parents rights

Lakisha had an idea: “Why don’t they give us a handbook?” Lindsay added: “Yeah, why am I finding out about my rights here? Now?” Both were parents with children in foster care who had joined a weekly writing group I ran at a child welfare services agency called Graham Windham.

David Kelly was met with thunderous applause from parent advocates last week as he jogged onto the stage of a Ritz-Carlton ballroom, just outside of Washington, D.C. As the special assistant to Children’s Bureau Associate Commissioner Jerry Milner, Kelly plays a lead role at an agency that oversees nearly $10 billion in annual funds spent on everything from child maltreatment prevention to adoption.

Consider, for a moment, this story I recently discovered in court transcripts. A paternal grandmother living in New York City learns that her 1-year-old grandson is in Michigan’s foster care system.