Welfare and Control: The U.S. Child Welfare System

Our new submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, co-authored with JMACforFamilies and Angela Olivia Burton, Esq., details how people living in poverty—especially Black and Indigenous families—are subjected to surveillance, privacy invasions, and the risk of family separation under the U.S. child welfare system.

Instead of punishment, children and families need real solutions: privacy protections, due process rights, and family-strengthening resources.

Read the Submission

THE ISSUE

• Over 75% of children placed in the foster system are removed due to neglect allegations—often tied to housing instability, food insecurity, or lack of medical care.
• Families in need of support are deterred from seeking critical social services due to fear of child removal.
• Parents have few legal protections during child welfare investigations, with government agents conducting searches and demanding compliance—often without judicial oversight.

WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE

We need real change to ensure families can seek support without fear of government intrusion. We are calling to:

• Replace mandatory reporting with voluntary reporting.
• Redefine “neglect” in child welfare laws to separate poverty-related challenges from actual harm.
• Provide families with direct social and economic services delinked from child welfare interventions.
• Invest in community-based family support programs—redirecting funding from punitive measures to real resources that keep families together.
• Guaranteeing legal counsel for all parents facing investigations.
• Ban or restrict predictive analytics that disproportionately target marginalized communities.
• Protect family privacy by prohibiting cross-agency data sharing that exposes families to scrutiny when they access public benefits.

Read the full submission to learn how we can move from punishment to support.