By Jeremy Loudenback, The Imprint, November 17, 2022
A sprawling report released today by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union describes civil rights issues within the child welfare system as a “national family separation crisis” that needs “immediate attention and action.”
The analysis of federal and state data and dozens of interviews with parents draw attention to the harms of child welfare investigations and the disproportionate involvement of Black and Indigenous families in foster care systems across the country. These “system interventions,” the report reads, “too often unnecessarily disrupt family integrity and cause harm to the very children they aim to protect.”
In one of many anecdotes, a California mother told Human Rights Watch researchers that Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services social workers removed her 4-year-old daughter during an investigation of a domestic violence incident. The government workers charged the mom with failing to protect her child by allowing her to witness a verbal argument. A father the study refers to reported that he reached out to New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services to get mental health support for his daughter — only for her to be removed from his care and placed into foster care.
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