NCCPR news and commentary roundup, week ending January 21, 2025

● Some advocates in Maine have tried to use one data point in the federal government’s annual Child Maltreatment report to justify the state’s ongoing foster-care panic.  But the Maine Monitor took a closer look.  They took a deep dive into the federal report and concluded:

The new federal report bolsters some advocates’ argument that Maine is failing to keep kids safe not because it is investigating too few families but because it is investigating too many, and failing to identify the true threats in the deluge of cases. 

● A lawsuit alleges that one state maintains a secret docket of pregnant women. For those on it, it is alleged, this state will rely on a “network of informers” to plunder confidential records and spy on any mother they deem “high risk.” The state may even seek custody before the children are born.  You may be surprised at which state it is. I have a blog post about it, including links to two excellent news stories about the suit.  (Normally I’d mention the news organizations here, but then you’d know the state.)

● The American Federation of Teachers has 1.8 million members.  Odds are most of them are mandatory reporters, that is, required by state law to report their slightest suspicion of abuse or “neglect” to family police agencies.  The AFT says that should change.  In a comprehensive report based in part on a survey of more than 1,000 educators, the union concludes: 

We must challenge school cultures rooted in regulating families, valuing compliance over compassion, and funneling marginalized students into foster care or prison. Educators are sensitive to both state and local policies. To move away from the ineffective intervention of mandatory reporting, policymakers must decriminalize absenteeism. They can also remove educators from state laws on mandatory reporting, making reporting an option rather than a requirement. [Emphasis added.] 

Citing the phrase coined by JMACforFamilies, the AFT calls for replacing mandatory reporting with mandatory supporting.  The AFT has an overview here. 

● Oregon’s governor wants to loosen regulations curing abuse in foster care – because they can’t think of any other way to deal with a so-called shortage of placements.  In a commentary for the Oregon Capital Chronicle I suggest an alternative.  

● Among the many perverse financial incentives in family policing is the emergence of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families – a program intended to help families become self-sufficient – as a child welfare slush fund. ProPublica reported on it in 2021. Changing some of this requires legislation, but, in part, the practice can be curbed through regulation.  Unfortunately, as The Imprint reports, during its final days, the Biden Administration withdrew regulations that would have done just that. 

● The Imprint also has a useful summary of a federal report tracking how often children wind up in foster care because their parents have no other way to get them mental health care.  The report finds wide variation among the states.  Unfortunately, the report did not find out how often parents are surrendering adopted children. 

In this week’s edition of The Horror Stories Go in All Directions: 

● From The Miami Herald: 

A children’s book author and her husband abused their three adopted children until one went into multi-organ failure and nearly died, Florida authorities said. 

The couple pleaded guilty on Jan. 13 to three counts of aggravated child abuse causing great bodily harm and three counts of child neglect with great bodily harm, Seminole County records show. The 45-year-old wife, accused of being the primary disciplinarian, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, while the 43-year-old husband received a 10-year sentence.