How Can I Advocate For Myself And My Child Within The Child Welfare System?

How Can I Find Fairness Within A Broken System?

Foster-care has the stated purpose of strengthening and securing the normal functioning of children in care to the extent where their lives and possibilities are comparable to the lives of children with no-foster care experiences. Many children end up in foster care because of a legitimate or non-legitimate report by another person. Mandated reporters are supposed to report if suspect physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, exposure to intimate partner/domestic violence. The aim is “to enable the cessation of the child’s abusive experience and to enable provision and protection and health support to the child.”

Some facts: In 2020, 7 million children were referred to CPS, 618,000 were determined to be victims of abuse or neglect, and 1750 died from maltreatment.  About 60% of CPS reports are “screened in” while about 40% are “screened out”. Up to 63% of CPS reports are for neglect. The children who are generally most significantly abused and/or neglected tend to be below the age of 5 and have parents with mental illness and/or substance abuse difficulties.

So who is most likely to be reported and/or experience CPS involvement? Children from low-income families, disabled children, families receiving housing services and/or food stamps, people of black/latinx, or indigenous people/aboriginal backgrounds, and those who are LGBTQIA+. As Jessica Pryce points out in her book “Broken: Transforming Child Protective Services”, “physicians are more likely to assume abuse in black children even with less injuries than white children.”

Furthermore, oftentimes children are not interviewed or involved in decision-making process even when older, the system overloaded by overreporting and lack of workers, reported are left relying on their gut or third-party information, there is often poor communication between mandated reporters and CPS workers, and decision-making in CPS is characterized by low reliability and frequent errors. As we know, consequences can be tragic if the reporter or investigator are wrong in either direction.

As such, many mandated reporters hesitate to report due to: distrust in the systems (cps/foster care/courts/child welfare/law enforcement etc.), fear of potential outcomes within the home to the children (e.g., revictimization, death), concern the report will be screened out, hesitancy to believe parents could inflict such harm, fear of being wrong, fear of tarnishing rapport with family, fear a foster care environment could be worse than original home, fears that cps workers are not properly trained or could be biased (poverty, race, age, gender identity etc.), or their own negative experiences with CPS/foster-care.

In fact, per a recent study regarding reporting in the educational environment, 73% of teachers highlighted negative experiences and reported that they are unclear as to what constitutes abuse, fear for the safety of the child, are concerned about their relationship with student and their family going forward, experience anxiety/distress after reporting, and fear long-term issues of reporting. Some teachers explained that they made reports thinking the children would get mental health services that could not be provided in the school setting-instead of going to the child/family and community first.  Overall, there is a lack of research studies showing that mandated reporting does more good than harm. There has also been inconsistent evidence that universal mandates increase the rate of reports and rates of confirmed neglect. One study found that punishing mandatory reporters for not reporting had a limited impact on referrals/reports. No studies demonstrated that universal mandates increase rates of any form of confirmed abuse.

While the potential harm in missing abuse and/or neglect may result in the worst case scenario of death, there are also many downsides to unfounded accusations or over-policing. Children involved with CPS experience higher mental illness, ER visits, psych hospitalizations, compared to those with no involvement, indicating need for mental health services as opposed to child removal in these situations. CPS involvement, even in cases where the allegations are unfounded, can result in further CPS involvement and family conflict. CPS investigators are generally supposed to work alone and reports have to be completed quickly which often reduces comprehensiveness , which lends itself toward bias. Police are almost always called when a child is being removed from a home to “prevent conflict”, which can lead to greater trauma and unrest.

CPS tends to rely on “fixing” parents, reunification is very expensive and time-consuming (parenting classes, home visits, psych evals and counseling, bonding assessments, case worker meetings, court dates etc.). Both removal and visitation have been shown to cause significant emotional distress on children, regardless of the situation. Some states require family members to have a formal foster license before allowing children to be placed with them, so the children end up being placed with strangers. In fact, per the American Academy of Pediatrics, children experience “toxic stress” when separated from parents, which causes harm to brain development (neuronal death). It is considered an “ambiguous loss” and can result in PTSD, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse in children and teens. In family court, CPS needs to meet “preponderance of the evidence” showing only that it is more likely than not that the alleged maltreatment occurred- some feel this is “guilty until proven innocent.” Oftentimes, “prevention services” are not provided until the child has already entered the CPS system. It has also been reported that there have been “faulty” mental health evaluations of children using outdated tests or those without norms (e.g., Draw-A-Person Test) for which conclusions were drawn to substantiate initial removal or continued removal from their home

Children in foster care sometimes experience: abuse, instability, lack of attachment, reduced health care, reduced educational support, lack of mental health support, and separation from siblings as well as a high rate of runaways.

Dorothy Roberts in “Torn Apart” states: “the very system that promises to break the cycle of family disadvantage by taking children from their homes, creates its own cycle of intergenerational state entanglement.” As many as 22% of children of foster care alumni (parents who were in foster care) spend part or all of their childhood not in their home (fewer resources) and 7-10x more likely to experience foster-care by their preschool years. These children also have poorer employment, educational attainment, reduced mental health and more interpersonal difficulties. Foster care rates parallel adult incarceration rates, which puts children placed in foster care at very high risk of such an outcome.

Alright so let's go back to the positive and talk about some potential solutions and considerations for those who are mandated reporters. Many researchers and advocates indicate the benefit of community support and early intervention/proactive services as significantly beneficial to avoid CPS involvement and/or abuse and neglect. In the early 2000s many states were trialing a differential response system to rude child maltreatment and foster care services. The approach was shifted to be child-centered and neighborhood-based with increased family engagement and service provision. CPS could offer assessment or investigation based upon level of risk, source of reported, and type of abuse suspected. Per the research, child safety was not compromised, significant reductions in foster care entries up to 24 months post-intake, significantly less out-of-home placements, less substantiated reports, particularly for those within the “neglect” category. In 2019 a politician from Wisconsin introduced the “Poverty is Not Child Neglect Act”, which requires that grants to the child welfare system are not used to separate children from parents secondary to poverty.

So, if you are a parent who is working on reunification with your child- make sure you have good and decent representation and follow the steps provided to you, while seeking emotional support and maintaining loving and supportive communication with your child, if permitted. If you are a foster parent, document everything from day one of your journey and be prepared for things to not always play out “fairly.” Child welfare workers are significantly overworked and sometimes have to make impossible judgments and decisions in a short amount of time. There are many working within the system truly looking out for the best interest of the child and want to protect them for being placed in a family or home in which their needs would not be met appropriately. Parents, former foster children, clinicians, and advocates must continue to fight for positive change in terms of reducing the risk of inaccurate threat/safety assessment and gather information from multiple sources prior to impulsively removing a child from a loving home. It is imperative that everyone works together within a community to support parents and foster parents who need assistance for any reason and that doctors and other medical professionals be adequately trained in terms of knowing when to intervene and preventing bias from stepping in.