● The Imprint has an extraordinary two-part story about one aunt’s fight to take care of her own nephews – in the face of opposition from stranger-care parents. But this is more than a story about one case. This is a story about how concepts like “attachment” and “bonding” were so perverted in order to serve the interests of, almost always, white middle-class strangers, that it’s become junk science. A child’s fate may be decided because, one day, a white “expert” looks across a courtroom at a Black woman and decides she doesn’t like her “body language.”
● Big event today (Oct. 11 at 2pm ET): Prof. Kelley Fong discusses her new book, Investigating Families at CUNY Law School. You can register for the livestream here.
● I’m proud to have joined Angela Burton and Dr. Mical Raz on the latest installment of the upEND Movement podcast. This edition deals with the modern foundations of the current family policing surveillance state, and the pernicious influence of the so-called Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act.
● Speaking of CAPTA, the Boston Globe has a story about a bill that, if it becomes law, would curb one of its worst features.
● The family police agency in New York City, the Administration for Children’s Services, has opposed legislation to require it to tell families their rights – not extend any additional rights, just tell them the rights they already have. So the online news site The City decided to do it themselves, along with guidance from family defenders on when and how to exercise those rights.
And check out the
photo that accompanies the story – talk about saying the quiet part out loud!
 |
● Got a budget gap you need to fill? Steal the money from foster kids! At least that’s California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approach, according to this story from CalMatters.
● NCCPR’s presentation at last week’s Kempe Center conference dealt with all the desperate spin offered up by the family policing establishment to deny that poverty routinely is confused with neglect. Here’s the text. And here’s still another study showing that the best “preventive service” is cash.
And now, this week’s reminders that the horror stories go in all directions:
● From the Oregon Capital Chronicle:
A boy is suing
the Oregon Department of Human Services for alleged abuse and neglect in a home
where he lived with his sister for a year along with other children.
The federal lawsuit, filed in September in U.S. District Court in Portland, provides the account of the then-5-year-old boy who entered into a foster home in 2016 with his 9-year-old sister in Lane County. … The foster father, Joe Raygosa, was sentenced in 2018 to 94 years in prison for sexually abusing the girl.
● From CT News Junkie:
A Connecticut legislative committee will host an
informational hearing Wednesday to review allegations of crime, abuse, and sex
trafficking related to a state-financed group home for girls in Harwinton.
State and Smithfield police are investigating a report from a 7-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted inside the Johnston County Department of Social Services building by a 17-year-old boy.
