US: How Hidden Foster Care Harms Children and Parents of Color (Opinion)
Imprint – July 07, 2022
I am Aubrey Edwards-Luce and I am a Black woman. For five years, I was a lawyer representing kids in foster care. I know how hard it can be for teenagers to get out of the child welfare system. Bias and a lack of accountability results in teenage girls of color, in particular, enduring the perpetual trauma that comes with frequent movement from foster placement to foster placement. Black girls make up 23% of all girls in foster care, but comprise 36% of girls who experience 10 or more placements in the system, according to federal data. What I did not know was that there is a name for the arrangement that CPS was initiating for me, the girls and their mother. It is called “hidden foster care.” And in hidden foster care cases, child welfare agencies effectively separate children from allegedly abusive or neglectful parents while eluding court oversight and other legal obligations.
https://imprintnews.org/opinion/how-hidden-foster-care-harms-children-and-parents-of-color/66286