ARTICLE TAG

disproportionality

Color-blind Removal Approach Gains National Interest

4/1/2021

Color-Blind Ambition

Driven by evidence that child welfare decision-makers judge parents of color more harshly and are more likely to remove their children, there is growing interest in a program that proposes to weed out racial bias when social workers weighing allegations of abuse and neglect decide whether to remove a child from their parents.

8/12/2020

It’s Not Enough To Mean Well

“I can’t breathe.” These words are now painfully familiar. They were the last words of George Floyd who died on May 25, when a police officer pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as well as Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who was killed in 2014 after being put in a chokehold by New York City police.

7/1/2020

In a Victory for Youth Advocates, Los Angeles Cuts School Police Budget by 36%

Despite a bitterly divided school board, the Los Angeles Unified School District voted on Tuesday to strip $25 million from its school police department, after mounting protests have highlighted the experiences of Black students on campus.

6/9/2020

Publisher’s Note: Silence Can be Complicity in Violence Against Black Families

It didn’t take George Floyd’s killing at the hands of the police for me to recognize that I have been complicit in state-executed violence against black families. But it did take his murder and the protests that have roiled the nation since to compel me to articulate it, which is shameful.

5/10/2020

After Pandemic, We Must Prevent the Net from Widening on Black Families

The child protective services sector already struggles in many ways relating to child safety, permanency, well-being and equity. A system that already had issues with demystifying dependency court hearings, reunifying families, strengthening parenting capacity and prioritizing equity is now carrying an even heavier weight: the strain from the coronavirus.

1/15/2020

L.A. Board of Supervisor Candidates on the Issues: Race and Foster Care

This week, The Imprint is publishing a series of posts from leading candidates running to succeed Mark Ridley-Thomas on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Ridley-Thomas is stepping down because of term limits, and a several candidates is running to take his place on the board, representing more than two million residents across parts of South, Central and West L.A.,

    12/10/2019

    Protest Targets a Sky-High Foster Care Removal Rate in L.A. County

    When Kathy Cline sought help at a downtown Los Angeles shelter with her 13-year-old son, it had been a long journey to that doorstep. She’d been sick and hospitalized, which led to her being unable to pay her rent.

    11/11/2019

    Big National Funders Back Plan to Help Antelope Valley After String of Child Welfare Deaths

    Los Angeles County’s Antelope Valley — the remote area that has seen several of the county’s worst child welfare tragedies over the past six years — is at the center of a new philanthropic effort to prevent child maltreatment and help support vulnerable children and families.

    Youth Services Insider

    6/19/2019

    Can Predictive Analytics Root Out the Social Workers Most Likely to Break up Black Families?

    The idea of using predictive analytics in child welfare easily conjures images of child abuse investigators targeting parents a machine deems most likely to harm their children. Because black families are so disproportionately likely to be involved with the child protection system, critics credibly argue that predictive risk modeling will only exacerbate existing racial bias.