A recent New York Post opinion piece brought renewed attention to the tragic death of Jor’Dynn Duncan, a 7-year-old girl from New York who was allegedly tortured and killed by the person entrusted with her care. Jor’Dynn had been placed by Child Protective Services with a non-blood relative considered kin and that person now stands accused of ending her young life.
Her story is a sobering reminder of what is at stake when child safety is not the central factor in placement decisions.
Safe Passage believes that children should remain with their families whenever it is safe to do so. When a child cannot safely remain at home, we believe the next best option is placement with kinship caregivers, provided that arrangement is safe and stable. Our goal is always to support reunification with a child’s parents if safety can be assured.
Unfortunately, there are situations in which neither remaining at home nor placement with kin is safe. In those cases, difficult decisions must be made to protect the child, and the child may need to be placed in a non-kin foster home. The tragedy is that safety is not always given the highest priority in these decisions, even though it should remain the central concern. Kinship status alone can carry more weight than the welfare of the child.
The data reflects this reality. According to author Naomi Schaefer Riley, citing Safe Passage’s Fatality Report from 2014–2022, six of the seven children who died in foster care during that period were in kinship homes.
Jor’Dynn deserved better. Every child deserves to be safe.
Source: New York Post, Naomi Schaefer Riley — “Deadly child-abuse ‘torture’ reveals NY’s willful blindness”