Rethinking Foster Care

“If they were going to treat me like this, why didn’t they just leave me at home?” That question was posed to me by my twelve-year-old client after being taken from his parents and moved through several foster homes, only to find himself without any home at all.   Instead, he was spending his days sitting in a chair next to the desk of his caseworker – missing school to do so – and then spending each night and each weekend in a different emergency foster home.   My client needed to be in foster care.   Unlike the vast majority of cases that involve neglect, his was the unusual case where there had been serious abuse.   I knew he did not want to go home to his parents – he knew it was not safe for him – which made his question to me all the more chilling.    As a young lawyer, I was horrified by my client’s treatment, but even more so by the response of the child welfare agency to the motion I filed to bring them into court to address his situation.   They argued that foster c

Sitting across the coffee table from me, a young woman – adopted as a child out of foster care – shared her experiences. She had achieved incredible success in life, a college degree, with a master’s degree forthcoming. Yet the overriding emotions she described were feelings of loss and confusion after being adopted. Unanswered questions had lingered in her mind for years, causing pain. Why did the court terminate the rights of her birth mother and prevent her from ever seeing her mother again?   Why wasn’t she allowed to give input into the decision to terminate her mother’s rights?   Why was she placed with a white family – even though she was black?   Could more have been done to prevent her from being separated from her family?   The uncertainties poured out of her mind. As we talked, she made clear that she was not alone – so many kids adopted out of foster care shared her doubts. Many addressed their pain by connecting with their birth families through

The teenage boy stared at the judge, with a face struggling to hide its emotion but clearly displaying its sadness. For weeks, he had been staying at a residential facility and had been getting in trouble. In court today, the judge asked a simple yet powerful question – “Tell me what we can do to make your life better.”             Without hesitation, he answered, “I just want to see my little sister. I haven’t seen her in months, and I need to make sure she’s okay.”               So the judge turned to the professionals in the courtroom – there to serve the child’s interests – to hear why this hadn’t happened. Staff at the residential facility explained that they didn’t know the youth wanted to see his sister. The agency caseworker spoke of policies at the facility and logistical challenges that made such a visit difficult. But the children’s lawyer revealed the dispositive fact of why professionals had allowed this child’s sadness to linger – his