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Racial Bias In The United States Foster Care System

By: Alyssa Haney

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BRIEF HISTORY OF CPS & FOSTER CARE SYSTEMS

  • The foster care system dates back to the 1800s

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  • Private institutions helped children until the 1940s when the federal government took over

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  • Black children and families were excluded from any and all resources provided by private institutions.
    • “Slavery was a Black child’s orphanage”

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POLICIES

  • The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974
  • The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980
  • The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
  • The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997
  • The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008
  • The Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act of 2011

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FOSTER CARE PLACEMENTS

  • Stay in foster care for the longest periods of time
  • Have the worst placement options
  • Receive less visits from social workers and parents
  • Do not have access to proper resources
  • Change foster care placements frequently

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FOSTER CARE STATISTICS

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SOCIAL WORKERS AND IMPLICIT BIAS

  • Social workers have labeled Black women as “hostile, aggressive, angry, loud, cognitively delayed”

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  • Social workers have assumed Black families are drug users solely based on their race and implicit biases.

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JUDICIAL SYSTEM

  • Emergency Removal: The child is removed from the home, then there is a court hearing to determine if the children will stay in foster care or return to the parents.

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  • Proposed Removal: Social workers must prove to a Judge that the home is not safe for the child and needs to be removed. If the Judge agrees, then the child can be removed from the home and placed into foster care.

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PATH TO HYPER-REMOVAL OF BLACK CHILDREN

  • Refused to serve
  • Laws and policies were passed to provide protection against child maltreatment; strengthens universal CPS system
  • All children removed in large amounts
  • White children began to decrease in rates from foster care while Black children remained the same
  • Policies + social worker biases and stereotypes + poverty = Hyper-removal of Black children

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CLOSING

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No child or family should have to suffer abuse at the hands of their family and certainly not the government.

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RESOURCES

  • The Annie E Casey Foundation: Kids Count Data Center, https://datacenter.kidscount.org/. Accessed 27 September 2020.
  • Roberts, Dorothy. Shattered bonds: The color of child welfare. Civitas Books, 2009.
  • Rolock, Nancy, and Alfred G. Pérez. "Three sides to a foster care story: An examination of the lived experiences of young adults, their foster care case record, and the space in between." Qualitative Social Work 17.2 (2018): 195-215.
  • Schene, Patricia A. "Past, present, and future roles of child protective services." The Future of Children (1998): 23-38.
  • Simon, Kathleen B. "Catalyzing the separation of black families: A critique of foster care placements without prior judicial review." Colum. JL & Soc. Probs. 51 (2017): 347-389.

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