Two weeks after three-year-old Shaquan Butler was found dead at a homeless shelter in Queens, two more young children were fatally stabbed by their mother inside a family shelter in the Bronx. There were plenty of warning signs in both cases, and even worse the, Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) had already been investigating the families prior to the murders. What keeps social workers from rescuing children in unsafe homes and how can child welfare agencies start putting kids’ safety first?

In this episode, Ian interviews Naomi on the failures of the child welfare system today, driven by the misguided belief that the existence of racial disparities is proof that the system is racist. While black children are investigated by child welfare agencies and in foster and congregate care at a higher rate than represented in the population, they are also twice as likely to experience abuse and neglect and three times as likely to die from child maltreatment.

Instead of prioritizing racial equity, ACS should acknowledge the role of family structure, substance abuse, and mental illness in these tragedies, and train caseworkers to understand that their primary goal is to protect children.

Resources:

• No Way to Treat a Child: How the Foster Care System, Family Courts, and Racial Activists Are Wrecking Young Lives | Naomi Schaefer Riley | Bombardier Books

• The City Knew Three-Year-Old Beaten to Death Was Being Abused—What Does It Take for Agencies to Act? | Naomi Schaefer Riley | New York Post

Show Notes:

• 01:20 | What is going on with ACS?

• 04:35 | Debunking the narrative that child welfare systems are racist because racial disparities exist

• 08:30 | Family structure is not distributed evenly in this country

• 09:35 | The tragedies of Shaquan, DeSean, and Octavius

• 21:00 | Child welfare agencies’ main equity is protecting children from harm, not racial equity