The dangerous impact of the pendulum swing on child welfare

Current and former foster youth participated in recent focus groups to share concerns about county child abuse hotlines, in preparation for a future meeting with ODJFS leadership. 

Concerns were expressed by youth that:  

• There has been an overcorrection by some staff members and/or agencies when it comes to addressing disproportionality in foster care (including an over-utilization of 'alternative response' in situations that call for a traditional one to avoid further abuse)
• There is a need to address:
• Implicit bias not to listen to youth, and
• Implicit bias not to want to take youth into protective care

It is discriminatory not to take an African American child or teen into foster care based on wanting to avoid disproportionality. This is putting political correctness over child safety.

When it comes to child welfare, we are trying so hard to move forward that we are moving backwards in some ways.  The risk is for this to lead to a dangerous overcorrection in which the system doesn’t want to take youth into care at all.

 

One way to avoid the pendulum swing and ensure child and teen protection is:

• To make the system YOUTH-centered
• Make it about the kids and their welfare and best interest
• Rather than the parent’s property interest in their children 

Implicit bias can go both ways, and create systemic impact and systemic harm. Ohio’s screening measures need to account for subjectivity and bias.

The bottom line needs to be youth safety: Is the child or teen being abused or not?

The risks of not accounting for implicit bias on both sides include child and teen fatalities, as referenced in the 2021 Case Western research study.  

During recent focus groups, youth leaders mentioned calling the child abuse hotline multiples times before they were finally listened to, which is the very opposite of having an 'early warning system.' Some had to run away first, in order to be finally taken into care.