Poverty, Foster Care and Free Money

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The piece tries to examine the relationship between structural failings in the system and how they are used to undermine personal efforts, with there being no apparent differentiation by those in office.

The Leonards were a loving couple with six Children in Houston. They hit relatively hard times and had to move into a storage facility which was improvised as their home. Although the kids were not in any danger or fear of abuse, they were taken away by CPS on grounds (which they initially denied) that the accommodation provided was unsafe.

As with virtually all downturns in our society, the low income earners are the most vulnerable and easily affected. The Foster care system is no different as those affected most are usually the ones with little resources to fight back.

With there being an established link between parents who are accused of CAN (Child Abuse and Neglect) and poverty, there is a general sense as to why appropriate recognition isn't given to this subsect of families so that special intervention measures can be taken to addressing the issue.

It is important that Poverty and CAN is taken as an issue of public policy that can be avoided/prevented with the right changes, not as a source of shame to individual parents who are disadvantaged as it is being exploited currently.

What is CPS doing to Combat Poverty?

As it stands there is a lot more incentive provided to adopt kids as a foster parent than take adequate care of them by the system. Foster parents in the US are paid non taxable sums of almost $1000 per child per month to take care of kids in their care.

For cases like the Leonards, such support would have prevented CPS intervention and a court case that ensured. With the amount of revenue generated by the Department annually, surely there are better ways to effectively intervene in cases involving poverty and CAN.

In a study carried out by the Joseph Rowntree foundation, some of the proposed actions of change for addressing the issue of CPS intervention in poor families accused of CAN include:

• Those responsible for the curriculums of qualifying and post-qualifying training programmes for the range of frontline staff who deal with CAN should collaborate to develop improved education based on the evidence that family socio-economic circumstances are connected directly and indirectly with CAN, acting separately and in interlocking ways with other factors affecting parents’ capacity to support their children’s wellbeing.

Organisations responsible for services to prevent or mitigate CAN, including national and local governments, should develop programmes to re-assess hod the relationship between family circumstances and CAN are reflected in their policies and practices. •

National and local government policies which impact on families’ socio-economic circumstances should be subject to a risk assessment of their potential impact on CAN. Examples would include taxation, welfare reform, employment, business, education, housing and early years’ policies .

In summary there should be increased priority in alleviating the problem, not the symptom. If more causes of Poverty rather than poverty related cases of CAN, there will be a drastic reduction in the number of accused families.