Rethinking Foster Care

Every day, child welfare systems confront the effects of America’s misguided social policy. Draconian criminal laws and unjust sentencing policies result in the unnecessary separation of children, particularly those who are African-American, from their parents. Harsh cash and food assistance programs, often coupled with onerous work requirements, fail to address the decades of discrimination that kept well-paying jobs from families of color. Inadequate housing assistance programs do little to combat the years of racism that limited housing options for families, or steered African-American families into substandard housing within troubled neighborhoods. In short, incarceration, poverty and homelessness, among other social ills, are not unexpected consequences of our designed policy. To the contrary, our country’s long history of discrimination put families in precarious situations, yet our meager attempt to support families ensures they have little chance

On December 7th, Jazmine Headley went to a public benefits office in Brooklyn to renew day care assistance for her 18 month old son.   After waiting for four hours, Ms. Headley – unable to find another place to sit – simply sat on the floor with her child.   But apparently she sat in the wrong place.   Soon thereafter, security guards and then police officers approached her.   A confrontation ensued, captured by a video showing the officers and guards trying to rip her screaming baby from his mother’s arms.   They arrested Ms. Headley and separated her from her baby. After spending five nights in jail, she was released and all charges against her were dropped.   Throughout the struggle, officers never bothered to even ask Ms. Headley for her name.   According to Ms. Headley, “They never said, ‘Hello, who are you?’ They never asked me.” It would be easy to disregard this incident as a poor decision made by a few rogue actors.   But my work over the last fiftee

I thought I knew a lot about how the child protection system puts families at risk. I have been a family defender for almost 35 years. I had, as a matter of fact, just written a book ( T hey Took the Kids Last Night: How the Child Protection System Puts Families at Risk ,  ABC-Clio, November 2, 2018 release date). I thought, too, that I knew— intellectually if not from a first-hand lived experience—the many different ways a family can suffer long-lasting trauma from even a short separation. Of course, I was wrong. When my book came out, I naturally wanted to celebrate with the families who had generously allowed me to tell their stories, in the course of relating my own experience as their lawyer. So as soon as a box of my book was delivered to my house, I invited the families to come to my home for a small celebration where they could get their own inscribed copies and meet each other. The families who had participated with me in my book project had a lot in common, and some