Rethinking Foster Care

Throughout the evening, the three brothers described to me the years of abuse they experienced in foster care. They were made to stand in the corner of rooms for hours. They were forced to clean every dish in the house, if one was dirty. One brother didn’t go to college after his foster mother ripped up a college scholarship letter he had received to play football. Another was assaulted in his group home. As our dinner went on, these kids kept sharing stories of hurt. After leaving foster care, all three children had been incarcerated, one spending several years in prison. They had a lot to be angry about.  Yet, even when recounting years of pain, they didn’t seem mad. Instead, they were smiling and joking around. They took pictures of their tacos. They invited me to a party at their house. When I asked whether they were angry at their foster parent or their mother – whose drug use led to their entry into foster care – they looked surprised. They resisted my bait, arguing that...

Last week, a major study demonstrated that high-quality, legal representation of parents by institutional providers in New York City got children with their families four months more quickly than those parents represented by solo practitioners.   Think about all that can transpire in four months in a child’s life – birthdays, holidays, family gatherings.   In fact, ask any kid about what four months feels like (i.e. you can’t do something for four months).   They will say it is an eternity. While we should certainly celebrate the impact of this study, for those of us who have represented parents, nothing in it surprises us.   I suspect that most of us recognized the dramatic power that strong parent representation can have to transform child welfare the first time we stood by a parent, which for me was back in 2004.   I still remember the day vividly.   It began with a phone call. I was a young attorney in Washington, DC - where I...