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Pushing back on a child welfare poll full of loaded questions

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

Have a look: The only good news for the family police came from the fact that, apparently, only a minority of respondents agreed with the statement “Overall, the foster care system harms more than helps the children in its care.” There is no mention of seeking to recapture the spirit of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

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The failure of the child welfare McLawsuits, Part Two

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

To read the account on CR’s website you’d think their suit turned a dreadful, failing “child welfare” system into a shining success story. But just four years later, the Tennessee Department of Child Services, their family police agency (a more accurate term than “child welfare” agency) has opened a bunch of new ones.

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A New York State “child welfare” agency can curb one family policing horror with the stroke of a pen. Do they have the guts?

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

The number of ways family policing agencies (a more accurate term than “child welfare” agencies) can hurt the children they are mandated to protect is limited only by their imagination – and, unfortunately, this is the one area where they show any imagination at all. OCFS theoretically performs oversight.

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Massachusetts pilots the most promising reform in child welfare. Guess who’s trying to undercut it.

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

This is the model that’s proven so successful in New York City – where a comprehensive evaluation found that it reduced time in foster care with no compromise of safety. It’s one reason New York City’s rate of removal is well under one-third the rate of Massachusetts, even when rates of child poverty are factored in.

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If there’s another foster-care panic in NYC, it’s on The New York Times

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

So the public was primed to scapegoat family preservation when Nixzmary Brown died in January, 2006 – leading to a foster-care panic , a sharp sudden increase in the number of children torn from everyone they know and love and consigned to the chaos of foster care. The panic was welcomed by the Times.

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“They’re not your children anymore.” Notes on news coverage of a landmark lawsuit

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

Dorothy Roberts , who explains: “A promising trend that this lawsuit is part of is recognizing that enforcing parents’ constitutional rights is critical to an approach to child welfare that truly benefits children. But typically, they aim to fix poor conditions for children living in foster care.

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NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending Jan 11, 2022

NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

It was followed by a systematic campaign of forced adoption into white homes, spearheaded by, among others, the Child Welfare League of America. Foster-care panic is like a fire. But that is exactly what the child welfare “ombudsman” is doing in Maine. It’s not a good idea to add gasoline.