Rethinking Foster Care

If a parent is unfit and cannot care for his child, we should automatically terminate his parental rights. Right? Well, maybe not. A few years back, one of my former clients – a child who had aged out of the foster care system – graduated from law school. I proudly watched her walk across the stage to receive her diploma. Sitting right next to me was her father, a man who had been incarcerated while his daughter struggled in foster care for eight years. During those eight years, my client, separated from many of her siblings, bounced from one home to another. Yet over the years, she maintained a close connection with her father. After serving a lengthy prison sentence, he helped finance her college and law school educations. Now, he and I were sharing tears and hugs as we watched a truly miraculous moment. In most jurisdictions across the country, this moment would never have occurred. Most courts would have terminated his parental rights years prior to her law school graduati...

“CALL ME BY MY NAME”             “ Mother .” “ Mother ” the Judge repeated again. “ Are you listening ?” My client, the “mother” in question, was distracted by her two children, ages 5 and 7, crawling all over her in Court. I tapped her shoulder, “ Ms. ‘X’, the Judge is talking to you .” And while she was, understandably, distracted by her children, it is not uncommon for parents to fail to recognize when the Court is actually talking to or about them. In fact, some parents sit in court without ever really listening because the Court’s routine reference to a generic “mother” (or “father”, “step-father”, “grandma”, etc.) seems to have little to do with who they are.             Not only does “mother” fail to recognize a woman’s legal identity (i.e. her legal name), it creates an identity based solely on the fact of her motherhood. Although the individual’s legal relat...

A few weeks ago, a close friend came home from work surprised to find the business card of a Child Protective Services (“CPS”) worker wedged inside his door. No letter, or even a handwritten note, accompanied the card. Being uncertain what the card signified, he called the worker, only to learn that he was the subject of a CPS investigation. So he did the first thing that any of us would do in this situation. He called a lawyer. He called me. Families with resources immediately turn to lawyers in times of crisis. Lawyers can help them understand what is happening, explain options, provide information to agencies and put facts in perspective. No thinking person would ever endure a CPS investigation without the assistance of a capable attorney. Yet we live in two worlds. In one world, parents with resources immediately hire lawyers to help navigate troubled legal terrain. In the other, attorneys are viewed as luxuries, superfluous actors in a system in whic...

When Protection Hurts By Crystal Baker-Burr "Can I have that quarter?" Anita asked me, pointing to the change she found in the chair in the courthouse interview room. I asked her what she needed it for. "I am saving all the change I find on the ground and keeping it with me,” she said. “If they ever kidnap me and my brothers again, I can take a cab back home to mommy." I have been privileged to work as both an attorney for children and parents in Bronx Family Court. During the past five years, I represented families that were under investigation by Child Protective Services and at threat of separation. As an attorney for children, I was trained to spot cues of a child who was being coerced to repeat responses and to build a relationship of trust, so that I could find out what the child truly wanted and then fight for them in court. It was through this work that I witnessed how children are separated from their families in the name of child welfare — even wh...

Last week, in a provocative op-ed in the Washington Post , Naomi Riley – a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute – argued that the problem in America’s child welfare system is “not that we’re taking too many children away from their parents. We’re not taking enough.”   To support her claim, she cited a mishmash of statistics, including an increase in the national child fatality rate, and then some isolated data from two jurisdictions involving reentry rates for children returned home and the number of termination of parental rights petitions filed and adoptions finalized. She then broadly concluded that this isolated data demonstrates that “many parents are… not capable of caring for their children.” I appreciate Ms. Riley’s controversial piece because it surfaces feelings that we know exist among judges, lawyers and caseworkers working in child welfare – that more children would be better served by taking them from their parents. Although there...

Child welfare is a grueling field. Catastrophic forces ignored by society – poverty, mental illness, addiction, homelessness, domestic violence – work together to transform problems into crises. When those crises hit, children are caught in the crossfire. Suddenly, society looks to the child welfare community to fix problems it has allowed to fester for years. The magnitude of this responsibility, along with the futility of trying to solve structural problems with few resources, understandably creates feelings of hopelessness among many who do this work. Yet what keeps me going are the stories of hope that can be found everywhere – when I choose to search for them. I spent last week at Camp Michigania , one of the most beautiful hamlets on earth, nestled in Northern Michigan. My week there was my respite from the real world, a chance to reflect, relax and disconnect. It was an opportunity for me to remember how to pay attention to the small moments that happe...

Every family enjoys its stories.   Several years ago, mine had its “Home Alone” moment.   My brother, his wife and their two children were visiting my parents in New Jersey.   They agreed to head out to dinner – in two cars – to a restaurant about 45 minutes away.   When everyone arrived at the restaurant, they all jokingly asked where one of my nephews was, assuming he was in the other car.   Only after a few long seconds passed did they realize that they had accidentally left him behind!      My nephew – around 10 at the time – was busy tending to the backyard garden when both cars had departed.   Upon realizing that everyone had left without him, he went to a neighbor’s house and patiently waited for their return.   Eventually laughs were exchanged by all, recognizing that accidents happen.   Nobody called the police.   Or Child Protective Services.   The story remains a favorite in our family lor...