Rethinking Foster Care

The young woman on the phone recounted a story all too familiar. She had aged out of the foster care system after living in 25 different placements. Upon exiting the system, she became homeless, suffered from mental health issues, and had her own child. She checked herself into a mental health facility and let her child live with the father’s relatives.  After the child’s father severely abused the child while the young woman was away, the agency immediately petitioned for the child to not only be put into foster care, but to be available immediately for adoption. Just a few years after the agency was this young woman’s legal parent, it was now asking the court to immediately terminate her rights to her own child. It had given up on her, not even wanting to give her a chance to participate in services. In their mind, she was permanently unfit, hopeless as a parent. Attend any meeting or conference discussing the child protection system and you’ll hear advocates coalesce upon our need t

  A few weeks ago, I received an email inquiring whether my clinic measured the outcomes of my students’ work representing parents and children involved in the foster care system. Did their legal representation result in kids being sent back home more quickly? Or getting into permanent homes expeditiously? How much money did our work save the child protection system? These questions didn’t surprise me. They are the standard questions being asked of so many legal representation programs these days. I get it. We live in a data-driven world, singularly obsessed with cost savings and efficiency. The language of accountability and performance is everywhere. Innovative programs are always asked, “Where is your data?” I proudly drafted a response to the email explaining that we, in fact, keep track of none of those metrics. Because in my mind, those numbers don’t capture the meaningful impact of my students’ work with clients. In fact, as I reflected on my cases, traditional measures would li