To the Editor:
Re “To Shield Children, We Want Extra Foster Care, Not Much less,” by Naomi Schaefer Riley (Opinion visitor essay, Might 13):
Items like this categorical concern in regards to the well-being of kids whereas ignoring the each day harms attributable to household separation. The trauma of being ripped away from their dad and mom and positioned within the foster system with strangers typically ends in youngsters growing a bunch of challenges, together with poor psychological and bodily well being, low instructional achievement, excessive charges of homelessness and early being pregnant, and involvement in legal actions.
The overreliance on household separation for youngsters who aren’t in any rapid hazard destroys households who might have remained along with the suitable help. The dad and mom we work with each day love their youngsters, however they typically lack entry to very important assets like safe housing, youngster care, nutritious meals, psychological well being care and transportation.
In New York, allegations of neglect — many instances due to a scarcity of assets — account for the overwhelming majority of complaints in opposition to dad and mom. We all know that Black and brown households are particularly susceptible to being separated throughout invasive and coercive investigations.
Reasonably than overfunding punitive programs that do extra hurt than good, we should spend money on the well being and stability of susceptible households.
Tehra Coles
New York
The author is government director of the Middle for Household Illustration.
To the Editor:
This essay cogently highlights the well-intentioned however typically harmful pattern of maintaining youngsters in dangerous settings. Sadly, it’s not solely maintaining youngsters out of foster care; it’s additionally what number of youngster welfare officers now method adoption — in search of to have youngsters be with their beginning household, even when it’s unsafe or when reunification efforts have failed for years.
In 1997 Congress sought to resolve the issue of kids lingering in foster care by passing the Adoption and Secure Households Act to restrict how lengthy youngsters spent within the youngster welfare system earlier than initiating the adoption course of. Shortly after the bipartisan regulation was handed, timelines for youngsters in foster care considerably decreased. Now, this regulation is basically ignored.
The most up-to-date youngster welfare knowledge present that 20 p.c of the practically 370,000 youngsters in foster care have been within the system for 3 or extra years, which suggests youngsters spending extra time with out the love of an adoptive household.
Ryan Hanlon
Alexandria, Va.
The author is president of the Nationwide Council for Adoption.
To the Editor:
I’ve labored within the youngster welfare system as an legal professional representing foster youth within the Bay Space for 18 years. The best flaw of the system, in my opinion, is the kid welfare company’s failure to establish household or household mates instantly upon removing of a kid from their mum or dad(s), so the kid can safely stay within the care of somebody they know, whether or not quickly or long run.
The act of eradicating a toddler from their mum or dad(s) and putting them in a foster dwelling with “strangers” has documented and apparent damaging penalties to a toddler’s emotional, bodily and psychological well being. The time that youngster welfare companies typically take to establish, contact and clear a relative or household pal for placement is problematic. Extra emphasis and assets should be dedicated to this stage of the case.
A society that unequivocally cares about youngsters would remove boundaries that youngster welfare companies create to avoid and delay putting a toddler who they decide should be faraway from parental care with a well-known face. These of us working on this subject witness the traumatic affect of this flawed system on youngsters and households each day.
Vicki Trapalis
San Francisco
To the Editor:
Naomi Schaefer Riley attributes youngsters’s deaths to efforts by youngster welfare companies to maintain at-risk households collectively. Nonetheless, she fails to account for the various cities and states the place important reductions in youngsters getting into foster care haven’t led to any uptick in youngster maltreatment fatalities, resembling New York Metropolis, Texas and New Jersey.
Knowledge reveals that the 2 tendencies described — efforts to cut back household separation and elevated fatalities — will not be taking place in the identical locations. Texas, as an example, has not too long ago diminished each foster care placement and fatalities, whereas each have elevated in Georgia.
Analysis revealed within the Kids and Youth Companies Evaluate reveals that horrific youngster fatalities like Phoenix Castro’s, cited by Ms. Riley, characterize “excessive outliers,” and that sensationalized media protection results in “foster care panics,” when youngster welfare companies make politically conservative selections that separate households unnecessarily, traumatizing youngsters.
It’s vital that we perceive the info about these tragic however uncommon deaths and the insurance policies that really shield youngsters.
Nora McCarthy
New York
The author is the director of the NYC Household Coverage Challenge, a assume tank.
To the Editor:
The creator makes use of the age-old tactic of highlighting an outlier case the place a toddler tragically dies within the care of their mum or dad as justification for erring on the facet of warning and eradicating youngsters from their households.
The fact is that not like the horror tales which can be portrayed within the media, bodily and sexual abuse accounted for less than 17 p.c of the youngsters that had been eliminated from their dad and mom final 12 months. Most removals are resulting from “neglect,” a nebulous and obscure time period as a result of poverty is commonly conflated with neglect.
And for these youngsters who’re positioned in foster care, security is way from assured. One research discovered that youngsters in foster care had been 42 p.c extra more likely to die than these within the basic inhabitants. A number of research present that foster youngsters expertise bodily and sexual abuse at larger charges than the final inhabitants. Many youngsters have died in foster care.
Our society continues to perpetuate the well-debunked delusion that foster care ensures that youngsters will reside higher lives. As Naomi Schaefer Riley admits, “Foster care will not be a panacea.” That’s the one factor we are able to agree upon.
Shanta Trivedi
Baltimore
The author is college director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Middle for Households, Kids and the Courts and an assistant professor of regulation on the College of Baltimore Faculty of Regulation.
