Around 38,700 young people across the United States live in non-family foster placements such as group homes and residential facilities, known as congregate settings. Congregate environments have long been a source of concern due to their hazardous and carceral nature. Despite mounting evidence that these placements do more harm than good, the practice persists, including […]
Every day, unjust child welfare laws and policies subject Black families to surveillance, policing, and discrimination that causes devastating harm, breaking apart families and violating their human rights. At every stage of the child welfare system, Black children and families face racism and unequal outcomes compared to their white counterparts. This failure to dismantle systems […]
Government is perpetuating the oppression of Black children and families through traumatic surveillance, investigation, and family separation practices carried out under the auspices of the child welfare system. Institutional racism is a force at work in the American child welfare system and contributes to the disproportionate involvement of Black children and families with the system. […]
At any given time, there are approximately 42,823 children housed in institutions and other group facilities. Institutionalizing children denies them loving homes and robs them of their childhood. Families over Facilities is a call to action to end the unnecessary institutionalization of children in child welfare. The report details the physical, mental and emotional harm done […]
This report was developed with extensive input from LGBTQ+ young people currently or formerly in foster care, LGBTQ+ young people currently or formerly experiencing homelessness, and direct service workers. We identify how the pandemic is amplifying some of the risks for LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare systems and propose practices to mitigate them. Now, more than ever, LGBTQ+ young people must be protected.
A new report released by Children’s Rights and the Education Law Center-PA raises serious concerns about the safety of Pennsylvania’s residential placements for youth in foster care and the quality of education provided there. The report, Unsafe and Uneducated: Indifference to Dangers in Pennsylvania’s Residential Child Welfare Facilities, is available here.
Children’s Rights has proudly teamed up with Lambda Legal and the Center for the Study of Social Policy in conducting a groundbreaking study highlighting the deficiencies in law and policy across all 50 states in protecting transgender, gender expansive, and gender non-conforming youth in out-of-home care systems. The first-of-its-kind report showcases the dramatic overrepresentation of […]
Spurred by a child welfare reform campaign initially filed in 2000 by Children’s Rights, the state of Tennessee has employed a number of strategies over the years to dramatically reduce its reliance on institutions — and now placesthe vast majority of youth in foster care with relatives and foster families. This report not only explores […]
The state of Wisconsin recently launched a new effort to license and train relatives following a legislative change in 2009 requiring relatives caring for foster youth to apply for a foster home license. This report evaluates the implementation of this new policy shift in Wisconsin, and offers specific recommendations that would help ensure that foster […]
An in-depth report on the New York City child welfare system detailing problems that delay the progress of children in New York City foster care toward reunification with their parents, adoption, or permanency through legal guardianship — and making concrete recommendations about how these problems can be solved.
