Social Equality in American Children Welfare Services

I think it is basically fair to say that at every level the American government understands that social equality is an important aspect of children welfare services. I do believe that the agencies providing children services are operating ethically in regards to social equality to the best of their abilities, within the boundaries of current policies. The federal government has set the precedent for the entire country with IEPA.

IEPA, the Inter-ethnic Placement Act, is the third of the most important Federal laws for child welfare. In its simplest form, IEPA prohibits any consideration of a child's race or ethnicity as a factor in deciding which permanent placement will be in a child's best interest.

This means that a caseworker is absolutely prohibited from considering a child's race or ethnicity in any way, shape or form in his/her decision-making related to which permanent placement is in a child's best interest.
http://dcfswebresource.prairienet.org/laws/

Despite all efforts, disparities in social equality nevertheless are very apparent within the child welfare system. First of all, the quality of care in general is lacking for any recipient of foster care. “Too often, foster children are separated from their siblings; they are moved from home to home; or they age out of foster care and are left without the support and resources they need to make it on their own” (California Child Welfare Outcomes and Accountability System Report and Workplan, April 2003) http://www.childsworld.ca.gov/PG1356.htm
To me, this is the primary problem with the system as it exists today, and the one I wish to address in my career.

In general, my research leads me to conclude that while there are many efforts and endless resources, our children’s welfare systems fail at two things most consistently. One is in the lack of placement permanency, and the other is in the lack of skills and resources that children leave the dependency system. I would say that in general, they do a fairly decent job of preventing further abuse of children once they have entered the system. However, despite the fact that placement permanency is one of the goals that the CSFRs are designed to address, there is huge deficit in this area.

The fact that so many children leave the children’s welfare system when they reach adulthood, only to move on to adult welfare services, as well as the adult criminal system, shows that while the system might be providing for the basic needs of children, in terms of food, clothing and shelter, as well as physical safety, it is failing to provide these children with environments of care that serve to nurture their talents and teach them life-skills that will help to transition in adulthood as productive members of society.

Another important factor in assessing social equality in children’s welfare systems is the race factor. Yes, there is ample evidence that while the IEPA mandates that social workers are forbidden to make decisions based on race or ethnicity, there is still a major disparity between the treatment of white and minority children, most prominently, black children. The primary evidence of this inequality in the system is the disproportionate number of African American children in the system, compared to other races, and in general, the disproportionate number of all minority groups compared to white children in the system.

While black children comprise about one of five children in the nation’s population today, they account for about two out of five of the 500,000 children who are removed from their families and placed in foster care. In order to address this obvious problem The Race Matters Consortium was developed.

"The Race Matters Consortium (The Consortium) is a diverse group of child welfare experts representing research, policy, administration, practice, and advocacy. Spearheaded by Westat, Casey Family Programs and The Children and Family Research Center, it was first joined together in 1999 to systematically examine disproportional representation of individuals of different races and ethnic groups in the child welfare system. Today the Consortium has expanded to not only examine the disproportional representation, but to get a better understanding of those practices that will address the needs of children of color more appropriately, and to collaborate with others who understand the need for attention to the issues in an effort to influence change in child welfare practice and policy." http://www.racemattersconsortium.org/

The obvious question when one sees the overrepresentation of black children in the foster care system is “Do black people really abuse their children more than white people?” To answer this question, other factors such as poverty, and environment are examined. There is an acknowledged class bias in that low income and minority families are more likely to be reported for child maltreatment than middle-income and non-minority families. In order to obtain more accurate data (that would also include unreported cases of abuse and neglect), the government instituted the National Incidence Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS) in 1980, 1986, and 1993. Contrary to popular belief, however, all three NIS studies revealed that black families do not maltreat their children more often than white families. Robert Hill’s article, Institutional Racism in Child Welfare, is a detailed examination, investigation and proposition for addressing the problem. He notes that “when class and other risk factors are controlled for, blacks have lower rates of abuse and neglect than whites.”
--Hill, Robert “Institutional Racism in Child Welfare;” The Journal of Race and Society, 2004

Hill qualifies the racism within the system as institutional racism. He explains that “it can be covert or overt, unconscious or conscious, and unintentional or intentional.” It is not necessary that people gather or conspire against a group, they must only internalize the operating norms and values of the agency, institution or society in which they are situated and institutional racism can emanate from people with good intentions, and who are without malice.

Hill explains, “Most policies in child welfare have been developed by persons and groups with good intentions and who are genuinely concerned about the “best interests” of children. This is a major reason why the policies have endured so long. Nevertheless, many of these well-meaning policies continue to have adverse effects on poor children in general, and disproportionately on children of color, because of the influence of systemic racism. This form of racism is also strongly correlated with classism and sexism.”

He further defines institutional racism as “structural discrimination.” “Structural (or unintentional) discrimination refers to the disparate adverse consequences of societal trends and institutional policies on racial minorities that may not have been explicitly designed to have racially discriminatory effects.” In other words, the racism is evident in the disparity itself. The system must be flawed, especially when other factors are accounted for by the research done on the subject.