Center for the Study of Social Policy

When a young pregnant mom informed her prenatal care providers that she had smoked marijuana to relieve stress, nausea and poor appetite, they didn’t seem concerned. But after the birth of her son a few years ago in a Bronx hospital, a test of the baby’s urine came back positive for cannabis, and the hospital quickly called child welfare authorities.

Foster Youth in Action recently named Liz Squibb as interim executive director for the Berkeley, Calif.-based advocacy organization. Squibb will step into the new position after former executive director Matt Rosen stepped down last month.

On Dec. 3, a 28-year-old black mother lost her parental rights to her four children – ages 1 to 9 – in a Minnesota courtroom, just outside the Twin Cities. Instead of opening presents with their mother, the children spent Christmas with a white family two hours away.

Anti-poverty and children’s advocates are bracing for the fallout of proposed federal policy changes that would slash access to the social safety net for immigrant families, which could result in more children entering foster care.

According to a leading group of children’s advocates, it’s not enough to just study the impact of childhood trauma and how we can lessen its toll on children and adults later in life.

In a column in The Chronicle earlier this month, Marie Cohen includes the following statement. Almost everything in it is untrue: Starting in the early 2000s, a group of wealthy foundations and allies called the Alliance for Racial Equity in Child Welfare promoted the notion that a racist child welfare system is behind the disproportionate representation of African-American families in the child welfare system.  

When fathers are involved with their children, a strong base of research shows that there are considerable benefits to the health and well-being of children, mothers and even the fathers themselves.

A court-ordered report of New Jersey’s child welfare system released last week declared that the state has made “significant progress” in its work with troubled families and children in foster care.