Jacqueline Herrera struggled to pay $120 a week in fees for classes and counseling so that her kids wouldn’t end up in foster care. “Without support, the whole thing feels more like a punishment than a helping hand,” she said. Photo by Jeremy Loudenback
By Jeremy Loudenback, The Imprint, October 18, 2023
The cost of drug treatment, anger management sessions and counseling has long been the responsibility of parents accused of child maltreatment in California’s most populous county. The impact of these financial obstacles on families — who are disproportionately Black and Indigenous — can amount to longer stays in foster care and insurmountable obstacles to reunification.
But a new state law and a recent move by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors aim to tackle this widely acknowledged injustice in the local child welfare system: Making low-income parents pay for programs they need to complete to get their kids back from foster care.
“Getting your kids back, it comes down to money, it comes down to resources,” said Jacqueline Herrera. The Van Nuys mother and her children ended up entangled with the Department of Children and Family Services in 2018, after she called 911 for protection from an abusive partner. “Without support, the whole thing feels more like a punishment than a helping hand.”
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