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Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative
Nobody's Children is an intense look at child welfare policies on abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption. Elizabeth Bartholet, one of the nation's leading experts on family law, challenges the accepted orthodoxy that treats children as belonging to their kinship and their racial groups and that locks them into inadequate biological and foster homes. She asks us to apply the lessons learned from the battered women's movement as we look at battered children, and to question why family preservation ideology still reigns supreme when children rather than adult women are involved.
Bartholet asks us to take seriously the adoption option. She calls on the entire community to take responsibility for its children, to think of the children at risk of abuse and neglect as belonging to all of us, and to ensure that "Nobody's Children" become treasured members of somebody's family.
Bartholet asks us to take seriously the adoption option. She calls on the entire community to take responsibility for its children, to think of the children at risk of abuse and neglect as belonging to all of us, and to ensure that "Nobody's Children" become treasured members of somebody's family.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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July 28, 2010
Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative is a book that makes me sad, angry and frustrated. I think what bothers me most is that it was published in 1999 and yet it seems to me that so little has changed.
Before I go further, I should explain what I do for a living. I am a Treatment Coordinator for a Treatment Foster Care (TFC) program. TFC is different from regular foster care. In regular foster care the children are in the state’s custody or at the very least the state is supervising the case. TFC on the other hand is a treatment program where the treatment mainly takes place in a foster home with parents who have received more training than regular foster parents. The children in these programs have behavioral and mental health issues that cannot be handled in a regular home but at the same time are not severe enough to be in a hospital or a Residential Treatment Center (similar to a hospital). Some of the children in TFC are also in state custody but a large number of them are considered “voluntary” placements. Those are the cases where the state is not involved but the child’s family has willingly (supposedly) placed the child in TFC in order to receive treatment. There are also cases, usually teenagers, where they are on probation and are court ordered to be in TFC as part of their probation. As a result, I do not work for the state or place children in state custody or plan for adoption. I do however work with families and children who are in need of intensive care and I frequently brush sides with foster care, adoption, and family preservation issues.
I should also clarify that my experience in this area is only in the state of New Mexico. While I lived and went to school in Nevada for most of my life, I had very little exposure to Nevada’s foster care system. Through conversations with people who have lived in other states or who work for the Child Protective Services in New Mexico I have learned that New Mexico is often behind the times and tends to focus more on family rights rather than children’s rights than some other states do.
And that is the main issue of this book, family rights versus children’s rights. Family preservationist policies focus on what is best for the family, particularly the parents and often assuming that what the parents want is also what the child wants. The author, Elizabeth Bartholet, instead advocates for what is best for the children, especially the idea that children have the right to good parenting. She focuses a lot on issues of substance abuse, pointing out that a disproportionate number of children in foster care and/or in need of services come from families where substance abuse is prevalent. She refers to research that shows that people with substance abuse issues often do not recover, at least not enough to provide good parenting. She points out that while family preservation policies may have helped keep children in their homes of origin or in kinship homes, these homes have often not been safe places for these children, especially since services after the state is no longer involved are often voluntary and result in families discontinuing services.
Her two main suggestions for solutions to the problem are universal home visiting and adoption. For the home visiting, every family expecting a child would have a home visitor who checks in on a regular basis during the pregnancy and for months to years after the child is born. Theoretically, the home visitor will be able to catch any substance abuse issues, abuse of the child, or neglect. The reason she suggests universal home visiting is because it’s the only way to reach all children who may be at risk. At the very least she believes home visiting should be used on a broad basis. In regards to adoption, she advocates for concurrent planning that will allow children to be released for adoption and actually be adopted faster should families not be able to make the changes needed for the children to return home. She advocates for wider recruitment of adoptive parents and a change within the mindset of those who work in social services of what kind of people should adopt. She advocates for better incentives for potential families to even consider adoption.
Bartholet does a good job of pointing out issues many people may have with the above, including financial aspects as well as our society’s belief in the autonomy of the family. However, she points out where those concerns fail the children and in the long run result in a larger financial burden as children raised on the family preservationist policies repeat the cycle with their own children.
As I noted in the beginning, this book was published in 1999. Changes were occurring in the system at that time and changes have occurred since. In my experience, I have seen some positive differences between then and now. Federal laws support children remaining in foster care for less than two years. I have seen instances where a parent does not make the changes and efforts necessary in the first year of their child being in foster care and the child is then freed for adoption. I have met adoption workers who actively work towards finding families for the children who need to be adopted. New Mexico is now practicing concurrent planning more. Concurrent planning is where a child has two plans that are followed at the same time. The first is reunification with their family of origin. At the same time, they are placed with a foster family who is willing to potentially adopt the child should the biological family not follow through with what the state requires of them. As a result, if the family fails to follow through, the state is able to move straight into adoption, reducing the amount of time a child is in foster care and placing them permanently with a family.
Despite these gains, there are issues I’ve had with the system as it is in New Mexico at this time. For one, children who should be in the state’s custody are not, despite numerous calls to Child Protective Services against these families. Instead, these families are either not receiving services at all or they are receiving services on a “voluntary” basis with agencies that have very little legal authority to enforce compliance with what the children need. For example, Treatment Foster Care does not have the authority to mandate that a parent attend substance abuse treatment or therapy. All we can do is recommend and document the recommendations. My favorite is when Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD), the department that provides child protective services in New Mexico, is involved with a family and tells the family to either place the child in TFC or have the children placed in state custody. Then, later, after the child has been placed in TFC, if the TFC agency makes a call because a child reports past abuse from their parent, CYFD does not get involved because the child is in a safe place, the abuse is not occurring at this time, and the agency is expected to help the family in order to cause a successful reunification once the child completes the program. The agency is expected to do this despite not having any legal authority to require the treatment that is necessary on the family’s part or that often these families have such serious issues that TFC is simply not able to “cure” them. As a result we get families who are in and out of treatment and have received a multitude of services and with which CYFD has been involved with off and on, yet the family’s patterns are simply being repeated again and again with no end in sight and with the likelihood that the children will grow up to repeat the same patterns.
Another issue I have seen is that many adoptive families are not prepared to handle the issues that they face by having children who have been abused and neglected in their care. Of course this varies and is partially dependent upon how young the child was when he/she entered foster care, how long they were in foster care, how many families they have been placed with, the severity of the abuse or neglect they suffered prior to foster care (or while in foster care if the foster family was also abusive), and other factors. Studies have shown that even children who have been exposed to drugs while in utero have the potential to develop fairly normally if they are provided with a safe nurturing family from infancy on. Children who are placed in foster care at older ages have unfortunately been exposed to much more abuse or neglect and have a much harder time in life. When families who adopt are not prepared for this, often the adoptions “disrupt,” causing the child to have to be placed elsewhere. Even with families who are prepared this will occasionally happen. This is especially and issue for children who are in Treatment Foster Care. They are in treatment for a reason and often the state does not prepare the adoptive families for this. They do not provided enough information about the child or enough training to help these parents. This then results in a child not only being bounced from foster home to foster home but from adoptive family to adoptive family. This of course can destroy a child’s self-esteem and their ability to feel that they are worthy of love and of a family.
I could go on and on about the issues I have with the system, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that Nobody’s Children is a very informative book. The author is very knowledgeable about the laws and policies that have shaped the child welfare world. She makes a good case for what could help the children while also being aware of the disagreements others might have.
Before I go further, I should explain what I do for a living. I am a Treatment Coordinator for a Treatment Foster Care (TFC) program. TFC is different from regular foster care. In regular foster care the children are in the state’s custody or at the very least the state is supervising the case. TFC on the other hand is a treatment program where the treatment mainly takes place in a foster home with parents who have received more training than regular foster parents. The children in these programs have behavioral and mental health issues that cannot be handled in a regular home but at the same time are not severe enough to be in a hospital or a Residential Treatment Center (similar to a hospital). Some of the children in TFC are also in state custody but a large number of them are considered “voluntary” placements. Those are the cases where the state is not involved but the child’s family has willingly (supposedly) placed the child in TFC in order to receive treatment. There are also cases, usually teenagers, where they are on probation and are court ordered to be in TFC as part of their probation. As a result, I do not work for the state or place children in state custody or plan for adoption. I do however work with families and children who are in need of intensive care and I frequently brush sides with foster care, adoption, and family preservation issues.
I should also clarify that my experience in this area is only in the state of New Mexico. While I lived and went to school in Nevada for most of my life, I had very little exposure to Nevada’s foster care system. Through conversations with people who have lived in other states or who work for the Child Protective Services in New Mexico I have learned that New Mexico is often behind the times and tends to focus more on family rights rather than children’s rights than some other states do.
And that is the main issue of this book, family rights versus children’s rights. Family preservationist policies focus on what is best for the family, particularly the parents and often assuming that what the parents want is also what the child wants. The author, Elizabeth Bartholet, instead advocates for what is best for the children, especially the idea that children have the right to good parenting. She focuses a lot on issues of substance abuse, pointing out that a disproportionate number of children in foster care and/or in need of services come from families where substance abuse is prevalent. She refers to research that shows that people with substance abuse issues often do not recover, at least not enough to provide good parenting. She points out that while family preservation policies may have helped keep children in their homes of origin or in kinship homes, these homes have often not been safe places for these children, especially since services after the state is no longer involved are often voluntary and result in families discontinuing services.
Her two main suggestions for solutions to the problem are universal home visiting and adoption. For the home visiting, every family expecting a child would have a home visitor who checks in on a regular basis during the pregnancy and for months to years after the child is born. Theoretically, the home visitor will be able to catch any substance abuse issues, abuse of the child, or neglect. The reason she suggests universal home visiting is because it’s the only way to reach all children who may be at risk. At the very least she believes home visiting should be used on a broad basis. In regards to adoption, she advocates for concurrent planning that will allow children to be released for adoption and actually be adopted faster should families not be able to make the changes needed for the children to return home. She advocates for wider recruitment of adoptive parents and a change within the mindset of those who work in social services of what kind of people should adopt. She advocates for better incentives for potential families to even consider adoption.
Bartholet does a good job of pointing out issues many people may have with the above, including financial aspects as well as our society’s belief in the autonomy of the family. However, she points out where those concerns fail the children and in the long run result in a larger financial burden as children raised on the family preservationist policies repeat the cycle with their own children.
As I noted in the beginning, this book was published in 1999. Changes were occurring in the system at that time and changes have occurred since. In my experience, I have seen some positive differences between then and now. Federal laws support children remaining in foster care for less than two years. I have seen instances where a parent does not make the changes and efforts necessary in the first year of their child being in foster care and the child is then freed for adoption. I have met adoption workers who actively work towards finding families for the children who need to be adopted. New Mexico is now practicing concurrent planning more. Concurrent planning is where a child has two plans that are followed at the same time. The first is reunification with their family of origin. At the same time, they are placed with a foster family who is willing to potentially adopt the child should the biological family not follow through with what the state requires of them. As a result, if the family fails to follow through, the state is able to move straight into adoption, reducing the amount of time a child is in foster care and placing them permanently with a family.
Despite these gains, there are issues I’ve had with the system as it is in New Mexico at this time. For one, children who should be in the state’s custody are not, despite numerous calls to Child Protective Services against these families. Instead, these families are either not receiving services at all or they are receiving services on a “voluntary” basis with agencies that have very little legal authority to enforce compliance with what the children need. For example, Treatment Foster Care does not have the authority to mandate that a parent attend substance abuse treatment or therapy. All we can do is recommend and document the recommendations. My favorite is when Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD), the department that provides child protective services in New Mexico, is involved with a family and tells the family to either place the child in TFC or have the children placed in state custody. Then, later, after the child has been placed in TFC, if the TFC agency makes a call because a child reports past abuse from their parent, CYFD does not get involved because the child is in a safe place, the abuse is not occurring at this time, and the agency is expected to help the family in order to cause a successful reunification once the child completes the program. The agency is expected to do this despite not having any legal authority to require the treatment that is necessary on the family’s part or that often these families have such serious issues that TFC is simply not able to “cure” them. As a result we get families who are in and out of treatment and have received a multitude of services and with which CYFD has been involved with off and on, yet the family’s patterns are simply being repeated again and again with no end in sight and with the likelihood that the children will grow up to repeat the same patterns.
Another issue I have seen is that many adoptive families are not prepared to handle the issues that they face by having children who have been abused and neglected in their care. Of course this varies and is partially dependent upon how young the child was when he/she entered foster care, how long they were in foster care, how many families they have been placed with, the severity of the abuse or neglect they suffered prior to foster care (or while in foster care if the foster family was also abusive), and other factors. Studies have shown that even children who have been exposed to drugs while in utero have the potential to develop fairly normally if they are provided with a safe nurturing family from infancy on. Children who are placed in foster care at older ages have unfortunately been exposed to much more abuse or neglect and have a much harder time in life. When families who adopt are not prepared for this, often the adoptions “disrupt,” causing the child to have to be placed elsewhere. Even with families who are prepared this will occasionally happen. This is especially and issue for children who are in Treatment Foster Care. They are in treatment for a reason and often the state does not prepare the adoptive families for this. They do not provided enough information about the child or enough training to help these parents. This then results in a child not only being bounced from foster home to foster home but from adoptive family to adoptive family. This of course can destroy a child’s self-esteem and their ability to feel that they are worthy of love and of a family.
I could go on and on about the issues I have with the system, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that Nobody’s Children is a very informative book. The author is very knowledgeable about the laws and policies that have shaped the child welfare world. She makes a good case for what could help the children while also being aware of the disagreements others might have.
July 14, 2024
it was very educational on all of the factors that impact the child welfare system, but the author (a white woman) clearly did not understand the hesitation and pushback against placing black kids with white families. while it is obvious that maltreatment is not the better option, she did not understand the cultural importance of black communities. it’s also from 1999 so a lot could have changed
January 19, 2014
Reading this book, as research for a writing project, has left me aghast and in shock. I never realized that such abuse and neglect of children both in and out of “foster drift” existed. (It is so similar to animal abuse, too). This was published in 1999, and I don’t know whether the situation is very different today. This book has certainly opened my eyes and reminded me that learning unpleasant facts is as -- or more -- important than learning pleasant facts.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews