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Foreword: Strengthened Bonds: Abolishing the Child Welfare System and Re-envisioning Child Well-Being
Jane M. Spinak, Nancy D. Polikoff ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This is a foreword to a symposium marking 20 years since Dorothy Roberts' book Shattered Bonds. It argues that the child welfare system, which the authors call the family regulation system, is racist and harms families and communities. The authors call for abolishing it and moving its funding into support, services and healing for families, tribes and communities. The foreword summarises contributions from scholars, impacted parents, family defense advocates and activists, including work on Native American families.
Key points
- Twenty years after Shattered Bonds, the authors say the racism and harms of the child welfare system endure despite reform efforts.
- The authors prefer the term 'family regulation system' as a more accurate description of the child welfare or child protection system.
- They argue the system treats individual parents as a risk to children and overlooks family strengths and the harms of surveillance and removal.
- They say structural failures to invest in housing, income, child care, health and mental health services, and education also harm children.
- They call for diverting foster-care funding into support, services and healing for families, tribes and communities.
Limitations
This is an opinion-style foreword with an advocacy position, not a study, and it presents no original data. The abstract only summarises the symposium contributions, so their evidence cannot be assessed here. The country (the United States) is inferred from context rather than stated.
Abstract
The 2001 book, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, by Dorothy Roberts, called out the racism of the child welfare system and the harms that system perpetrates on families and communities. Twenty years later, despite numerous reform efforts, the racism and profound harms endure. It is time for transformative change. In this foreword to the symposium Strengthened Bonds: Abolishing the Child Welfare System and Re-Envisioning Child Well- Being, honoring the 20th anniversary of Shattered Bonds, we highlight Professor Roberts’ articulation of her development as a family policing abolitionist and summarize the articles and comments contributed from scholars in numerous disciplines and well as impacted parents, family defense advocates and system-change activists. These contributions help us learn from history and political theory; focus on the unique and shared circumstances of Native American families; critique, and call for repeal of, much of current law; condemn the punitive, and racially disproportionate, surveillance of families; and demand a new approach that diverts the massive funding of the foster-care industrial complex into support, services, and healing for families, tribes, and communities.<br><br>We call for abolition of the family regulation system, the term we use as a more accurate description of what is commonly called the child welfare or child protection system. We situate this call in the context of the more developed movement for prison abolition. The current system is predicated on seeing individual parents as a risk to their children. It fails to see the strengths and resilience of parents and families; the harms of surveillance and removal; and the structural forces that harm children by failing to invest in adequate housing, income, child care, health and mental health services, and educational opportunities for all families. Abolition provides the transformative mind-set that will enable loving and strengthened families to raise happy, healthy, safe, educated, and imaginative children.<br>