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Investigating Families: Motherhood in the Shadow of Child Protective Services
How our reliance on Child Protective Services makes motherhood precarious for those already marginalized
It’s the knock on the door that many mothers a visit from Child Protective Services (CPS), the state agency with the power to take their children away. Over the last half-century, these encounters have become an all-too-common way of trying to address family poverty and adversity. One in three children nationwide—and half of Black children—now encounter CPS during childhood.
In Investigating Families , Kelley Fong provides an unprecedented look at the inner workings of CPS and the experiences of families pulled into its orbit. Drawing on firsthand observations of CPS investigations and hundreds of interviews with those involved, Fong traces the implications of invoking CPS as a “first responder” to family misfortune and hardship. She shows how relying on CPS—an entity fundamentally oriented around parental wrongdoing and empowered to separate families—organizes the response to adversity around surveilling, assessing, and correcting marginalized mothers. The agency’s far-reaching investigative apparatus undermines mothers’ sense of security and shapes how they marshal resources for their families, reinforcing existing inequalities. And even before CPS comes knocking, mothers feel vulnerable to a system that jeopardizes their parenthood. Countering the usual narratives of punitive villains and hapless victims, Fong’s unique, behind-the-scenes account tells a revealing story of how we try to protect children by threatening mothers—and points the way to a more productive path for families facing adversity.
It’s the knock on the door that many mothers a visit from Child Protective Services (CPS), the state agency with the power to take their children away. Over the last half-century, these encounters have become an all-too-common way of trying to address family poverty and adversity. One in three children nationwide—and half of Black children—now encounter CPS during childhood.
In Investigating Families , Kelley Fong provides an unprecedented look at the inner workings of CPS and the experiences of families pulled into its orbit. Drawing on firsthand observations of CPS investigations and hundreds of interviews with those involved, Fong traces the implications of invoking CPS as a “first responder” to family misfortune and hardship. She shows how relying on CPS—an entity fundamentally oriented around parental wrongdoing and empowered to separate families—organizes the response to adversity around surveilling, assessing, and correcting marginalized mothers. The agency’s far-reaching investigative apparatus undermines mothers’ sense of security and shapes how they marshal resources for their families, reinforcing existing inequalities. And even before CPS comes knocking, mothers feel vulnerable to a system that jeopardizes their parenthood. Countering the usual narratives of punitive villains and hapless victims, Fong’s unique, behind-the-scenes account tells a revealing story of how we try to protect children by threatening mothers—and points the way to a more productive path for families facing adversity.
- GenresSocial WorkNonfiction
296 pages, Hardcover
Published October 10, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 13, 2026
Fong's book is a critical expose of how CPS social workers not only often do not help but also cause harm in both expected and unexpected ways. Yet it is not a book that bashes social workers. Rather, Fong shows that they often genuinely want to assist familes, but the structure of the system they closed work in and its constraints undermines the larger goals. The book is nuanced and, surprisingly, does not focus on the most extreme cases in which children are removed from their parents (this is only one chapter), but instead shows the insidious effects prevalent even in cases that are quickly and for poor mothers who have never been investigated. A must read for anyone involved in or adjacent to CPS (social workers, therapists, teachers, foster parents, etc.) and an excellent resource for classes on inequality, families, children, or gender.
April 1, 2024
An excellent review of procedure and policy that has lead to inconsistency and inequality in our Child Welfare System. I found the chapter that covers the 'reporter' in many states it is the mandated reporter, and how they impact the system and contribute to the system. This a must read for all interested in Child Welfare, all Child Protective Workers, and social workers to understand the consequences and the stakes of our current system. This provides the necessary groundwork for us to begin to question our role in the system and how we can change it to be more just and fair, and how it can improve the quality of life for our families.
September 28, 2025
4.5 review to come?
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews