It’s Time for Boldness, Not Retreat: Strengthen Services for Families in Need.
The newly enacted American Rescue Plan, with its welcome financial support for the nation's cities and states and commitment to cut child poverty by half, presents opportunities to reverse historic social injustice in the field of child welfare. Now Governor Andrew Cuomo and the State Legislature need to seize those opportunities – immediately, in the State budget due to be approved by April 1st.
Our long experience leading organizations that work with families tells us this: For too long, for too many families, child welfare investigations have stemmed from the implicit bias that poor families of color are a danger to their children, and from families not having the money for food, safe shelter, clothing, or child care they need. By initiating a typically frightening investigation, in far too many instances we add undue stress in already stressful circumstances, and penalize families for being poor and of color.
In New York City, nearly two-thirds of investigations of families find no credible evidence of abuse and neglect. Nevertheless, during the investigation, these families face the debilitating fear that their children might be removed despite a lack of any credible evidence. In 2018, over 32,000 New York City children and their families were subjected to unwarranted investigations. Black children make up 22 percent of the city’s youth population, but over 40 percent of the children whose parents are investigated in a year. Latinx children make up 35 percent of the city’s youth and 45 percent of those involved in a child protection investigation.
Yes, there are children who need our protection. More often than not, however, when child protection workers find evidence of child maltreatment, it is for neglect, not abuse. For the great majority, our response should be providing nonjudgmental support, not threatening child removal to foster care or ongoing surveillance. Reducing unnecessary investigations, we believe, will also build greater trust in the system, an absolute necessity in the effort to protect children.
Preventive services that aim to keep families together are not perfect, but they are far better than family separation. When done right, they help parents develop networks of support, gain insights into their parenting, leave unsafe situations for themselves and their children, manage difficult teen behaviors, obtain mental health supports, learn how to navigate education and public assistance challenges, and make other life changes that lead to their well-being and to safe homes for children.
In recent years, we’ve made important progress, in New York and across the nation, in that direction. Nationally, between 2017 and 2019 we saw a four percent decline in children separated and placed into foster care. In New York City, there was a 19 percent decline during the same period. A key reason is that New York State offers counties reimbursement on every dollar allocated to preventive services.
Now, however, Governor Cuomo’s budget plan threatens to take us backwards. Over the past several years, the governor has used a budget mechanism to reduce what had been a 65 percent reimbursement rate to 62 percent; his current proposed budget calls for an additional five percent decrease.
Now is not the time to retreat. Instead, we call on the governor and legislature to:
Invest more in family support services, not less. Return the State's preventive funding formula to the 65 percent match.
Revise current requirements in State law that require preventive matching funds be used only for families who are at risk of separation. As it stands, prevention supports frequently go to families who have been investigated for child abuse or neglect, which makes involved families feel susceptible to surveillance, stigma, and fear. The State preventive funding match should be opened up for community investments, with a priority placed on the least intrusive supports we can provide so that families feel safe to seek true help. This includes funding an expansion of New York City’s innovative Family Enrichment Center model.
Listen to advocates who are calling for fair and commonsense changes. We stand with advocates in calling for families to be informed of their rights at the time of an investigation, akin to Miranda rights in criminal cases.
Limit unnecessary investigations before they get launched. We also support advocates' calls for ending anonymous reporting to the child abuse and neglect hotline (the State Central Registry). Calls should be allowed to be confidential, but anonymous reporting must end so that the child protective system cannot so readily be weaponized against families.
Nationwide, we should also move to make the guaranteed family income in the American Rescue Plan permanent.
We firmly believe that respecting each family’s rights, providing real economic relief, and abiding by their choice of where to get help makes us a stronger country and removes another brick from the historic wall of structural racism. Now is the time to go forward boldly. This is not about a lack of money, it is about how we choose to spend our money and what and who we spend it on.
Poor parents have been struggling through the pandemic’s year of crisis and reckoning, and need the State on their side right now. At one end of the economic spectrum, many families will emerge from the pandemic stronger, having worked at home, built up savings, and been personally unaffected by illness and death. At the other and much wider end, families who were already struggling before the pandemic are now in crisis. People at the base of the economic pyramid have been hurt the most. As we rebuild, we have an opportunity to change policies that penalize people for being poor into policies that provide help people need when they need it.
Let’s not retreat; let’s be bold, do something new, and do right by kids and families.
Jeremy Kohomban is president and CEO of The Children's Village.
Jess Dannhauser is the CEO of Graham Windham.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema.