Tuesday, March 12, 2024

NCCPR News and commentary round-up, week ending March 12, 2024

● Last week, we noted a fascinating study by the NYC Family Policy Project revealing that New York State’s child abuse hotline screens out far fewer cases than the national average, inundating the localities that investigate the screened-in calls with false allegations, trivial cases and poverty-confused-with-neglect cases.  The Imprint has a good story on the report.  So does the New York Daily News And I have a blog post on the pathetic response from Jess Dannhauser, commissioner of New York City's Administration for Children's Services. (Be sure to see the response from the ACS flack at the end!)

CNN has a story about the civil rights complaint brought by Children’s Rights and the Minneapolis NAACP against the family policing systems in Minnesota’s largest counties. 

● It doesn’t get as much attention at the pervasive racism but there is another group of families who automatically have targets on their backs.  The Guardian has been following that issue for years, and has an in-depth report from a state that’s notorious for this kind of discrimination: Oregon. 

● Many people, especially in New England, know at least part of the story of Harmony Montgomery.  She was taken from her mother in Massachusetts and placed with her father in New Hampshire.  Then she disappeared. Her father has been convicted of killing her.  The case has been exploited by the Massachusetts “Child Advocate” Maria Mosaides as she seeks to make the family police even more powerful and even effectively silence children in court. 

What Mossaides wants us all to forget is the one person who truly loved and cared about Harmony: The person no one would listen to; the person who was written off from the start: Crystal Sorey — Harmony’s mother.  Now, the Boston Globe reports, Sorey is getting ready to sue those who really let Harmony down. 

And in The Hill, a call for radical change – from foster parents who write that such change should include: 

We should stop mandated reporting — doctors, teachers and social workers shouldn’t be acting as agents of the police. And we should discourage the use of child welfare hotlines, which all too often are used not for reporting real abuse but as means for harassment of a former intimate partner, a tenant or others. Keep reports confidential but not anonymous, and stop terrorizing already vulnerable children and parents, because this largely happens to poor people.

Friday, March 8, 2024

Is this guy the most helpless “child welfare” leader in America? His own comments suggest the answer is yes.

New York City Administration for Children's Services
Commissioner Jess Dannhauser

UPDATE: SEE ACS'S RESPONSE AT THE END OF THIS POST

Poor Jess Dannhauser.  The head of New York City’s family police agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, says he’s really, truly concerned (though apparently not much more) about all those families and children traumatized by needless investigations and strip-searches resulting from all those false allegations, trivial cases or cases in which family poverty is confused with “neglect.”

But sheesh, all that whining!  Over and over again he offers the same response: It’s not my fault!  That mean old state government makes us do it!  And yet, Dannhauser ignored the obvious solution.  That should make us wonder if he really just wants to keep things as they are. 

The latest example to emerge from Dannhauser’s whine cellar is a letter to the editor in the New York Daily News.  That newspaper published an excellent commentary from the city’s family defense providers calling on the City Council and/or the State Legislature to pass a “Family Miranda” law – requiring ACS to tell families their rights.  Because if you don’t know your rights, you don’t have your rights. 

Dannhauser (or some flack in the ACS p.r. department) wrote a letter to the editor that regurgitated his standard excuse.  He writes: 

Anyone can make a report to New York State’s child abuse hotline. If a call about a New York City child is accepted by the state, the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) is required by state law to respond to allegations and assess the safety of the child. ACS can’t choose which families to respond to but must, under law, respond to reports the state accepts. 

He continues: 

A Black child is seven times more likely than a white child to be in a report to the hotline. This is concerning. 

Let me interrupt here: just "concerning"

ACS can’t control calls made or reports accepted, 

Yes, you already said that. 

so we have been retraining mandated reporters on when to appropriately make a report and when, instead, they should connect the family to support. 

Because training is what you do when you don’t want to make real change. 

Here’s what Dannhauser never mentions.  Laws can be amended.  If he doesn’t want to be “required by state law” to do something, why doesn’t he go to the New York State Legislature and ask them to change the law? 

Perhaps if I say that more slowly ACS will understand: Ask. Them. To. Change. The. Law. 

Perhaps I need to say it louder: Ask. Them. To. Change. The. Law. 

The change would be simple: Authorize ACS and its county counterparts across the state to set up their own mechanisms to screen calls and decide if they need to be investigated. 

Of course, asking for such a change doesn’t mean he’ll get it.  But not asking guarantees he won’t.  So I figure there are three possible explanations: 

● It never occurred to him to ask.

● He’s asking but it’s top secret because he wants it to be a surprise and he hates spoilers.

● He likes things the way they are because they enable Maximum Feasible Buckpassing. 

I’m thinking it’s the third one. Because it so benefits both ACS and the state agency that runs the hotline, the Office of Children and Family Services.  That means it also benefits the mayor and the governor.  Here’s why: 

As things stand now, the state has an incentive to screen out fewer cases, since all those false reports become the localities’ problem.  The localities get to go full Dannhauser and say: It’s not our fault that we traumatized all these families with needless investigations and strip-searches, the state made us do it!  And both are in a position where it’s less likely they’ll wind up on the front page of the New York Post for wrongly screening something out.  In short, it works for everyone – except the children and families. 

Oh, and by the way: Nothing Dannhauser wrote in his letter is a reason not to pass family Miranda legislation.  On the contrary, if Dannhauser really believes that often his investigators shouldn’t be knocking on families’ doors at all, isn’t that more reason to make sure those families know their rights? 

The consequences were perfectly illustrated in a new report from the NYC Family Policy Project.  The report found that New York State screens out, proportionately, far fewer reports than the national average. 

As The Imprint reported

The report quotes several parents by first name. Cynthia said that as her CPS investigation dragged on, she couldn’t concentrate at work and eventually lost her job. Her 3-year-old daughter “was so nervous being interrogated by strangers so many times that she started behaving irregularly.” A mom identified as Ruth said she went through five years of “malicious calls,” leaving her anxious and depressed. 

“My daughter wet the bed for three years straight,” she stated. “There has to be some mechanism put in place so you’re not destroying families.” 

Among the report’s many great recommendations: 

“Enabling ACS and county agencies to have discretion to screen out reports” 

It’s not just Jess Dannhauser who needs to answer a question.  Reporters have published his don’t-blame-me-the-state-makes-us-do-it whine over and over.  Why has no reporter ever asked Dannhauser why Dannhauser doesn’t seem to have asked the Legislature to change the law?

UPDATE: I just had an interesting email exchange with an ACS flack:  Here it is, in full:

Kaufman, Marisa (ACS) 

2:52 PM (6 minutes ago)

Hi Richard,

We saw your blog post today.  We are not asking you to make any changes.  We did want to be sure that you were aware that the Commissioner has asked for there to be a review and changes to the state laws related to the SCR. 

 

As an example, please see our testimony (attached) from the September 2023 Assembly hearing where at the top of page 4 he says, “ We believe that the State should conduct a full review and assessment of SCR practice and policies, as well as mandated reporter laws, and then take actions (legislative or otherwise) to address.”

 

In addition, in the Imprint article about the hearing it says:

 

At a public hearing last fall, the head of New York City’s children’s services agency, Jess Dannhauser, said state leaders should conduct a “full review and assessment” of the Statewide Central Register of Abuse and Maltreatment, including a potential overhaul of the relevant statutes.

“We cannot make sufficient progress within the current laws that were written over 50 years ago,” Dannhauser said.

Thanks,

Marisa Kaufman

ACS Division of External Affairs

AND HERE'S MY RESPONSE:

Richard Wexler 




2:58 PM (3 minutes ago)
to Marisa
I am well aware of that.  Asking for "a full review and assessment" is like asking for "more study," which is another classic copout.  It is not the same thing as going to key legislative leaders and saying: Can you please introduce and pass a law that lets us screen reports.  Why won't you do that?


Wednesday, March 6, 2024

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending March 5, 2024

● Every once in a while I’ve gently childed the group known as “Children’s Rights” for its approach to litigation.  But this week, their litigation took a big turn - for the better.  They represented the Minneapolis NAACP in filing a federal civil rights complaint alleging pervasive racism in Minnesota family policing.  I have a blog post about it, including links to the full complaint and a good story in The Imprint.   

● On the Proximity Process podcast Kathleen Creamer, Managing Attorney of the Family Advocacy Unit at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia discusses the enormous harm done to families by America’s obsession with termination of parental rights. 

● Remember when Massachusetts “Child Advocate” Maria Mossaides so misled her own commission on mandatory child abuse reporting laws that the commission rebelled and refused to pass any of her recommendations?  That hasn’t stopped Mossaides.  I have a column in CommonWealth Beacon about her latest misrepresentations. 

● In Texas, a mother dared to seek a second opinion when a doctor prescribed a particular antibiotic.  Can you guess what happened next? Stories from WFAA-TV and KDFW-TV answer that question:

 ● In 2022, the Kentucky family police took away a child from grandparents who just needed help to handle his behavioral problems.  He was institutionalized.  He ran away, and he died.  In 2024, the Kentucky family police agency took away a child whose adoptive parents just needed help to cope with her behavioral problems. Unfortunately, you can guess what happened next.  I have a column about it in the Lexington Herald-Leader. 

● In New York State, the family policing system appears designed to ensure Maximum Feasible Buckpassing.  The state runs the child abuse hotline and decides which cases to pass on to counties and New York City for investigation – and they have to investigate whatever the state sends.  So the state has an incentive to screen out fewer cases, since all those false reports are the localities’ problem.  The localities get to say: It’s not our fault that we traumatized all these families with needless investigations and strip-searches, the state made us do it!  

A new report from the New York City Family Policy Project confirms what everyone would expect from an arrangement like this: New York screens out proportionately far fewer allegations than the national average and investigates proportionately more families needlessly. The report explains the consequences: 

Parents have spoken of “doorbell trauma” – mothers having panic attacks, their kids stripping off clothes to be inspected – when they hear their buzzer. At a recent meeting of Brownsville families, one parent described Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) involvement in her family and neighborhood as “like someone is on fire and screaming and no one is able to help them.”… 

● Perhaps that’s one reason why this happened when some representatives of New York City’s family police agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, gave a presentation at a social work school.  As this video from Joyce McMillan of JMAC for Families makes clear, some of the students were unpersuaded.

 A Detroit Free Press story is headlined “Pilot projects will help stop the overreporting of children of color to child welfare.” But since the program relies largely on more “training” – which is what systems do when they don’t want to change, it’s unlikely to really accomplish much. 

● Something that may do a lot more good is a comprehensive guide from If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice concerning when medical professionals most report – and, more important, the wide latitude they often have not to destroy families with needless reports. 

In this week’s edition of The Horror Stories Go in All Directions: 

● Another week another expose of rampant abuse at a “residential treatment center.” This time, the Indianapolis Star story is headed: “Sexual abuse, runaways and reporting failures: Wernle youth center had history of problems.” (No link because it goes only to the Star’s paywall). 

From NBC Connecticut: 

Another teenager has filed a lawsuit claiming she was sexually assaulted by an employee at a state Department of Children and Families facility in Harwinton last year. … 

While she lived there from March of 2023 to May of 2023, the lawsuit said the 14-year-old female was raped and sexually assaulted by a facility employee. As a result, she reportedly suffered significant physical and emotional harm. 

This lawsuit comes after other allegations of sexual assault at the facility. 

From CBS News Detroit: 

One Republican Michigan state representative says she's been working on getting answers to disturbing allegations of abuse at state-run mental health facilities for children but says her party affiliation is preventing her from gaining much traction. 

State Rep. Jamie Thompson called for action on how state-run mental health facilities operate. Thompson's latest attempt comes after a lawsuit alleges that a 9-year-old patient at the Hawthorn Center was assaulted and employees did not intervene. 

WLNS-TV also has a story about this.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

“Child welfare” and racism: Children’s Rights steps up

For the first time in its history, the group uses litigation to take on racism, needless surveillance and wrongful removal.  It’s not a full-scale lawsuit, but it’s a good start 

From Children's Rights' page discussing their civil rights complaint in Minnesota

Last week, in a post about the landmark lawsuit against the New York City family police agency for its abuses of children and families during investigations, I noted that Ira Lustbader, litigation director at Children’s Rights said “now is the time” for such litigation.  I pointed out that in its entire history, Children’s Rights had never brought such litigation, insisted it couldn’t be done, and sometimes even stood in the way of such efforts.  So I asked a question: 

Since you say “now is the time,” Ira, and now that other lawyers have shown you how it’s done, when are you going to start bringing lawsuits like this? 

I’ve got to admit, he came up with a good answer.  

It’s not a full-scale class-action lawsuit,  but it’s a good start:  Children’s Rights is representing the Minneapolis NAACP in a formal complaint to the federal Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights. The Complaint alleges that the two largest counties in Minnesota, Hennepin and Ramsey, engage in systematic, rampant, racially biased needless investigation and surveillance of families and needless removal of children. 

In recent years, CR has done excellent public policy work – but it’s stuck to the same stale litigation that rarely did any good and often did real harm.  But this time, the policy arm and the litigation arm of the organization worked together.  And this time, they’ve brought good litigation in the right place at the right time. 

The right place 

Minnesota has a particularly ugly record when it comes to family policing.  Year after year the state tears apart families at a rate more than double the national average, even when rates of child poverty are factored in.  The NAACP/CR Complaint reveals how much of that is driven by racial bias.  For example, in Minnesota Black children are twice as likely to be thrown into foster care as white children.  Biracial or multiracial children are seven times more likely than white children to be torn from their families. 

Minnesota’s record of racial disparity in investigations and foster care is worse than the national average, and the disparities in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties are worse than the state average.  

The right time 

Although Minnesota’s dismal record dates back decades, a key part of the reason things remain so awful is the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  Once, it was a source of some of the nation’s most insightful commentary on these issues.  But more recently it has descended to what the legendary journalist David Simon calls “Pulitzer sniffing.”    

Twice in recent years, the Star Tribune has exploited horror stories in an apparent effort to set off foster-care panics, sharp sudden increases in the number of children taken from their homes. The first time they succeeded.  But now they’re having a harder time.  Lawmakers are catching on to the fact that the deluge of false reports, trivial cases and poverty-confused-with-neglect cases encouraged by the Star Tribune actually contributes to the horror stories.  Even the Star Tribune quoted Kelis Houston, an NAACP committee leader and founder of the family advocacy group Village Arms, when she told a legislative committee:

"The worst thing Minnesota can do is keep doubling down on its failed approach," said Houston, adding that tragedies continue to occur because caseworkers are overwhelmed by "trivial cases." 

A Complaint like this can only reinforce lawmakers’ skepticism and help them understand what’s really needed to keep children safe. 

Three key causes 

The Complaint zeros in on three likely contributors to Minnesota’s dismal record:

 ● Structured Decision-Making.  This system of questionnaires filled out by investigators is essentially predictive analytics without the computers.  Reports in three states have linked SDM to increased removals of children, and analyses in Washington State and Michigan found racial bias in the SDM questionnaires. The Minnesota Complaint cites additional scholarly critiques of SDM, and offers these specific examples from the SDM Safety Assessment and Family Risk Assessment questionnaires in Minnesota. It’s relevant everywhere since SDM is so widely used. 

From the complaint: 

The SDM SA’s consideration of a caregiver’s inability to meet the child’s immediate needs for food/shelter, lack of water or utilities, and deeming space heaters for heat as unsafe, are characteristics that are proxies for both race and socioeconomic status. Minnesota’s use of these factors to support a child’s removal and/or ongoing separation due to alleged neglect discriminately and disproportionately impacts Black families who are overrepresented in Minnesota’s child welfare system for neglect-related allegations. 

Similarly, the SDM FRA’s consideration of prior assigned reports (even if not substantiated), prior CPS history (even if not substantiated), and whether either caregiver was abused as a child, are proxies for race and socioeconomic status and discriminatorily and disproportionately impact Black families in Minnesota, and in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, who experience child welfare system involvement more frequently, and are more likely to score higher under those categories. 

The specific inclusion of unsubstantiated reports and CPS histories directs the weighting of known discriminatory and disproportionate practices against Black families, as these categories by their very terms did not involve finding safety considerations justifying investigation and/or removal. 

The SDM FRA’s consideration of a household with three or more children as a maltreatment-predicting characteristic also serves as a proxy for race and has a discriminatory and disproportionate impact on Black families who are more likely to have three or more children. 

● Misuse of “emergency” removal power.  You know how family police agencies love to say “We don’t decide if a child is removed from the home, a court has to approve everything we do”?

It’s a lie. 

In every state, the police and/or the family police have the power to remove children from their homes on the spot without so much as calling a judge.  In Minnesota the power rests with law enforcement – and they abuse it constantly. All law enforcement officers need to do is think that a child’s “health or welfare is being endangered by the child’s ‘surroundings or conditions,’” or “reasonably believes” that such health or safety “will be” endangered. 

So it’s no wonder that, as the Complaint points out, between 2014 and 2019 half of all removals of children in Hennepin County took place that way.  In Ramsey County, it was 78%.  

● Lack of services to help families.  When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.  Like most places, the Minnesota family police have quick and easy access to tearing apart families – everything else is in short supply.  So children and families get hammered. 

The complaint calls on the Office of Civil Rights to launch a full investigation into the state’s “discriminatory actions.”  The office should do that.  In fact, they should do more.  In addition to looking at the enormous bias against Black families in Minnesota, they also should examine what data suggest is even more enormous bias against Native American families.  No need to wait for another Complaint! 

As for Children’s Rights, for the first time in decades, I’m looking forward to seeing what their litigation arm might do next. 

Monday, March 4, 2024

NCCPR in CommonWealth Beacon: Mass. on wrong track with child protection policy; Separating kids from families should be a last resort — but it often isn’t

Late in 2019, the Massachusetts Legislature created a commission to study mandatory child abuse reporting. Like all states, Massachusetts requires most professionals who deal regularly with children to report any suspicion of child abuse or neglect. 

The commission was chaired by Maria Mossaides, head of the state Office of the Child Advocate. For well over a year the commission heard only those Mossaides wanted them to hear. But at the very end of the process, with a set of draft recommendations to expand mandatory reporting ready for a vote, the commission held its only public hearing.

Experts from all over the country warned the commission that it was on the wrong track. They joined Massachusetts advocates in describing how mandatory reporting has backfired, traumatizing countless children and families and deluging the system with false reports, stealing time from finding children in real danger.

Commission members said they were “shocked” “surprised” and “taken aback.”  They rebelled. The commission made no recommendations at all. 

Now, Mossaides is at it again. ...

Read the full column in CommonWealth Beacon 

Thursday, February 29, 2024

NCCPR in The Lexington Herald-Leader: From Ian Sousis to Dovia Pernell, Ky Cabinet’s failures lead to tragedy

A year-and-a-half ago on these pages, I wrote about the tragic deaths of two children who had been institutionalized by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, only to die while in the agency’s care. Here’s what I wrote about nine-year-old Ian Sousis, who drowned in the Ohio River after running away from a “residential treatment center.” 

His grandparents had custody since he was an infant. As a toddler, he was diagnosed with autism. No matter where he was, he ran away a lot. All the grandparents needed was therapy for the child and help to be sure he was never out of someone’s sight. Had they been rich they easily could have purchased both. But they’re not rich. So they had to turn to the Cabinet … which offered no alternatives except institutions – and took control of where Ian would live. 

Here’s how much Kentucky officials learned from that tragedy: 

Read the full column in the Herald-Leader

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending February 27, 2024

● Last week’s round-up began with the New York Times story about a landmark lawsuit against the New York City family police agency, the Administration for Children’s Services.  The lawsuit challenges what NCCPR President Prof. Martin Guggenheim calls “ACS’s widespread practice of engaging in lawless home invasions that terrorize parents and children.”  The lawsuit is so important (and so well-written) that there have since been at least ten other news stories.  I have links to all of them and an analysis of some of the news coverage in this NCCPR Blog post.  And in this post, I simply reprint the opening section of the lawsuit complaint – because it’s that well-written. 

Also in New York: 

The 19th takes an in-depth look at a case that is a prime example of how ACS abuses families.  

● The city’s family defense providers show, in a New York Daily News op-ed why all of this illustrates the urgency of passing “family Miranda” legislation. 

Elsewhere: 

On the EPPiC podcast Prof. Kelley Fong discusses her book, Investigating Families, including how families learn to “play the game” and tell the family police what they want to hear. 

● In The Grio, Shereen White, director of advocacy and policy at Children’s Rights, and Prof. Shanta Trivedi, faculty director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts at the University of Baltimore School of Law, write about the need to repeal the law that did so much to get us into this mess, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. 

As we honor Black history this February, we look back at a decades-old law that remains, to this day, a blight on generations of Black families. … One of the consequences of [CAPTA’s requirement for] mandated reporting is that it can discourage a family or parent from seeking help or punish them if they do. 

Consider a parent who is facing violence in the home, is struggling to afford food for their children, or, like many in this country, is unable to find affordable, livable housing. Often, when these parents reach out — going to the hospital for example or seeking therapy — that nurse or therapist whose trusted expertise they desperately need, is required under law to report suspected abuse or neglect in the home. That report can then lead to intervention by Child Protective Services (CPS), invasive interviews, threats of child removals and potentially, and most devastatingly, removal of a child from a caring parent. 

● Here’s the good news: 31 states have taken advantage of a change in federal funding rules that provides some reimbursement for lawyers for children and families.  Here’s the bad news: 19 states and Washington, D.C. have not.  This story in The Imprint has a chart so you can see where your state stands. 

As the story explains: 

Jey Rajaraman, a longtime parent defender who’s now an associate director of the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law, sees the new funding as part of a larger shift nationwide in the approach to high-stakes child welfare cases. There is an increasing understanding in the field that accusations of poverty-related neglect drives the majority of foster care removals — not severe physical or sexual abuse — and that children are best served with added supportive services within their families. 

● In Massachusetts, the Boston Globe reports, former foster youth who were harmed when they were torn from their homes protested at the State Capitol.  They are demanding a say in choosing the next leader of the state’s family police agency, the Department of Children and Families. 

The protest was led by Family Matters First.  The group’s executive director is Tatiana Rodriguez.  As the story explains: 

Rodriguez’s passion for reforming DCF stems from her own experience in foster care. As a child, she reported drug use in her home to the child welfare agency with the hope it would improve her situation. Instead, she said, she was placed with a foster family. The process, she said, eventually severed her not just from her birth family but also from her culture and community for most of her teenage years. 

“I was with a white family,” she said. “I missed my Spanish food, my traditions.” 

● When Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley exposed abuses by a local “child abuse pediatrician” officials seemed far more interested in silencing him than in doing anything about what he exposed.  Now, the Allentown Morning Call reports, he’s seeking an independent investigation.  NCCPR agrees and is cited in the story. 

● The Family Justice Resource Center specializes in exposing the abuses of these doctors and helping families fight back.  They’ve just issued this comprehensive toolkit.

● Perhaps you remember the tragic death of Ma’Khia Bryant, taken from family in Columbus, Ohio because they lacked adequate housing, only to be killed by a police officer after a fight at her group home.  Now, with comment from NCCPR, the Columbus Dispatch reports on another tragedy with some disturbing echoes of what happened to Bryant.