NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending March 26, 2025

● What happens when you tear apart families at a rate more than double the national average and find yourself with no place to put them? For starters, as this story from the Concord (N.H.) Monitor makes clear, you make sure to turn a blind eye to rampant abuse in the places where you’ve now forced the children to live. 

● Meanwhile in Oregon, which tears apart families at a rate “only” 20% above the national average, this is happening: The governor and some lawmakers are pushing legislation to make it easier to go back to the horrendous practice of shipping children to hellhole out-of-state institutions. (It’s the bill I wrote about here.)  Oh, but you see, they assure is, this time it will be different! Oregon Public Broadcasting does a good job of calling b------t on that. (Though, unfortunately, without mentioning the taking-too-many-kids-in-the-first-place part.) 

● But no place is worse than West Virginia, Child Removal Capital of America. In that state the bad bills keep on coming. One would, if enacted, send worker caseloads soaring by more than 48%. I have a blog post on it.  Another would force the state to open still another parking place shelter to dump some of the kids it never needed to take in the first place. I have a blog post about that one, too.  And WTAP-TV has an update to the story that was the subject of this post. 

● Once you’ve dumped children into group homes and institutions, how do you keep them docile for the overwhelmed strangers who oversee them? Dope the kids up on potent, sometimes dangerous psychiatric meds.  The Imprint this week begins a comprehensive series documenting how 

For decades, advocates, public health experts and foster youth … have expressed alarm about the child welfare system’s heavy, haphazard reliance on psychotropic medications for traumatized children. 

“They’re just not allowed to have a bad day,” said Cassandra Simmel, a social work professor at Rutgers University whose research has involved interviewing foster youth across the country about consent, mental health and medication. “‘We have a bad day, that means we get put on medication.’ Those kinds of stories I’ve been hearing for 30 years.” 

And this gives an excellent sense of just how lackadaisical states are when it comes to protecting children from this kind of abuse: 

Kansas Department for Children and Families spokesperson Erin La Row said her agency “does not have specific policies for the use of psychotropic medication with children in foster care.” But she pointed to other protections, such as the state Medicaid agency’s “prior-authorization” rules that apply to all pediatric patients and best-practice guidance manuals for doctors treating foster youth. 

La Row added that “it’s possible” additional oversight is conducted by private foster care providers contracted by the state that “may have their own policies.” 

Teresa Woody, litigation director for the nonprofit Kansas Appleseed and co-counsel on the 2018 lawsuit, reacted to the state’s response: “What does that tell you? In other words, ‘We have no idea what our contractors are doing on this issue’ — right?”

Among the states with no policy at all on the use of these meds: West Virginia.

● Speaking of West Virginia, this horror ended there but, in fairness, the blame rests primarily with Minnesota, where, this Associated Press story reports, the children were first adopted. (If the story sounds eerily familiar, it’s because it’s so similar to another adoption horror out of Minnesota (among other states), the one described in Roxanna Asgarian’s book, We Were Once a Family. 

● On the legislative front, there is better news from Kansas, where, The Beacon reports, the legislature is considering a bill to make it harder to confuse poverty with neglect. 

● And also Alabama, where, the Alabama Reflector reports, the legislature is considering a “Family Miranda” bill. 

● And also Georgia, the latest state to pass a Reasonable Childhood Independence law.  

● In New York, the Legislature is considering a bill to replace anonymous reporting with confidential reporting – much as Texas has done. The New York City Family Policy Project breaks down the data on anonymous reports and why they’re so harmful.  

● And in Texas, The Imprint reports on children who are not taken directly by the family police but are relinquished by desperate parents: 

Now, two pieces of legislation calling for expanded mental health services in Texas offer lawmakers an opportunity to assist families early on — before desperation and thin hope push parents toward the drastic decision to relinquish custody just to get help. 

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

In addition to the story above from Minnesota and West Virginia: 

● From the Honolulu Star-Advertiser 

A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of the estate of Geanna Bradley against four adults living in the Wahiawa house where the 10-year-old girl was found dead from years of abuse and starvation, and against the state of Hawaii, including the Department of Human Services and its employees. 

● From Arizona Public Media:

 The San Carlos Apache Tribe wrote to Governor Katie Hobbs, the state Legislature, and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, calling for an investigation into the death of 14-year-old Emily Pike. Pike was found in multiple garbage bags on a forest road northeast of Globe after missing from her group home in Mesa starting in late January. Investigating authorities have yet to arrest or name a suspect in her case. 

According to the Tribe, over three years, about 30 children have run away from Sacred Journey, the group home where Pike stayed. “What happened to these other children?” Chairman Terry Rambler said. … 

● Texas Public Radio reports 

An 11-year-old girl living in a hotel under the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) care as part of its Children Without Placement (CWOP) program was abducted and nearly trafficked by a 42-year-old man on Valentine’s Day, according to a police report. … 

Police reported a possible sexual offense occurred, a weapon was used and that the child suffered minor injuries. Police collected video footage, images and DNA evidence. The child said she escaped the man after hours and returned to the hotel. It was not clear if CPS workers knew she was gone. …