How the Pandemic Became an Unplanned Experiment in Abolishing the Child Welfare System
“Some experts feared the worst: that removed from the watchful eyes of the child welfare system [because of the pandemic], kids were suffering. Pediatricians, government officials, and researchers warned that the economic and emotional toll of the pandemic was fueling a parallel, hidden epidemic of child abuse…
But a group of mothers, attorneys, and other advocates who know the foster care system from the inside saw things differently. They had long considered the system overzealous in its investigations of poor Black and brown families. So when child protective services began operating at a whisper of its former self, where others saw danger, these women saw opportunity. “I think this could be a test where the numbers end up showing that we don’t need the mandated reporter system at all,” says Chris Gottlieb, co-director of the New York University School of Law’s Family Defense Clinic. She was speaking to me for a CityLab article in June 2020, when New York City’s child welfare agency reported a 51 percent decline in child abuse cases.
More than a year later, indicators suggest that in New York City, at least, the advocates were right: There was no spate of undetected child abuse throughout the five boroughs. That’s according both to a forthcoming paper in the Columbia Journal of Race and Law by Anna Arons, an acting assistant professor of lawyering at New York University, and to the New York City Administration for Children’s Services itself. In June, ACS Commissioner David Hansell acknowledged the lack of evidence for undetected abuse, saying it was just as likely the pandemic was “a very positive thing” for children who spent more time with their parents, reported The Imprint.
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With a pared-down system, would more children be harmed? Now the data is coming in, and it shows “what we always knew” about mandated reporting, says Erin Miles Cloud, co-director and co-founder of the nonprofit Movement for Family Power: “Our kids are safe without it.” “