Last month, the Safe Passage for Children Coalition– a group of professionals on the front lines of the child protection system– sent a letter to the Minnesota Supreme Court’s Council on Child Protection. The Coalition urged the Council to prioritize child safety and outlined practical, actionable reforms that would better protect Minnesota’s most vulnerable children.
One of the Coalition’s recommendations was a call for courts to reassess how they apply the “best interests of the child” standard.
In some cases, it is in the best interests of a child to be permanently removed from the home. Currently, courts heavily prioritize placing such a child with other family members over any other alternative. While family placement can be beneficial, it is just one of many considerations that should guide these life-altering decisions.
In some cases, under current policies, children are placed with relatives they have never met, disrupting established bonds and support systems. For example, if three half-siblings are placed in foster care, the system may separate them if an elderly aunt of one of the children is willing to take in the child to whom she is biologically related, but not the others. In such cases, the system’s desire to achieve a family placement with the aunt can override the value of keeping the siblings together.
Moreover, there is a troubling inconsistency in how judges across different counties weigh these factors. One of our Coalition members noted that the best interests standard was formerly applied in a more balanced way, focused on the child’s individual needs.
Minnesota statute is clear: “The best interests of the child means all relevant factors to be considered and evaluated,” and that “the court must be governed by the best interests of the child.” Yet in practice, the overemphasis on family placement often overrides critical factors such as children’s emotional stability, mental health needs, how the placement would disrupt their lives, and the quality of their relationships– if any– with the proposed family member.
Minnesota’s child protection system must return to a truly child-centered framework consistently across the state, a process that evaluates each child’s situation individually and in which the child’s well being always comes first.