● A project by Boston
Globe “Spotlight Fellows,” published by the Globe and ProPublica was extraordinary
in its enterprise and noble in its goals. But it failed, and that failure is
likely to hurt children. One reason for the failure: They did a massive project
on a system that has a vastly disproportionate effect on children of color, yet
the only national experts quoted are white. NCCPR
has a full response here.
● One of the reporters who did the Globe/ProPublica stories made similar errors in covering a trial in
a tragic case in New York City for The
New York Times. In
this blog post I compare the reporter’s actions to the Times’ Code of Ethics.
● Two important stories in recent weeks from Elizabeth
Brico. Both, as it happens, deal with issues the Spotlight Fellows left out of
their reporting. First, from Salon
(via Undark): How when we take a
swing at mothers who use drugs, the blow almost
always lands on the children. And,
in The Appeal: How getting the
journalism of child welfare wrong sets off foster-care
panics.
● I’ve said before that white middle-class professionals and
foster parents often turn child welfare systems into the ultimate middle-class
entitlement: Step right up and take a poor person’s child for your very
own. For a classic case-in-point, check
out this outstanding
three-part series from the Chronicle of
Social Change. As soon as I
started reading it, I knew the foster parents and the child welfare agency
would try to play the bonding card. So
here’s some context about that, from I column I wrote last year for Youth Today.
Nor is there anything unusual about powerful foster parents working
to bend systems to their will. Here’s another
example.
Also in the Chronicle
of Social Change:
● Prof. Jessica
Pryce makes the
case for race-blind foster care removal decisions, in which, before a child
is removed from the home, a committee conducts a “blind removal meeting” in
which all the information about the case is presented – except information that
would give away the race of the family.
● Jill Cohen, director of programs for the Colorado Office
of Respondent Parent Counsel, writes about the
success Colorado is having with the same kind of high quality family
defense that has accomplished
so much in New York City and elsewhere.
● The San Diego Union
Tribune has a
story about the latest in a string of lawsuit victories for families in
which children were needlessly removed and/or subjected to behavior which, if
anyone other than child welfare agencies did it, would be child sexual
abuse. The story asks why the county
doesn’t seem to learn from its mistakes.
