The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) launched an investigation. I trusted them to help him.” Adaline was shocked when she learned that her son’s medical providers reported her to child protective services for suspected abuse, triggering a cascade of state interventions that irreparably harmed her children and their family bond. “The doctors asked me questions, and I told them everything. “I rushed him to the emergency room when he got hurt,” Adaline said. Her 9-year-old son, Elijah, was dancing in the kitchen and slipped on some water, injuring his hip. Her nightmare began on a night like any other. It has been more than two years since Adaline Stephens’ six children were removed from her care and placed in the foster system. Bobbie Butts, advocate, California, April 15, 2022 Black children are almost twice as likely to experience investigations as white children and more likely to be separated from their families. Human Rights Watch and the ACLU found significant racial and socioeconomic disparities in child welfare involvement. The 146-page report, “‘If I Wasn’t Poor, I Wouldn’t Be Unfit’: The Family Separation Crisis in the US Child Welfare System,” documents how conditions of poverty, such as a family’s struggle to pay rent or maintain housing, are misconstrued as neglect, and interpreted as evidence of an inability and lack of fitness to parent. The system’s disproportionate impact on Black and Indigenous families and people living in poverty, and the sheer number of children removed unjustly, make this a national crisis warranting immediate attention and action. (New York, November 17, 2022) – Child welfare systems in the United States too often treat poverty as the basis for charges of neglect and decisions to remove children from their parents, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a report released today.
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