Blog Posts -- Child Welfare System/Reform

By Roxanna Asgarian, Photo by Shuran Huang, The Texas Tribune, November 10, 2022 Jennifer and Chad Brackeen, an anesthesiologist and a stay-at-home dad, already had two biological children when they decided to foster a child. “God started to speak to our hearts about opening our home for more,” Jennifer explained in a now-defunct blog. The Evangelical Christian couple in Fort Worth began caring for a 10-month-old boy in 2016, and the next year, decided they wanted to adopt him. But the boy...

Since 2001 the Children’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has conducted periodic reviews of state child welfare systems. These reviews monitor compliance with federal child welfare requirements and determine how children and families experience being served by the child welfare system. Three rounds of these “Child and Family Service Reviews” or CFSRs have been conducted, and the fourth round (CFSR-4) is underway. ( See the most recent reports .) Ensuring that child...

The November issue of Children's Bureau Express features National Adoption Month and brings to the forefront the need to find loving, stable, and permanent homes for children and youth of any age waiting to be adopted. Our message from Associate Commissioner Aysha E. Schomburg continues to feature how the Lakota tribe implements the principle of being acutely mindful of the language they use around their children. This issue also includes valuable resources for professionals and the families...

By Shamara Kelly, Rise, October 31, 2022 My biggest fear has always been ACS taking my kids. I have embodied trauma from when I was a child—the system broke me and my siblings apart and took us away from our mom. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen to my two kids. As a parent, I had my share of ACS cases when I was experiencing domestic violence, but because of my childhood experiences, I don’t believe ACS could have helped. ACS actually made things worse for me because caseworkers...

By Rise, November 1, 2022 At Rise, the vast majority of parents impacted by the family policing system are Black and brown women who are survivors of domestic violence (DV), intimate partner violence (IPV) and/or sexual violence. Every year, many—if not most—parents in our Rise & Shine Parent Leadership Program write about and/or discuss experiences of domestic violence, sexual abuse and/or intimate partner violence in connection to their experience with the family policing system , a...

By Deana Around Him, Child Trends, November 8, 2022 In the 10 states with the largest proportions of American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) children, AIAN children are overrepresented in foster care in nearly every state when comparing their percentages in the foster care and total child populations (see figure below). Of these 10 states, the percentage of AIAN children in foster care was highest in South Dakota, Alaska, and North Dakota; and lowest in Arizona, Oregon, and Nebraska. These...

PBS News Hour, November 4, 2020 As the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the Indigenous Child Welfare Act, many Native Americans anxiously await the outcome. The law governs the removal of Native American children from their homes and where they are subsequently placed. It's an effort to keep them with other family members and their tribes. Stephanie Sy reports on the challenge that could dismantle it entirely. Read the Full Transcript

A Theme That Recognizes the Importance of Change “I spent 8 or 9 months really just meeting with pretty much anyone who would ask because there's always something to be learned from a conversation. And, having really thoughtful conversations about not only what the problems are, but what the solutions are, that's also really important.” —Aysha E. Schomburg, J.D., Associate Commissioner, Children's Bureau, “Threading Equity Throughout Child Welfare” podcast Nearly 1 year after her appointment...

by Mike Hixenbaugh and Suzy Khimm , NBC News, and Agnel Philip, ProPublica, October 12, 2022 After the Sandusky child abuse scandal rocked Pennsylvania, the state required more professionals to report suspected child abuse. That led to a strained child welfare system and more unsubstantiated reports against low-income families. More than a decade before the Penn State University child sex abuse scandal broke, an assistant football coach told his supervisors that he had seen Jerry Sandusky...

By Erica L. Green, Photo by Chet Strange for the New York Times, The New York Times, October 13, 2022 The Biden administration proposes spending $20 billion over a decade to help some of the most vulnerable families in the country, including relatives suddenly thrust into child rearing. WASHINGTON — Maria Elena Thomas and her husband were ready for a simpler life after they retired in 2015, sold their home in Colorado and settled on the southeastern coast of Spain. “People would ask, ‘When...

The How We endUP Convening is a two-day virtual gathering of advocates, activists, researchers, policymakers, and leaders from different communities, agencies, and efforts coming together to explore how we can move toward abolition of family policing--how we can dismantle harmful, racist systems and build different ways of caring for one another. Featured speakers are Angela Davis, Joyce McMillan, and Mariame Kaba. Join in discussions that expose racism in how families are surveilled and...

The October 2022 issue of Children's Bureau Express (CBX) features resources related to the issue of youth homelessness and ways to mitigate the challenges children and youth involved with child welfare face during times of financial insecurity. Read a message from Associate Commissioner Aysha E. Schomburg about the importance of practicing positivity when engaging with children and youth and how the Lakota tribe implements this principle of being acutely mindful of the language they use...