The child welfare system causes harm to Black children and we have known this for decades
Black children are over-surveilled, over-policed and over-removed by the child welfare system. Once involved in this system, the trauma and harm that results from foster care causes irreparable damage to Black children, and serve as a source of their ongoing and continued oppression.
As a field, we have known this for decades. And now it is time to abolish these systems in favor of something that is inherently anti-racist and truly prioritizes support, not dissolution, of families.
Our respective organizations have formed upEND, a collaborative movement aimed at protecting Black children and reimagining how we serve and support families. The upEND movement works to create a society in which the forcible separation of children from their parents is no longer an acceptable intervention for families in need.
Black children have been overrepresented in the child welfare system for more than 50 years, yet despite decades of efforts to address this, they remain overrepresented in foster care at a rate nearly double their proportion in the general child population. In certain states, Black children are placed in foster care at rates more than three times their proportion of the population. This phenomenon, referred to as racial disproportionality, results from racial inequities that exist at every decision point along the child welfare pathway, from the point of initial referral to decisions on entries into and exits from foster care. At each of these decision points, Black children experience inequitable outcomes that result in their greater likelihood of entering foster care and greater likelihood of staying in foster care when compared to their White counterparts.
Racial disproportionality represents a significant societal problem because of the harm it causes Black children. Over the years, we have gathered an abundance of research to show that the forced separation of children from their parents results in significant and lifelong trauma, regardless of how long the separation lasts. This is true when parents are incarcerated, and in recent years this has become very apparent as we’ve witnessed the pain and anguish that result when children are separated from their parents at the U.S./Mexico border. This same pain and anguish occur when children are forcibly separated from their parents by child protection authorities.
But even beyond the trauma of separation, the pain associated with placement in foster care continues as children are sent to strangers’ homes with little explanation, and often continue to be moved multiple times, with little to no information on when or if they will be returned home. As a result, studies have shown that children who enter foster care are at risk for a host of negative experiences as adults including homelessness, criminal justice involvement, low educational attainment, unemployment, economic hardship, substance abuse, and significant mental health disorders.
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