child welfare Archive
May is Foster Care Month, and it is a great time to sing the praises of the many wonderful foster parents who are changing children’s lives every day. As a social worker in Washington, D.C.’s child welfare system until a …
Access to specialty mental health services in California by county. Source: Young Minds Advocacy A new report from Young Minds Advocacy makes the case that the publicly funded mental health system for children in California needs a shake up. Released …
In reading Daniel Heimpel’s article “Responding to foster kids like Alex, L.A. County acts to protect educational stability,” it occurred to me that Los Angeles County is focused on a poorer solution than the one that ultimately worked for Alex. …
The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) came about because the federal government and states had a long history of treating Native American* parents as unfit just by their being Indian.
On April 17, 2017, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the Clinton Foundation is launching an initiative to study the foster care and juvenile justice programs in San Diego County. A particular focus will be to identify the factors that …
In 1984, George Orwell defined “doublethink” as holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting them both. In child welfare, for example, we have been told for decades that child welfare systems don’t take away children because their …
Prolonged temporary care, whether unintended or not, amounts to child abuse. Child protection agencies have the power to radically reduce time in foster care, but too often back off, waiting to see how the birth parents do. Meanwhile, as the child remains …
When James Manley came to rural Lake County, Montana, as a district judge in 2013, he knew the meth problem was bad, but he didn’t know how much worse it would get.
The rate of drug-exposed newborns is spiking across New Mexico, as are entries into the foster care system. Is there a link? While being examined by a gynecologist, a pregnant Doralee Urban did her utmost to keep calm and hide …
In a column in The Chronicle earlier this month, Marie Cohen includes the following statement. Almost everything in it is untrue: Starting in the early 2000s, a group of wealthy foundations and allies called the Alliance for Racial Equity in Child Welfare …
