse deaths. 

When the federal government released its state-by-state figures on entries into foster care for Federal Fiscal Year 2020 there was good news in 47 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.  All of these places tore apart fewer families than they did in 2019.  In North Dakota entries were unchanged.  In Arkansas they increased by 1%. 

And then there was Illinois. 

At one time Illinois was, relatively speaking, a model for keeping children safely in their own homes.  Independent court monitors said so. 

But budget cuts already were undermining the progress when, in April, 2019, a high-profile child abuse death combined with dreadful leadership from state government started a foster care panic – much like the one that tore apart countless families in the 1990s.  I wrote about both panics in this 2019 post.  By September of 2019 entries into foster care already had skyrocketed by 17%.  And by September 2020, even as almost every other state saw a reduction in the number of children torn from their homes, in Illinois the number increased by 17% yet again. 

The number of Illinois children taken from their parents in 2020 is the highest since 1998.  For the first time in more than two decades, Illinois is tearing apart families at a rate above the national average when rates of child poverty are factored in.

According to the state’s own data, statewide things got no better in 2021.  The total number of entries into foster care is almost identical to 2020.  But that hides vast differences among regions.  In Cook County (metropolitan Chicago) removals fell back to their pre-panic levels.  But in the Northern and Southern Regions of Illinois, they continue to skyrocket.  Entries in these regions have more than doubled since 2017. 

There probably are politicians who will try to spin this as something to celebrate – after all,  taking away vast numbers of children is bound to stop child abuse deaths, right?  Of course not.  That never happens.  Well, OK, maybe not stop them, but at least reduce the number a whole lot, right?  That never happens, either. 

The same state report makes clear that, on the contrary, during the first year of the panic, 2019, such deaths skyrocketed. The number fell back in 2020.  But in 2020, there still were six more such deaths than in 2018 – before the panic.  We don’t know the 2021 figure yet because the cause of death is undetermined in many cases – but it looks as though that figure will be similar. 

The reason this never works is something I explained in my earlier post about Illinois.  Child abuse deaths are as rare as they are tragic. They are needles in a haystack.  The blue circle is the “haystack” – the number of children who become known to the Illinois family policing agency, the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), in any given year.  The red line are all the needles in one place (which actually makes them easier to spot).  Can you see it?  Look closely.

You’re never going to do a better job of finding the needles if you keep making the haystack bigger. But that’s exactly what Illinois politicians and DCFS leaders did.  (Full details on methods and sources are in the previous blog post.) 

Bottom line Illinois pols and DCFS: you trashed a system that once was, relatively speaking, a leader.  You vastly increased the number of children subjected to the enormous emotional trauma of needless separation – in fact, when it comes to needless family separation you vastly outperformed Donald Trump.  You subjected all these children to the high risk of abuse in foster care itself.  You’ve even got children sleeping in offices again.  

And all that did nothing – nothing – to prevent the very sorts of tragedies that prompted you to start this foster-care panic in the first place.

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending November 24, 2021

I don't know if you can say "the handwriting is on the wall" for New York City's family policing agency, but this is one of the messages JMacForFamilies projected onto the wall of the fisrt-stop parking place "shelter" where some children are taken when they're torn from their parents in New York City. It was part of a protest last week.

● Hey, remember when New York City schools and the city’s family policing agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, promised that this year they wouldn’t traumatize children and families by sending caseworkers to investigate them on “educational neglect” charges just because they felt it was still unsafe to send them to in-person classes?  Chalkbeat checked to see if they were keeping their word.  Can you guess what they found? 

● Check out the video of Prof. Dorothy Roberts’ lecture on “Black Families Matter: How the U.S. Family Regulation System Punishes Poor People of Color.” By the way, the lecture was co-sponsored by the “Penn Program on Regulation.”  I mention this for the benefit of those who insist the system shouldn’t be called a “family regulation system” just because it, you know, regulates families. 

● “Family Separation is as American as Mass Incarceration” according to the ACLU of Southern California. They’re part of the #reimaginechildsafety coalition in Los Angeles, and they have a blog post that gives an overview of how the family regulation system harms children in Los Angeles County. 

● The murder of a child in Hawaii, allegedly by the foster parents who adopted her has a lot of people seeking answers.  Here are some of the questions they need to ask. 

● And there’s still another case alleges horrifying abuse in Florida foster care.

An adopted foster child dies in Hawaii – but nobody seems to be asking the right questions

Ariel Sellers, as she was known before her adoption, was reported missing by her foster/adoptive parents.
Now they've been charged with her murder. (Honolulu police dept. photo)

We don’t know why six-year-old Ariel Sellers was taken from her parents. 

But we do know this: 

● Relatives were ready to take her in. They say Hawaii’s family police agency, known as “Child Welfare Services” (CWS) ignored them. 

● Instead Ariel was placed with strangers, Isaac and Lehua Kalua.  Ultimately, they adopted her and changed her name. At the time of her death, her legal name was Isabella Kalua.

● The foster/adoptive parents, who initially reported the child as missing, have been charged with murdering the child.  She allegedly died trapped in a dog cage with duct tape covering her mouth and nose. 

● Despite the pleas of relatives, Isabella’s siblings are still in foster care with strangers. The family is fighting to bring them home, and to overturn the adoption so at least in death Ariel will have her name back.

It’s all stunningly reminiscent of the tragic death of Sara Hunsicker in Pennsylvania.  (She’s better known as Grace Packer because before raping and murdering her, the foster/adoptive parents changed her name.) 

Diversion and double-standards 

But just as in the Hunsicker case, in this latest death the child welfare establishment has been quick to divert attention from its own failings.  And just as in the Hunsicker case, there’s been a tragic double standard in the response. 

CWS is actually whining about budget cuts and staff shortages – as though if you just made the agency that refused to place Isabella with relatives and rushed her into a quick-and-dirty adoptive placement even bigger, this wouldn’t have happened. 

And while whenever the alleged killer is a birth parent, there are accusations that government is going too much to keep families together, now that this child died in a foster/adoptive home, no one is asking if Hawaii is doing too much to tear families apart – even though Hawaii is another one of those states that has a hair-trigger when it comes to tearing apart families.  

In 2019, Hawaii took children from their parents at a rate well above the national average – even when rates of child poverty are factored in.  When you tear apart so many families, there is an enormous incentive to rush children into any home with a bed without looking too closely.  More than three-quarters of those children were taken not because of abuse, but because of “neglect” – which often is confused with poverty. 

We also know that abuse in foster care is widespread, and we know that agencies often turn a blind eye to such abuse. 

We also know that there are profound incentives to rush children into slipshod, quick-and-dirty adoptive placements.  Under the so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act, states are paid a bounty of $4,000 to $10,000 for every finalized adoption over a baseline number.  What happens to the money if the adoption fails – or if the adoptive parents are accused of murder? Nothing – the state still gets to keep it! 

But the incentives go beyond the financial.  The one way an agency like CWS is guaranteed good press is when it gets those adoption numbers up. How many news organizations questioning what CWS did in this case have done treacly features about “Adoption Day” celebrations? How many will do them again tomorrow? 

So no, you can’t stop these tragedies by throwing more money at CWS or going on a caseworker hiring binge.  The only way to fix foster care is to have less of it. 

Only then will there be plenty of room in good, safe foster homes for the relatively few children who really need them.  And only then will workers have the time to find children in real danger, whether in their own homes or in foster care.