Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care

by Claudia Rowe

Finalist for the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction“An immersive, devastating look at foster children’s lives.”  (Seattle Times) A compelling exploration of the broken American foster care system, told through the stories of six former foster youth. This powerful narrative nonfiction book delves into the systemic failures that lead many foster children into the criminal justice system, highlighting the urgent need for reform.​This book is a must-read for anyone interested in child welfare, social justice, and the transformative power of the best narrative nonfiction.In Wards of the State, award-winning journalist Claudia Rowe's storytelling is both vivid and unflinching, offering readers a deep understanding of the foster care-to-prison pipeline. Through interviews with psychologists, advocates, judges, and the former foster children themselves, Rowe paints a heartbreaking picture of the lives shaped by this broken system.By the time Maryanne was 16 years old, she had been arrested for murder. In and out of foster and adoptive homes since age 10, she’d run away, been trafficked and assaulted, and finally pointed a gun at a man and pulled the trigger. She fled, but it didn’t take long for the police to catch up with her.In court, the defense blamed neither traffickers, nor Maryanne, but Washington state itself—or rather, its foster care system, which parents thousands of children every year. The courts didn’t listen to that argument, but award-winning journalist Claudia Rowe did.Washington state isn’t alone. Each year, hundreds of thousands of children grow up in America’s $30 billion foster care system, only to leave and enter its prisons, where a quarter of all inmates are former foster youth.Weaving Maryanne’s story with those of five other foster kids across the country—including an 18-year-old sleeping on the New York City subways; a dropout turned graduate student; and a foster child who is now a policy advisor to the White House—Rowe paints a visceral survival narrative showing exactly where, when, and how the system channels children into locked cells.Rowe brings her extensive experience and investigative prowess to this eye-opening work. With a career spanning over 25 years, Rowe has written for publications such as The New York Times and Mother Jones, and her reporting has influenced policy changes in Washington State. Her previous book, The Spider and the Fly, was a gripping true-crime memoir that showcased her ability to blend personal narrative with broader social issues.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, History, Politics, Sociology, Fostering, Social Justice

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 20, 2025

Reviews

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the perfect book for anyone living with an inkling of the idea of, “I bet the foster care system is bad, but I don’t know exactly how.” But fair warning, you’ll read this and now knowing more, you’ll understand that this is only touching the surface- only focusing on an aspect of how fucked up this all is.

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

By the time Maryanne was sixteen, she'd been arrested for murder. Rowe met her in the context of that trial: she was used to writing about murder and didn't think there would be anything special here—but then she started to hear the arguments about foster care.

In Wards of the State, Rowe dives deep into what happens when a child is removed from their family and placed in foster care. The statistics are dire:

A study of nearly one thousand foster youth in the Midwest found that half left the system with criminal records, and more than 30 percent were imprisoned for violent crime within a year of leaving state care. At least 20 percent of prison inmates nationally are believed to be former foster children. (loc. 70*)

Conventional wisdom holds that these kids are more likely to end up in prison (or without a diploma, or homeless, or otherwise just struggling) because of troubled family backgrounds—they struggle because of the reasons for which they were placed in foster care. But the more Rowe dug into it, the more she questioned that assumption, and the more the research seemed to support the opposite: foster care wasn't reducing trauma but rather compounding it. When a child is moved from placement to placement to placement—I'm not sure if an average number of moves was mentioned, but Rowe does cite cases of children who were moved fifty or more (sometimes many more) times in a year—how is that child expected to develop healthy attachments and relationships, to keep up in school, and to learn the basic life skills that aren't really taught but learned through observation and repetition?

There are a lot of questions here that just don't have good answers: at what point is it safer to leave a child in a home where neglect or abuse is suspected, and at what point is it safer to remove that child to a system that is stopgap after stopgap after stopgap? And how often does "neglect" (e.g., an empty fridge) simply mean "poverty"? And when the state-as-parent does cause harm, how much can it be held responsible? (Other questions have much clearer answers, such as those surrounding the deep racism embedded in foster care.)

This is compassionate and complex reportage. The people Rowe profiles—former foster children who have found themselves in places ranging from PhD programs to life sentences—are treated with a lot of care, withoug skating over their darker moments. (Whole people, in shades of grey.) What she describes is much in line with other things I have read about foster care and about group homes (some suggestions for further reading below), but very, very pointed.

I am a little unclear on how some of the statistics play out—for example, how often is a child who is placed in foster care returned to their family, and after an average of how long? How do the outcomes differ? What is the tipping point? And, more broadly: What are other countries doing, and does anyone seem to have figured it out? Rowe mentions a program in the New York that is based on a UK model—a program that seems brilliant until (as with so many of the possible fixes Rowe investigates) the cracks begin to show. But the biggest difference between the British version of Chelsea Foyer and New York City's showed up around education. The academic deficits among former foster youth in New York were severe [...] such that the requirement to be in school became a barrier. [...] Within a few years of opening, New York jettisoned the three-pronged European model of housing, education, and career, retooling to emphasize housing and employment only. (loc. 2670)

It's easy to look at this all and think "well, X would help"—but it becomes then a matter of "in order for X to happen, we'd need Y, for which we'd need Z, for which we'd need..." until you come back around to X. Maryanne's situation is one of the more high-profile of those Rowe includes. She was sentenced in 2019, but it seems that some parts of her case are ongoing. (Not getting more specific because how her case played out is a significant part of the book and worth reading in its entirety.) I couldn't find anything particularly recent online, but she's emblematic of a broken system that chews children up until they, too, leave broken.

Somewhere between 4 and 5 stars. Highly recommended.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Related books that readers might find interesting:
Home Made (group home)
How the Other Half Eats (food and poverty politics)
To the End of June (foster care)
No House to Call My Home (group home)
The Turnaway Study (abortion; poverty and body politics)

[Elizabeth George]

In the interest of full disclosure, I know the author and she has been a past reader of applications for grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation. I first met her at a group booksigning put on by a writers' association called Seattle7. There I purchased and read her first book The Spider and the Fly, a true crime memoir the subtitle of which--"A Writer, a Murderer, and a Story of Obsession'--caught my interest as soon as I saw it. The book did not disappoint. It's honest and compelling and, if you read it (which I highly recommend you do)--you will understand why it won the Washington State Book Award.

Her new book could not have a less compelling subtitle. Yet, here again, Claudia is able to make what could have been a dry polemic absolutely come alive and, in the process, become as compelling a reading experience as was her first book.

She is a writer with multiple talents, all of which are on amply display in this book. Not only does her prose shine, but the humility she possess in leaving unackknowledged her astounding ability to encourage individuals to open up to her is remarkable.

Rather than fill her narrative with general revelations about the damage inflicted upon the psyches, brains, and emotional development of the children and teenagers who are swept up by the foster care system, she instead uses the stories of specific individuals to illuminate the points she wishes to make. And her main point is the most painful one to consider: how the foster care system in the US has warehoused children for decades and, ultimately, how it has greased the skids of so many foster children's trip through the criminal justice system. She certainly gives the reader the statistics. But more than statistics, she gives the reader the foundation to undestand where the idea of foster care came from as well as how it morphed into what it is today.

But it is in the histories of the victims of foster care that her narrative grabs the reader by the throat and demands the reader's acknowledgment of how something intended to help vulnerable children actually acts in ways that can--and frequently does--destroy them. Her narrative's power comes from limning for the reader not only what sort of damage is done to children but, more important, how it is done and why the way it is done creates young men and young women who emerge from it suffering everything from uncontrollable rage to bottomless need to terror of abandonment to PTSD. The reader is left with a profound understanding of the crucial importance of family and connection in a child's development.

I highly recommend this book.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

A valuable and informative book on the damage done by foster care, following some former wards of the state as they deal with typical problems for young people aging out of the system: homelessness, unemployment, isolation, and incarceration. The author also intersperses the personal stories with data to back them up. Importantly, the problem isn’t just abusive foster parents, but that the system itself “perpetuate[s] a kind of unconscious, mechanized abuse.” Kids are constantly moved from one placement to another, though suicidal ideation increases 68% with each new placement. They know that they’re just a job to the people responsible for them. And by their teenage years, they’re mostly living in group homes, which prepare them only for other institutional environments, like prison. In fact, some group homes actually resemble prisons, with kids having to pass through metal detectors and having curfews too early to permit extracurricular participation. Then the kids, rather than the state, get blamed for the way they turn out: in a telling difference, what one foster child turned advocate refers to as “learned passivity” (because the kids have no control over their lives) was framed by researchers as a “presumption of continued entitlement.”

Unsurprisingly, kids growing up under these circumstances wind up angry and emotionally disconnected, which combined with a lack of stable housing, income, or relationships, is a perfect recipe for crime. The book follows a particular teenage girl who was failed from childhood by her family and then the system, and is ultimately convicted of murdering a man who raped her—a story that encapsulates the book’s points well, and is told with insight and empathy.

Offering solutions is of course the harder question. One study showed that kids whose families had more permissive caseworkers had better outcomes than those with caseworkers who frequently sought to remove children from their parents, suggesting that at least in more borderline cases, kids are better off with their flawed families than in the system. Taking money spent paying strangers to house kids and giving it to families who are only in the system because they’re poor would solve a lot of problems, but some kids will never be safe with their parents. Whoever winds up caring for them, it’s clear from this book that it needs to be a stable, consistent situation, with adults who love and connect with them rather than just doing a job, and who are able to deal with the often difficult symptoms of trauma. Easier said than done, but kids’ futures and general societal welfare depend on it.

[Jenna (out touching grass & tech detoxing!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well worth reading, but please note (since I overlooked this initially) that the book focuses specifically on describing a foster care to prison pipeline and setting it forth as a key piece of evidence for the failures of the foster care system. I would have liked more info on and analysis of the failures of the foster care system more generally and how it insufficiently supports the traumatized youth it is intended to serve, reinforcing prior trauma and adverse childhood experiences or leading to retraumatization that in turn contributes to additional adverse experiences - of which becoming a part of a foster care to prison pipeline is unfortunately only but one potential adverse outcome. Most of the subjects in the book were so deeply traumatized by parental abuse and neglect by the time they arrive to foster care that they were unable to connect with positive and supportive individuals or environments even if they were made available to them (and the author notes that this in itself is all too rare due to a lack of resources within or investment in the foster care system). For me, it was the overall developmental trauma rather than the foster care system specifically that served as the critical risk factor contributing to the additional adverse outcomes the subjects went on to experience. However, if there is a foster care to prison pipeline, that is definitely notable and worthy of awareness, and the book remains convincing that the current system is not sufficiently protective or trauma-informed and often treats youth as prospective future criminals rather than providing a sturdy safety net and promoting healing, resilience, and second chances in the way that vulnerable young people deserve.

[Jacob Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great explanation of how inadequate policy around child welfare leads to incarceration, poverty, and a plethora of other social and personal issues. To put into perspective the foster-care to prison pipeline, by age 17, over 50%-70% of foster children will have an encounter with the juvenile legal system through arrest, conviction or detention in the U.S. In addition, 25% of youth in foster care will be involved with the criminal legal system within two years of leaving foster care. One study suggests at 15-25% of foster youth in the U.S. will attempt suicide within their lifetime. Much of policy regarding child welfare is oriented toward punishing and incarcerating children and young adults for crime rather than holding the state accountable for a system that almost guarantees their poverty and the other conditions which leads to their behaviours.

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. I knew the foster care system wasn’t great, but this was so enlightening. What a crazy system that is so overlooked and accepted, yet so off the rails

“It made no sense "to declare a home unsuitable for a child to receive assistance, and at the same time permit him to remain in that same home, exposed to the same environment," reasoned Arthur Flemming, secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

The policy sounds well-intended. But many social historians see this moment as a dire turning point. With Flemming's decree, the child welfare system shifted "from providing services to intact white families, to taking Black children from theirs," writes Dorothy Roberts in her 2022 work, Torn Apart. (Roberts is the same sociologist who tried to help Washington state reform its foster care system as a member of the Braam panel in the early 2ooos, and she came away from it convinced that the nation's entire approach to child welfare was corrupt.) In one fell swoop, she observes, Flemming enshrined the practice of hobbling Black families by evaluating them for benefits while removing the children of those judged unworthy.

Afterward, foster care was transformed. In a single year, between 19Gı and 1962, the system grew from 163,000 children to 272,000. Those numbers look quaint today. Child welfare agencies now touch the lives of more than a third of U.S. kids by the time they turn eighteen, including 53 percent of all Black Youth.”

[Marika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Journalist Claudia Rowe uses her investigative skills to peer behind the curtain of the foster care system in the U.S. A very eyebrow raising look into an antiquated way of looking after children who are in need.
Must read for those interested in social programs.
*I read an advance copy and was not compensated

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreaking look at the reality of the broken foster care system. Foster care and adoption are not near as easy or effective answers as we’d like to think they are for children that can’t be kept with bio parents

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

yeah i knew the foster system was bad in the US but this was pretty eye opening and powerful. def reaffirms my preference towards adoption if ever i do have a child. 4.5 ⭐️

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told through eight different case studies with a rich history about the foster care and adoption system in the US, Rowe spells out one of the central arguments in her book she heard in a court case: if the children are the responsibility of the state while in the foster care and adoption system, is the state also responsible for crimes and other transgressions committed by those in foster care and adoption homes? What follows is an extremely compelling argument using first and secondhand accounts of individuals in varying stages of the foster care, adoption, criminal justice, and post-criminal justice systems.

Early on in the book, you see Rowe set up one of the overarching themes of the book: the relatively recent concept of the foster care-to-prison pipeline. Going into this book, I was aware of the abuse, underfunded, understaffed, and overworked caseload of social workers and the disregard for foster care kids, but this book opened my eyes up to much more and made me view it a different way. One of my favorite arguments she made in her book was about how the state spends money on “wards” (foster care children) to be raised by random people rather than using that money toward helping the family achieve upward mobility. Children are removed from their homes by the stage where, in a scarily large number of instances, are introduced to many foster and adoption homes, as foster parents “return” the child they adopted or fostered.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, please note that this ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Lisa]

This is a reporter’s contribution to the problem of the foster care-to-prison pipeline. I had hoped for more data rather than a few horrible stories. But often just a few stories is what people need for action. As someone whose family took in and adopted foster kids and whose sister is a social worker who tries to connect kids with their parents, I understand the problems. I think the point is that we should understand the trauma of kids in foster care and not be so quick to throw them in jail when they act in ways we perceive as anti-social. We should understand the very fact of being in care causes some of these problems. But I wish there was more data and more large scale information about why kids are in care in the first place. I agree most of the time we shouldn’t leave kids in their homes and that close observation of any family will yield reasons they should be elsewhere and that the options we have are many times little better than their homes, but there just aren’t enough places to put the kids who do need to be taken in. Lots of criticism and little contribution. However, we would all do better to know what the consequences are for foster kids and how few get adopted and think about whether the trauma of being taken and the long term impact to those kids is less or more than the trauma of staying in a problematic family.

[Tyler Atwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories Claudia Rowe tells here are undeniably compelling, but the book as a whole felt somewhat surface-level. It didn’t reveal much I hadn’t already understood about how broken the foster system is, though I recognize that might not be the case for every reader. I wanted a deeper interrogation of why some kids emerge relatively unscathed while others don’t; Rowe gestures toward that question but never really sits with it. Still, her empathy as a reporter toward the men and women she profiles certainly comes through.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I've read quite a few books on foster care and how it fails the kids. But this book digs deep and really shows the link between foster kids and prison. The various former foster kids that were focused on had difficult stories but so many of them took their past and are trying to make positive changes.

[Nathan Marone]

With my wife and I having worked as foster parents, Claudia Rowe's book caught my attention. It raised some intriguing ideas, confirmed some of my own views, and left me wanting solutions.

Rowe's big, intriguing thesis is that foster care is a major contributor to juvenile criminal behavior. The state, having legal custody, sets up conditions that have a high likelihood of leading to criminality, but then bears no responsibility for the results of those conditions. Kids, having been kicked around, are then imprisoned for long stretches of their lives with little recourse or meaningful support. Rowe uses vivid, high-profile cases to demonstrate how the system works to this end. Prior to reading Rowe's book, I had not given careful consideration to this angle, but it makes sense. Of course, not all foster kids will end up in jail, but a significant enough percentage do, which makes the issue one worth thinking through.

Even if they don't end up in jail, foster kids have incredible difficulties transitioning to adult life, because they have usually bounced around to a number of different homes, and the state, though it offers some provisions up to a point, really does not set them up for any kind of adult success.

Rowe's book did confirm some thoughts that have been banging around in my head for a while. There are two major inflection points when it comes to foster care. The first involves when a child is taken from their home and put into the state's care. Is the state justified when it does this? In many cases, yes. There are children who are subjected to genuine abuse and neglect. Their homes are not safe and perhaps even their larger family network is not safe. But DSS also seems to confuse poverty with neglect/abuse at times. I have seen the state do exactly that with one of our own placements. A family may have a difficult time feeding their children and the state will see this as neglect. Though it is often difficult to determine when a child is in a genuinely dangerous situation, I suspect that it would be better if the state left families alone a little bit more. There's a risk factor in leaving kids with potentially unsafe home environments, but there's also a risk to placing children in foster care.


This leads to the second inflection point. Can foster care actually provide a family for these children? A better way to put it might be: can a state bureaucracy be a family? The answer is almost always no. A lot of kids who go through the system never get a sense of consistency. There's a rotating door of caseworkers, who often burn out within a few years on the job. Foster families, despite some training, are not equipped to deal with the complexities of raising a child who has come from a difficult, perhaps even abusive family situation. And so, when things get tough a foster family is free to ship the kid off to someone else. In the first inflection point (removing the kid from their home) there is no-win decision to make: do we subject this child to the risks of their own home or the risks of a state system that almost never provides security, consistency, and a pathway to healthy adult independence? Both things can be traumatic and unsafe.

I don't know what the solutions are for these problems. One possibility is to try harder to place children with extended family. States have focused on that more in recent years, but extended families are not always willing to take kids in. There's a lot of rejection going on. Another possibility is to have DSS focus more on helping families that are in troubled spots before deciding to remove kids from the home. This is an investment-minded solution. The state can spend money in a variety of ways. Which would be better? To provide a struggling family with a new refrigerator and a grocery stipend or to remove the child from their home? The state will spend money either way. In my view, it may help to focus on lifting up the family in their struggles.

Beyond these basic solutions, and others not covered in this review, I don't really know how to fix the problem, and Rowe doesn't seem to know either. There's risk everywhere you turn. The state, while it can improve practices and oversight, will never be able to provide a child with the stability and consistency that most families can. The state can't provide genuine, lasting relationships.

I am troubled by Rowe's book. There are times, as a foster parent, that I have wondered if maybe I'm working with the bad guys here. I've wrestled with the idea of raising a child by committee, which is what happens when there are foster parents, case workers, a third-party worker, guardian ad litems, etc all trying to make collective decisions about the child's welfare. The whole system is gut-wrenching.

If you are interested in foster care, or involved in the system at any level, Rowe's book is worth the read.

[Alivia Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is masterful investigative journalism. With my professional background and interests, this book was fascinating to me. I do think it’s important to focus on the fact that the outcomes discussed in this narrative are for teens in the foster system, not all children who enter the system. Regardless, the margin for growth is WIDE.

[Stephanie Stromquist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone needs to read this book and understand that we need to do better for those kids that are in the system! It's heartbreaking and educational and a story that needs to be heard by all as it's reality for too many kids!

[Katy O. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an important book for anyone working with children or in any kind of social services or criminal justice role, whether with children or adults. The story-based structure made this a compelling read, the psychological explanations helped me understand my students better, and the data certainly made the case for a complete overhaul of the foster system in the US. My heart breaks for these thousands and thousands of children done wrong by our country.

Source: purchased hardcover

[Alex Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

A harsh indictment of foster care, I finished it feeling angry. Inherently flawed, wrecking lives, and yet it persists barely changed. The author focused on just a handful of individual stories, allowing the real damage of the system to be shown in its many stages.

“How did you tell a social service agency that what you really needed- aside from food and housing and a job- was someone to belong to?”


“But the link that united virtually all wards of the state was the feeling that they mattered to no one.”

[Kathleen Sprague · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

This review is really coming from the depths of someone who works with youth - the system failures are captured but the picture painted around “kinship” being the answer fails to recognize so many things that don’t often allow this to be possible. Also regular critiques of frontline workers’ efforts seemed shallow and one sided.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to DNF this book. The author lacked the nuance required to discuss this topic compassionately. The writing felt like her own unchecked biases were bleeding onto the pages. It’s frustrating to see an author writing about the foster care system and describing a white girl who grew up as a ward of the state like this,

“She shaped herself to please whoever was looking. Bare shoulders for online escort sites. Black slang when she ran switch street kids.”

That black slang/ street kid comment went all over me especially in a book about the foster care system. What is a street kid? What makes the girl being discussed different from said street kids? Her whiteness? I kept reading but I repeatedly ran into the same issue with how the author went about describing children, foster parents, etc.

Then I ran into the author stating, “Three years before she’d been playing soccer on a county field, white water rafting with the (adoptive family) and riding horses. Now she ran with Black girls who lived on the street or in PAC Highway hotels.” It’s wild no one read that sentence and thought maybe this author should rethink this. That now she ran with black girls comment came off tone deaf. This author could have kept this book to herself or at least ran it by folk who come from different backgrounds.

[Meghan McGlone · Rating 5 out of 5]

devastating & inspiring. so much needs to be done / easily can be done to help so many children that deal with this system on the daily. demanding stronger showings of abuse / neglect for emergency hearings, placing children with kin, making the ultimate goal reunification instead of separation.

this book also really digs into the idea that its a person’s past and upbringing (or in these children’s cases, lack of upbringing) that shapes their identity and leads to their crimes. but that does not make a person irredeemable, and it doesnt define them. who can blame a 16 y.o who is being shuffled around the state with no one to care for them from lashing out? and then who really thinks adult prison, where rehabilitative efforts are little to none, will be a good place for an abused & abandoned child? the science shows — children can learn better! they need support, love, and people in their corner. a state system that focuses on kinship placement, strongly vetted foster care placements, no group homes, and reunifying where possible can give that to them.

from discussing the history of the foster care system to actual people who have lived it, i really learned a lot & felt a lot of pain bc of this book

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This well-researched and compassionate look at the complex and heart wrenching foster system and foster to prison pipeline was eye opening. I started taking more of an interest in the system when friends served as foster parents and saw first hand the lack of support and resources for children in their care and everyone working or volunteering in the foster system. This book points to another broken system in the US. A fact I’m still stuck on, only 5% of foster children apply to college. I want to do something about this fact.

[vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly the nonfiction I’m drawn to, Wards of the State investigates the foster-care-to-prison pipeline through the stories of multiple young adults whose lives were impacted by state intervention (mostly in Washington state). A couple of these teenagers seriously harmed others through robbery and murder. Rowe weaves the steps that got them there as well as the evolution of thought on topics like family reunification, being placed with kin whenever possible, attachment theory, and child brain development. It’s heartbreaking what these kids went through, and heartbreaking what their decisions caused, but there are real nuggets where I think the author argues well regarding where we can go. I mean, the judge Ernestine Gray out of New Orleans’s way of thinking blew my mind: while foster care placement rose nationally, it plummeted in Orleans Parish. This is a great narrative nonfiction book for folks who like to learn about people and state systems.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes it clear how broken the American foster care system is. It's illuminating, and it could be overwhelming, but the focus on a handful of individuals keeps you engaged and keeps it personal. There's a lot of food for thought about rehabilitation and better ways of taking care of children than removing them from their homes. There's also a lot of statistics (most of which are devastating) and a nice amount about the history of foster care and adoption in America. I'm glad I read it.

[Claire Josey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really compelling stories and data. Compared to Naomi Schaefer Riley’s “No Way to Treat a Child” (also a great read!), Claudia Rowe is much more in support of family reunification, though she does admit the drawbacks of that approach. The audiobook was great.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

i wanna help all the kids

[Katie Esposito · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really amazing book on foster care, it’s current areas of opportunity, and how that impacts the development and future of children in the system.

Honestly can’t praise this book enough. It is a heavier read, but still a must read. We should definitely be focusing more on providing resources to keep families together when possible as opposed to funneling resources to have strangers care for children (which is an understandably generous thing to do when it is necessary).

Lots of respect for Judge Gray in NOLA and what she’s done for children in her area. I don’t think she deserves the criticism she’s received; I think she should get more resources to better support her efforts on keeping families together.

“Poverty is not the same thing as neglect”

[Christian Boyd Neumann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a broken system that needs fixing

I think everyone should listen to this & I hope it changes people’s perspectives on fostering/adoption.

I want to help all the children in this system & take away all the trauma and pain they’ve experienced 😭