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The American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law is piloting a new community-based initiative in Michigan to address overreporting by medical professionals of Black, Indigenous and Latino/a children to the child welfare system. Nationally, injuries in Black children are 9 times more likely than those in White children to be reported as abuse despite evidence that child abuse and neglect occur at equal rates across races.

The project is one of several field-initiated approaches funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Children’s Bureau. The funding will enable community-based organizations with strong local ties to meet children and families where they are and provide resources to keep them together by addressing racial bias and inequity in child welfare systems in underserved communities.

The ABA’s work in Michigan, which started in September 2023 and will continue through September 2028, focuses on medical providers as mandated child abuse and neglect reporters. The ABA is partnering with the Children’s Services Administration of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, community-based organizations and impacted individuals to conduct pilots in Detroit and Ann Arbor that focus on the interplay between the health care, public health, child welfare and legal systems as they respond to medical child maltreatment reports. The principles of co-creation, relationship building, narrative change and racial healing will serve as the cornerstones of the Michigan pilots.