How the woke takeover of child services endangers abused kids – New York Post

Just to be clear: Therewereadults who cared about Julissia Batties. Yet their care couldnt overcome the illogic of a child-welfare machine that returned her to an abusive family environment that this week ended her life: Julissias half-brother allegedly beat the 7-year-old to death for taking snacks from the kitchen, an attack subsequently covered up by her own mother.

Her grandmother for years had cared for Julissia. There were city Administration for Childrens Services caseworkers who tried to keep her away from her abusive mother and siblings, even going to the highest courts in the state to keep her safe. There were even concerned neighbors who repeatedly called authorities when they saw what was happening.

The story of Julissia Batties isnt a story of hidden child abuse, of what goes on behind closed doors. It is the story of a system that favors placing children with their biological parents no matter what the danger, then delays action until it is too late.

Julissia had been taken from her mother at birth. Little wonder, since the mother had lost custody of her four older children in 2013 over safety concerns. A family-court judge initially granted her mother custody God only knows why but ACS lawyers appealed the decision and won.

Until the mother is able to successfully address and acknowledge the circumstances that led to the removal of the other children, the appellate judges wrote, we cannot agree that returning Julissia, even with the safeguards imposed by the family court, would not present an imminent risk.

The question is what happened between that 2015 ruling and the decision of ACS last year provisionally and then a few months ago permanently to return Julissia to her mother. Did her mother address and acknowledge those circumstances? Since police were called to the apartment on at least six occasions over the past three years including at least one in which she lied about Julissias injuries the answer seems to be no.

What happened?

SCO Services, the nonprofit ACS contracted to monitor the childs case, recommended that she be placed back with her mother; ACS went along. The ideological commitments of these nonprofits rarely differ from those of the agencies themselves.

These nonprofits, moreover, have demonstrated problems in the past. The Department of Investigation reported that in 2016, of the worst-performing private contractors (in terms of children experiencing maltreatment) that manage foster childrens cases for the agency, only two listedsafety as themain focus of improvement on a self-evaluation.

Despite the sound intentions of individual caseworkers, the ACS as a whole, like all child-welfare agencies in this country, is now ideologically committed to family preservation and family reunification at all costs. The woke narrative is that we only take kids away from their parents because of racism or poverty, not because the children are actually in jeopardy. It is politically incorrect to say that to save black children, sometimes they need to be taken away from black parents.

According to ACSs most recent report,the number ofnew child-welfare prevention casesrose by 50 percent in the past six months. But prevention in the world of child welfare doesnt mean that the agency is preventing abuse or neglect from ever happening. It means that a child has already been reported to ACS, and so the agency is using services like anger management or parenting classes or addiction treatment to prevent abuse or neglect from happening again.

Meanwhile the number ofnew placementsinto foster caredeclined 23 percent during the same period. Maybe this approach of keeping kids with their families and not removing them to foster care is not working.

This year, 10-year-old Ayden Wolfe was found dead at the hands of his mothers boyfriend. Pictured in one paper sporting a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, the man was arrested three months before Aydens death for allegedly choking the mother of his 6-year-old autistic son as the child watched. After he was barred from contact with that woman, he went to live with Aydens mother, who has also had contact with ACS.

Julissias grandmother says she strenuously objected to the new custody arrangement she wasnt even allowed to visit the child but was waiting for a hearing that was still months off. What does it mean that a mother bars her child from seeing the grandmother who all but raised her? Perhaps that she has something to hide.

But its hardly a surprise that the courts werent able to hear her grandmothers pleas. Family courts in New York and around the country are broken, suffocating under the pile-up of cases.Judges go months between seeing cases even for young children in vulnerable situations. Courts operate on the timeline of adults, not children. There is no right to a speedy trial in family court.

Everybody knew the baby was being abused, one of Julissias neighbors, whose girlfriend contacted ACS, told The Post. Too bad the system charged with protecting her failed to carry out its core mission.

Naomi Schaefer Riley is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the forthcoming book No Way to Treat a Child: How the Foster-Care System, Family Courts and Racial Activists Are Wrecking Young Lives.

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How the woke takeover of child services endangers abused kids - New York Post