Rethinking Foster Care

The Luck Lottery This past weekend, Beth Macy wrote a powerful op-ed in the New York Times, telling the story of an opioid user’s descent into addiction and ultimate death from an overdose.   Her words at the end of the story have been ringing in my ears since I read them: “It occurred to me that only in death are those who are addicted seen as victims, as patients who might have been worthy of medical care.” Upon reading these words, my mind immediately turned to how we treat parents in child welfare cases and our inability to see them as victims of trauma, worthy of our care.   The National Child Traumatic Stress Network reports that “many birth parents involved with the child welfare system have their own histories of child and/or adult trauma.”   I’ve seen this in my own work.   Nearly every one of my parent clients was a victim of abuse, spent time in foster care, was adopted, or has mental health challenges.   The list could go on and on.   Never ha

This country does not have a child welfare system.   Instead, we have a child protection system that is far too expansive in the children it chooses to separate from their parents.   But – to be clear – the welfare of children isn’t this system’s primary focus.   If it were, given what we know about the impact of family separation on children – the system would be hyper-focused in ways it could support families to keep them together whenever possible.   And families would want support from such a system trying to help them.     Instead we have constructed a system in which families fear “child welfare” agencies and don’t seek any assistance, even when it might be available. Two stories I recently heard illustrate this point.   The first involved a mother escaping a violent domestic violence relationship.   She and her children had left her abuser and were reconstructing their lives.   But her abuser was being released into the community so her lawyer was counse

Imagine, for a moment, that we redesigned the delivery of legal services to prevent children from unnecessarily entering foster care.   What would that look like?   How would we allocate resources?   Would it be effective?   Four fundamental principles inform my thinking about these questions.   First , struggling families need access to legal advocacy well before a problem turns into a crisis.   Consider a family about to become homeless due to a wrongful eviction.   Or a single mother improperly being denied public benefits.   Think about a kid acting out in school and at home because administrators are unwilling to offer him the special education services he is legally entitled to.   Lawyers can play an integral role in solving these problems.   And each of these problems, if unresolved, could add significant stressors to a family that could destabilize a family unit.   Second , families in crisis – that is those involved with Child Protective Services (“CPS”)

In response to President Trump’s policy to separate children from immigrant parents seeking refuge in the United States, mental health professionals have been clear – taking children from their parents is devastating to their wellbeing.   A petition signed by over 13,000 psychologists, social workers and therapists reads, “From decades of research and direct clinical experience, we know the impact of disrupted attachment manifests not only in overwhelming fear and panic at the time of the separation, but that there is a strong likelihood that these children’s behavioral, psychological, interpersonal and cognitive trajectories will also be affected.”   Removal permanently alters the lives of children because the stress it creates can cause long-term damage to the brain.   Dr. Charles Nelson, Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard, explains, “[T]here is so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this.”   In other word