Dozens of Kansas foster children slept in offices overnight last year, experienced too many night-to-night placements and for some, mental health needs weren’t met soon enough. That’s what an independent monitor found in the first report measuring how well Kansas is following the settlement agreement in a class action lawsuit aimed at improving the state’s […]
A new state-by-state analysis of how well America meets international standards on protecting its children found “alarming” results — a nation that “overwhelmingly” fails to protect its youngest residents from child marriage, corporal punishment, child labor and justice system abuse. New York, considered progressive by American standards, was among states receiving failing grades on the national […]
Weeks after hearing from advocates and government officials about racism in the American child welfare system, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of RacialDiscrimination said Congress should consider changing or eliminating several major laws pertaining to child protection investigations, foster care and adoption. The committee, often referred to as CERD, said it was “concerned […]
Accusations of racism in the U.S. child welfare system reached the United Nations this month, with American officials pressed on why so many Black families are torn apart by foster care. During a public hearing Friday in Geneva, Switzerland, the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination confronted officials with the Biden administration. Speaking […]
Foster youth in Michigan say the classes they took in state-funded facilities didn’t count toward graduation. Some dropped out. “I felt destroyed,” one said, “like everything I did was for nothing.” Educational issues in these facilities often don’t get much attention, because the facilities also face urgent challenges in hiring qualified staff and managing tense […]
For about a year, teenage foster children who have been deemed to be difficult to place with families have been sleeping in state offices in Fulton County, and the practice had led to unsafe conditions for both the teens and those trying to help them, caseworkers and advocates say. “It’s a requirement, both constitutionally and […]
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen devastating images of children and families fleeing war and violence in Ukraine, seeking refuge in neighboring nations. It is an unimaginable prospect for these children, and one that is unfortunately all too common. Every day, in regions all across the world, violence, instability and poverty force children to […]
The U.S. is preparing for a potential spike in migrant children crossing the southern border without their parents, and has identified up to 19,000 beds at shelters and housing sites to prevent these minors from languishing in Border Patrol detention facilities, top Biden administration officials told CBS News. In interviews, Health and Human Services Secretary […]
There is no shortage of calls to reimagine legal and social systems and rethink the concept of safety in order to strengthen and empower communities as recognition of the detrimental effects of these systems on marginalized communities grows. As these calls draw every system in this country under a microscope, we must examine and dismantle […]
Last spring, Kaitlin Hess paused her day job as a scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency to answer the Biden administration’s call for volunteers at the border, where thousands of migrant children were arriving unaccompanied, without adult relatives to care for them. Hess, a 34-year-old who normally helps clean up hazardous waste sites, was deployed […]
