● You’ve probably heard both sides of the debate over that Supreme Court case involving religious agencies seeking the right to discriminate against LGBT foster parents. But there’s a third side of the story. Prof. Nancy Polikoff writes about what almost everybody is missing in this column for The Imprint.
● "White families and more well-off families do not have to carry the fear that asking for help will destroy their families." That’s from New York City Council testimony from the parents at Rise. Read their full testimony here.
● In Nebraska, a state with a long, ugly track record of tearing apart families at one of the highest rates in the nation, WOWT-TV reports on one grandmother’s desperate fight to save her grandchild from foster care. As the grandmother points out: “Why would you bounce her from foster home to foster home? Why do you feel the system should raise this beautiful child who has issues when she has loving grandparents."
● In another state with a horrible track record of family destruction, Arizona, the state is using a supposed increase in child abuse due to COVID-19 to do what it always does: Take the child and run. NCCPR’s take is included in this story from the Arizona Daily Star.
● In the 1990s, Congress passed three racist laws. Many on the Left have had second thoughts about two of them; the welfare law and the crime law. But even as we face a racial justice reckoning, they remain silent – or worse – about the third. On the NCCPR Child Welfare Blog I write about why it’s time to repeal the so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act.
● I’ve often written that the solution to the problems of journalism is more journalism. The horrible journalism of the Miami Herald set off a foster-care panic in Florida. Good journalism from the USA TODAY Network in Florida exposed the harm that panic has done to children. I have a column in the Florida Times-Union about what do to about it.
● Speaking of good journalism, the first two episodes of Do
No Harm, the podcast from Mike Hixenbaugh of NBC News about the harm done
to families by some “child abuse pediatricians” are available now.
● The latest issue of Children’s Bureau Express includes several notable articles.
From Sharon L. McDaniel founder, president, and chief executive officer of A Second Chance, Inc. who writes:
Poverty, racism, and violence can threaten a family regardless of how resilient, stable, and confident they are. Reimagining child welfare means challenging and disrupting what has become the embedded tradition and culture of racism in policy and practice.
From Kevin Campbell, Model Author of FamilyFinding, who writes:
The emerging worldwide scientific consensus is clear; operating a foster care system makes its own contributions to distress and disease across the life course. Kinship care provides the best alternative to substitute care for children who cannot live safely with a parent. Children who can remain with a parent have the best long-term health and mental health outcomes. Institutions for children are disruptive to childhood development and harmful to health. We must continue the process of closing them.
And from the Associate
Commissioner for the Children’s Bureau, Jerry Milner and his Special Assistant
David Kelly who write – well, you
saw some of what they wrote if you read the ASFA column discussed above.
