Rethinking Foster Care

     In July, the Governor of Minnesota signed a critical piece of legislation requiring courts to appoint lawyers in foster care cases for parents who cannot afford them. Years of tireless advocacy culminated in the enactment, and local leaders predicted it will help reduce Minnesota’s foster care population and address glaring racial inequities in their foster care system.       Certainly, those who worked hard to achieve this legislation should take pride in this accomplishment. But the rest of us in the child welfare system should take a step back and reflect about how we have been complicit in allowing a system to separate children from their parents with affording families a basic modicum of due process. Consider these realities. In Montana, a child welfare agency can take children away from their parents for 20 days before a court must even hold an initial hearing. In Georgia, a lawyer representing a parent in a termination of parental rights appeal might not even get the court