NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending February 11, 2025

● More than 20 years ago, a lawsuit stopped New York City’s family police agency from tearing children from their parents just because the parent, usually the mother, was herself a survivor of domestic violence. But that didn’t stop the agency from harassing those mothers and their children.  Now, the New York Times reports, a New York appellate court has ruled that the agency, and its Upstate counterparts, can’t do that anymore either.  See also this story in the New York Daily News, this story in The Imprint and this story from Law 360. 

● It was just such an incident of domestic violence – one that did not involve the children’s father or even take place in their presence – that led to the removal of three children from their mother, Felicia Chandler, in North Carolina. That led to the tragedy exposed in this documentary from WRAL-TV, a tragedy allegedly including the murder of one of her children by the foster parent who adopted them.  Other adopted foster children allegedly were tortured. I have a blog post with a link to the documentary and some additional context. 

● Time Magazine has included author, scholar, law professor, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, and NCCPR Board Member Prof. Dorothy Roberts among “The Closers: 25 Black leaders working to end the racial equity gap” 

● Drenched in trendy psychobabble, a bill in New Hampshire tries to fight trauma with trauma. There is not a child in New Hampshire who couldn’t be deemed abused or neglected at some point if it becomes law. Citing NCCPR and HSLDA, Lenore Skenazy has an overview in Reason. 

● Skenazy is president of Let Grow, which is backing "reasonable childhood independence" legislation across the country.  Five states are considering such laws now.

● It’s no secret that I’m no fan of Court-Appointed Special Advocates.  But there are exceptions, such as the author of this insightful letter to the Daily Astorian in Oregon. 

● The Imprint reports on a study of “ambiguous loss” among Native American mothers whose children were taken from them forever. From the story:   

History weighs heavily on the experiences of Indigenous birth mothers, making them “distinct from other races as they have been disproportionately exposed to systemic practices of forced child removal,’’ [lead investigator Sandy] White Hawk’s team posited in the 2022 published article. Culprits include U.S. policies that coerced parents into relinquishing their children to boarding schools, and the Indian Adoption Project — a federally funded effort in the mid-20th century to force the assimilation of Native American children into white families. 

Also harmful, they wrote, is the ongoing disproportionate removal of Native children from their parents through the country’s child welfare systems. 

Though not mentioned in the story, the lead agency spearheading the Indian Adoption Project, from 1958 to 1967, was the Child Welfare League of America. In 2001 they tried to apologize for it and justify it at the same time. CWLA’s current slogan is “over 100 years of excellence.”  

Does that include 1958 to 1967? 

● The Imprint reports on how the second Trump Administration may roll back child welfare initiatives that include people with lived experience - including initiatives begun by the first Trump Administration.

● Foster care numbers have gone down in Hawaii – but not by enough.  I have a commentary about it in Honolulu Civil Beat. 

● The co-chairs of the Maine Legislature’s Human Services Committee issued a statement that includes this reminder: 

Maine’s definition of child abuse and neglect is broad, vague and conflates poverty with neglect. There is a long list of individuals who are mandated reporters. We must provide clarity about what is abuse and neglect, and what is a resource issue or challenge for a family that could be appropriately supported by the community. 

In this week’s (further) edition of The Horror Stories go in All Directions: 

● The Los Angeles Times reports that Los Angeles County faced a record number of lawsuits last year: 

The county’s Department of Children and Family Services was the most frequently sued, with 882 cases, followed by the Probation and Sheriff’s departments with 304 each. Both the Probation and Children and Family Services departments have been hit with thousands of lawsuits in recent years alleging that children were sexually abused in foster homes and at probation facilities and a former children’s shelter. 

● From the Texas Tribune:

The state has shut down a residential treatment center in northeast Texas, three months after one of its charges — an 11-year-old boy — died in an incident that foster care officials and local law enforcement are investigating. 

The boy died in a Greenville movie theater during an outing the day before Thanksgiving, according to three people who are familiar with the investigations. Other boys who lived at the center told Joe Sterner, the Lone Oak school district’s police chief, that the boy had complained about a stomach ache and had sustained a head wound in recent days. … 

The boy and his fellow housemates watched the movie and by the time it ended, the child was dead, one of the people familiar with the case said.  “The lights came up and the child had blood coming down his nose and he was deceased,” said one source …