This “just-when-you-thought-it-couldn’t-get-worse” New York Times article documents a “shadow foster care” system that tells parents to find their own foster care or else the state will take their children.
The quality of Minnesota’s foster care system is uneven. But a non-system would be worse.
This testimony to a District of Columbia Oversight Committee details the consequences. They include no path to either reunification or permanency for the child, no funding for services to the child or to pay the foster parents, and most importantly that the child has no voice – no social worker, Guardian ad litem or lawyer to represent their interests, however imperfectly.
Experts are quoted stating that the number of children in these shadow placements equals those in legal foster homes. Thankfully this practice isn’t happening in Minnesota, as far as we know. Let’s keep it that way.
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Read the transcript of this blog and podcast here.