● We begin with another reminder of the harm done by the “master
narrative” about child abuse and COVID-19, this time from Diane Redleaf and
Lenore Skenazy in the New York Daily News. They
write:
Calls to America’s child abuse hotlines have plunged by about 50% during the pandemic. Does this mean a tsunami of child abuse is happening behind doors?
No. It means that — hallelujah! — a tsunami of pointless, paranoid child abuse calls are no longer getting made. And that means millions of decent, loving families — a huge portion of them poor — are no longer opening the door to find a government official declaring, “I’m here to decide if you get to keep your kids.”
● The other major consequence of COVID-19 is the rush by
child welfare agency chiefs to issue blanket
edicts cutting foster children off from in-person visits in order to pander
to selfish foster parents. Isobel Whitcomb of Gizmodo takes
a deep dive into the science demonstrating why this is enormously harmful
to young children.
● You know how one of child welfare agencies’ favorite lies
is the one about “we can’t take children on our own. A judge has to approve
everything we do”? In fact, they can take children on their own – or ask
law enforcement to do it for them. The
Arizona Republic reports on the
harm done to children in one such case. The story also illustrates, again, the
harm done to children when hospitals see child abuse whether it’s really there
or not.
● Even when child protective services agencies do ask a
judge first, the judge almost always hears only their side of the story. Vivek
Sankaran writes in the Chronicle of
Social Change about how, as a result, thousands of times judges get it
wrong.
● One way to curb such abuses is to provide high-quality
legal representation to families from the moment an investigation begins in
order to resolve the problem without going to court, or if the agency wants to
remove the child, at least the judge will hear all sides. One of the states that needs this kind of
innovation most is Iowa, which has an obscenely high rate of removal. Now, Iowa
is going to try it as a pilot program.
When Democrats fail:
● A lot of my fellow white liberals simply can’t get their
heads around the fact that in Black communities child protective services
agencies are viewed for what they really are: a police force. That helps
explain why some of the most liberal Democrats in the United States Senate are
supporting a wide-ranging coronavirus relief bill that not only does not defund
the child abuse police, it actually includes up to $500 million more in federal support for CPS
investigations. I
have a blog post on it.
When Republicans
fail:
● In North Carolina, on a near party-line vote, Republicans
passed a bill that would have made it easier to take newborns from their
mothers and rush to terminate the children’s rights to their parents if the
mothers used drugs, with no showing of harm to the child. It also would have
curbed kinship care, in part by declaring stranger-care parents “non-relative
kin” if they’ve managed to stall reunification for nine months. Fortunately, the state’s Democratic governor, Roy
Cooper, vetoed it. An override vote
is scheduled for today (July 18).
● The harm this kind of legislation does to families is
well-documented in the recent report from the Movement for Family Power. Helen
Redmond of Filter takes a close look at that
report. So does Mike
Ludwig in Truthout.
● And in Washington State, Crosscut reports on an effort by the state
child welfare agency (the same agency that is always ready to pander to selfish
white foster parents) to evade the requirements of the Indian Child Welfare
Act.
